14

It's been a crazy weekend, to say the least.

Monica was supposed to get released from the hospital today, but Frank and Debbie got impatient and decided to "rescue" her early. Their escape plan involved a stolen wheelchair, a box of Twinkies, and Frank waving a forged discharge form like it was a golden ticket.

They almost got away with it — until Monica spotted a woman with a buzzcut in the parking lot and ran off with her, yelling something about "soulmates" and "truck stop poetry."

Frank swore he saw sparks. Fiona swore if Monica came back, she was locking the doors and pretending she moved.

⸻

Meanwhile, Lip has basically taken over my bed.

He's been sleeping over almost every night, and Conner and Lucas think it's the funniest thing in the world.

This morning, they were crouched behind the couch whispering like spies.

Lucas: "They're doing it again. They're acting like a couple."

Conner: "I saw him steal one of her socks. That means he lives here now."

Lip walked in holding a mug of coffee and said, "If you two don't shut it, I'm replacing all your cereal with vegetables."

Lucas gasped. Conner hissed.

⸻

Around noon, V knocked once before letting herself in — sunglasses on, slippers mismatched, holding a box of Lucky Charms and a jug of orange juice.

"Brunch at ours. Kev's trying to be domestic again. I need you guys there in case I kill him."

She shoved the food into my arms, kissed me on the cheek, and walked back out.

⸻

Kev and V's house always smelled like food and laundry. Lip and I wandered over a few minutes later, him still buttoning his flannel, me dragging the orange juice and muttering about how someone always forgets forks.

Kev opened the door wearing a stained apron and socks with flamingos on them.

"Took you long enough! Pancakes are halfway to dying."

"Didn't know pancakes could die," Lip said.

Kev waved us in. "Everything dies if you ignore it long enough. Even carbs."

⸻

V had three kinds of butter laid out on the table like it was a cooking show: salted, whipped, and one she claimed was imported from Denmark but definitely looked like it came from Jewel-Osco.

"Make yourselves at home," she said, flipping eggs with a spatula in one hand and sipping juice with the other. "But don't sit on the good pillows. Kev sweated on those."

Kev tossed a fork at her. "Stop lying to our guests."

"Not guests," I said, grabbing a plate. "We're neighbors. We come with the property line."

⸻

Brunch was chaos in the best way.

Kev kept trying to stack pancakes into some kind of tower, and V told a story about how she once lit a toaster on fire in high school because she didn't know foil was flammable. Lip kept nudging me under the table every time Kev said something ridiculous, and I tried not to laugh with my mouth full.

At one point, V pointed at me with her mimosa. "So are you letting him leave a toothbrush or are we still in denial?"

Lip rolled his eyes. "Why does everyone care about the damn toothbrush?"

"It's symbolic," Kev said. "Like a flag in the ground."

"I didn't realize this was colonization," Lip muttered.

I grinned. "He already has a drawer."

V gasped dramatically. "A drawer? Oh, hell, that's serious."

"Do not enable this behavior," Lip said, stabbing a piece of bacon. "You people are dangerous."

⸻

We stayed after eating, flopped on the couch with full bellies and Kev's old R&B records playing softly in the background.

V was telling Lip about her cousin who got arrested for throwing a crockpot at his wife ("They're back together now," she said proudly), and Kev was inspecting one of Lip's busted knuckles from a fight last week.

"You ever think about taping up before you go swinging?" Kev asked.

"Where's the fun in that?" Lip replied.

I leaned back into the cushions, legs tangled with Lip's, feeling stupidly content.

Until my phone buzzed.

I didn't check it at first. Then it buzzed again.

Greg.

I stared at the screen, stomach twisting. Not a call — just a message:

"You need to be careful. Someone's been asking about you."

Lip glanced at me. "Everything okay?"

I locked the phone and slid it into my pocket. "Yeah," I lied.

Lip and I left Kev and V's place feeling full and half-dazed, like we'd survived a food coma and an emotional ambush.

"You okay?" he asked as we walked back next door.

"Yeah," I said too quickly.

He gave me a look, the kind that said he didn't believe me but wasn't about to press — not out here, at least. Instead, he bumped my shoulder with his.

"You gonna let me win next time we play cards?"

"Absolutely not."

"Then I'm not doing your dishes anymore."

I rolled my eyes. "You don't do them anyway. You just stand there and 'supervise' while drinking all the cold juice."

"And yet you keep letting me back in." He smirked. "Who's the real problem here?"

⸻

Back inside, the house smelled like citrus cleaner and dryer sheets. We'd spent the last two days getting it back into shape, scrubbing off whatever mold or curse had settled in during the Greg era. The broken blinds were finally gone, the couch had a new secondhand throw blanket, and the hallway no longer smelled like wet cardboard.

It still wasn't perfect — nothing about this place ever would be — but it was mine again. Ours, kind of.

⸻

The front door burst open like a scene from a sitcom.

"Why does it smell like lemons?" Lucas demanded.

"Because we cleaned, dumbass," Conner said, walking in behind him with his backpack half open and a drumstick sticking out the top.

Lucas looked horrified. "You cleaned? Like, on purpose?"

Lip kicked the door shut behind them. "It was either that or the rats were going to unionize."

"They had rights," I said, deadpan.

Lucas wrinkled his nose. "Did you throw out the couch blanket?"

I nodded. "It had a suspicious stain and smelled like expired cheese."

Conner flopped onto the now-clean couch and declared, "I don't trust this house anymore. Too many grown-up decisions happening."

Lip leaned in close and whispered, "They're onto us."

⸻

Later, after the boys were in their room playing video games and yelling about whose fault it was they died in level five, Lip and I curled up in my bed. His head was resting on my stomach, my fingers absentmindedly threading through his hair.

"This is weird," I said softly.

"What is?"

"I dunno. It feels like I should be more freaked out."

"About?"

I hesitated. "Greg texting me. Saying someone's looking for me."

Lip shifted, propped himself up on his elbow. "You are freaked out. You're just good at hiding it."

I smiled a little. "So are you."

He didn't deny it.

Instead, he leaned in and kissed me slow, like we had time — like we weren't both always waiting for the next explosion.

His hand slipped beneath my shirt, warm and familiar, and I let out a quiet sigh, tugging him closer.

And then—

"Are you guys kissing again?" Conner called from the hallway. "Because Lucas says he's gonna throw up if he sees tongue."

Lip groaned and rolled off me. "Your brothers are cockblocks."

"I warned you."

He leaned back against the headboard. "I'm buying a lock."

"I'm buying earplugs."

"Deal."