Wicked Sweet by Mar'ce Merrell Read Free Book Online Page B

ice cream he tells me he knows all about brothers. His big brothers liked to play Mafia and since he was the youngest, they ordered him around and when they got bored, they iced him. This is, strangely, so romantic; me wanting my ice cream to stop melting while he tells me stories from when he was little. We don’t leave the ice cream place until the stars are out.
    When we pull up in front of my driveway, I’m relieved the house is dark and no one will witness a kiss. And at the moment I think that is exactly what’s about to happen, Parker says, “You know what would have been the prize if I’d won the race?”
    I swallow, and try to avoid showing fear.
    “A second date with you.”
    I bite my bottom lip.
    “Can I call you?”
    “Sure.” I manage to squeak out.
    “Mia’s party. Okay? I really think we should try to get Chantal and Will together, don’t you? I mean it’s time for them to uh … bury the hatchet.”
    “I’ll talk to her.” Before I die inside from all the building tension in every private part of my body, I reach for the door handle. There will be time for a kiss at Mia’s party. Now it seems like it’s destined.

Chantal
    Blackout .
    I didn’t leave. I am not a mean babysitter and I’m not a negligent one, at least I didn’t intend to be negligent. I should have known to check on the boys. I know them. They don’t find trouble. They define trouble.
    Once I discovered the waterfall, I took Ollie upstairs and put him in his crib. He cried. Of course. I turned the water off and pulled every towel from the linen closet, dropped them on the river. I couldn’t find clean pajamas for the Double Minor so I stuck them in matching T-shirts and diapers. They ripped them off. I forgot how they hate to match.
    “Okay,” I said through my gritted teeth. “Then go to bed naked.”
    Ollie screamed.
    I became overwhelmed, frustrated. Actually, I was furious.
    Before I could count to ten, my words morphed into weapons, and I became the person I am not. I screamed at the Hat Trick, told them I was going to tell Jillian, their mother, and Dad 3 how awful they’d been.
    “It was an accident,” Trevor yelled through the door. “We’re sorry.”
    When Stevie and Josh heard my footsteps stop at their doorway, their shadows shivered. I waited to make sure they wouldn’t be getting out of their beds, either. Ollie pulled himself up when he
saw me, gripped the crib bars. Snot ran from his nose. I gathered an armful of stuffed toys off the floor and dropped them in his crib. “I’ll be right back. Stop. Crying.”
    My T-shirt got soaked from carrying the wet towels down to the basement. I’d never done laundry. I turned the dial a few times. Pushed it in. Pulled it out. Finally something happened. The machine started making noise.
    In the kitchen I found dishcloths that sank to the bottom of the lake and I gave up. The water cleanup would have to wait for the towels to dry. My rage began to evaporate as I walked up the stairs to the boys’ bedrooms. Guilt flooded in when I checked on the sleeping Hat Trick and Double Minor. Just little kids. Acting like kids. At Ollie’s door, I decided I would forgive them all by morning. Then, the lights snapped off.
    Ollie screamed, and I rushed to get him before he woke the other boys. I unpeeled his gripped fingers from the rail, and lifted him out. I tried to keep his snot out of my hair. Out the window, I realized the other houses had light. Jillian’s was the only one that had lost power. When I was sleeping over a month ago and the lights went out Dad 3 said it was a blown breaker. “Too many demands on the system.” He said it was simple to fix; throw the switch in the breaker box, in the basement. I didn’t know how to do it, but I had to do something. I told Jillian I could handle this.
    “It’s okay, Ollie. It’s okay.” My legs shook as I leaned against the wall on my way down the stairs. Shock. I was in shock. I shoved action figures and