Green Tea (36 page)

“I can’t take that chance.”

“How about if you call the school, tell them that I’m on my way, family emergency, and I’ll bring him to you.
 
Liam is on his way here now.”

“Would you do that?
 
I really don’t want Jordan to see me like this.
 
It would scare him.”

“I’m on my way.
 
Call the school.”

I ran out the door of the studio, across the street to let Teagan know I was going to go pick up Jordan, and that I’d call her from the car.

As I was jogging to the parking lot, my brother was jogging to the studio.

He called out, “Is she okay?”

“She’ll be better when you get there.”

I called Teagan to let her know that Liam was going straight to the studio.
 
She’d seen him and was headed that way.

I’d gotten my car out of the parking lot, gotten onto I60 with my Bluetooth in my ear, just in case someone called, when Teagan did just that.

“Hey.”

“Hi, how is Morgan?”

“She’s a mess.”

“I bet.
 
I’m half way to Jordan.
 
She’ll feel better when she knows one of us have our hands on him.”

“Are you going to bring him straight home?”

“I’ll call once I pick him up.
 
We’ll do whatever she wants to do.”

“I’m thinking about cancelling the cruise.”

“Probably a good idea.
 
Maybe we can reschedule.”

“We’ll figure it out as soon as we hear something.
 
Just wanted to check and see how you felt about it.”

“I’m not sure what we can do, but whatever it is we can do, I want to do it.”

“I agree.”

“Teagan, I gotta go.
 
Liam is on the other line.”

“Call me.”

“Hello?”

“Cara, can you babysit for a while?”

“Yep.”

“Not sure how long.”

“Doesn’t matter.
 
Call me.”

“We will.”

Jordan was waiting in the office when I got to the school.
 
“Hey Handsome.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Then why are you here?”

“We’ll talk about it in the car.
 
Let me just sign you out.”

“Sure.
 
Where’s Mom?”

“She has a meeting.”

“Why are you taking me out of school early?”

“Jordan, we’ll talk about it in the car.”

I signed the papers, and the receptionist checked my ID, since she doesn’t know me.
 
The vice-principal poked her head out of her office just to check.
 
“How’s the bride?”

“She is great.
 
Thanks for pulling him out of class.”
 
I gave her a look over Jordan’s head, so he couldn’t see, and we walked out the door.

“So, what’s really going on?”

“It’s Auntie Day.”

“What’s Auntie Day?”

“It’s not a national holiday yet, but I’m working on it.
 
Now that you are part of a big
ol
’ family, every once in a while, when you least expect it, strange and wonderful things are going to happen for no apparent reason.
 
This is the first.
 
Auntie Day.”

“What are we going to do?”

“Well, first we’re going to go play with puppies, then we are going to have ice cream, then we’re going to go to either my house, or Grandma’s house and probably eat dinner, if we still have room.”

“My mom is letting you take me out of school so that I can play with puppies and eat ice cream?”

“Yep, she’s an O’Flynn now.
 
We are a little weird.”

“I like weird.”

“Yeah, this kind of weird is easy to like.
 
Wait till Uncle Seamus calls when it is a hundred and five outside and tells you that he wants all his weeds pulled.”

“Yeah, that doesn’t sound like as much fun.”

“Well, on the up side, he does pay, and you are allowed all the soda you can drink and pizza you can eat.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad.”

“You want to go over there now?”

“No, puppies sound better.”

“Puppies are always better.”

“Can I bring one home?”

“Your mom isn’t that much of an O’Flynn yet.
 
I bring home a puppy without asking first, she’ll have my head.”

“Mine too.”

“Let’s go.”