As Long As We're Together Read online

  Still, Bex offered Bowie her most reassuring smile. “Well, I have no idea which bark I’m looking at, but…excellent choice.”

  “Spruce bark!” CeCe clucked approvingly as she emerged from the house and walked across the lush green lawn. Like the impeccably manicured yard, and even while dressed for yard work, Bex’s mother looked perfect as ever in her dark slacks and a royal blue button-down top.

  Bowie smiled, relieved that CeCe sounded impressed. He stood up and pulled off his yellow gardening gloves, then shoved them into the back pocket of his jeans. “It felt right.”

  Bex had to agree. It did feel right, and as she looked around and realized how much work CeCe was having Bowie put into this landscaping job, her heart filled with hope. “So! This is a good sign!” Bex said, flashing a wide smile.

  “What is?” CeCe asked, narrowing her eyes at her daughter.

  “You’re fixing up the yard,” Bex explained, waving her arms around excitedly. “That means you’re not selling the house!”

  Ever since CeCe had dropped that bombshell, Bex had been walking around with what felt like the weight of the world on her shoulders. It wasn’t that Bex was bummed about her parents’ deciding to sell their place, per se, but it had been the only home Andi had ever known for the first thirteen years of her life. Even now that Andi and Bex had an apartment of their own, few things made Andi quite as happy as returning to the Mack house—or, more specifically, to Andi Shack. That miniature house with the quaint front porch was where Andi went when she wanted to create her incredible crafts or simply be alone with her thoughts.

  Bex couldn’t imagine anything worse than telling Andi that the house—including Andi Shack—would be sold. But in fact, CeCe had saddled Bex with the task of breaking the news to Andi…which Bex hadn’t quite gotten around to doing yet. And boy, was she glad she hadn’t, because now it looked like she wouldn’t have to!

  CeCe peered at Bex from beneath her black visor, her eyes silently seeming to mock her. “That’s why we’re fixing up the yard. The open house is Thursday.”

  Bex’s heart sank. She couldn’t believe it. “The what?”

  “Why do you sound so shocked?” CeCe demanded. “I told you I was selling the house.”

  “I know what you told me,” Bex replied as she began to wring her hands. “But I never thought you’d actually do it!”

  “Right…because if there’s one quality I’m typically associated with, it’s a lack of follow-through,” CeCe scoffed, but when Bowie snickered in solidarity, he was swiftly silenced by her stern glare.

  “How can you be so casual about selling our house?” Bex frowned.

  “Our house?” CeCe began tugging on her gardening gloves. “You moved out of this house, remember? Twice! What do you care if we sell it?”

  “Because when Andi finds out—” Bex blurted, only to watch CeCe’s face freeze furiously in disbelief. Oh, no. Bex’s eyes darted around, as if she was searching for a hole in the ground to swallow her up. She shot a look at Bowie, silently hoping that he could quickly dig one for her.

  “Wait,” CeCe said, her jaw dropping open. “Why haven’t you told her?”

  “Because I’m in denial that it’s happening,” Bex replied with a pout, and then—even though her attempts at verbal manipulation had never worked on CeCe in the past—she decided to give it a last-ditch effort: “It’s a dangerous game of chicken we’re playing. If you continue, you might actually end up selling the house.”

  CeCe smirked, shaking her head and staring down at the ground, and for a fleeting moment Bex thought that perhaps her strategy had worked: maybe her mother was bluffing, and now that Bex had called her on it, she was going to show her hand. Yes! CeCe was going to admit that she was making idle threats. She didn’t really want to sell the house—she just wanted to make Bex feel guilty about something. But guilty about what? Taking her own daughter away so she could finally be a responsible parent and raise her? Could that be it?

  But before CeCe could confirm that any of Bex’s unspoken theories were right, Bowie turned to Bex and said gently, “You really need to tell Andi.”

  “Are you kidding?” Bex fired back. Sometimes she really wished Bowie and CeCe hadn’t hit it off so well. “She’s gonna be crushed.”

  “She’s tougher than you know. She’ll be fine,” CeCe interjected flatly, as if she knew Bex’s own daughter better than Bex did—which, to be fair, might have been true in some cases. But not in this one. Definitely not in this one.

  “She’s losing Andi Shack!” Bex couldn’t help raising her voice. She didn’t care if she was being melodramatic. She felt like she was channeling her former adolescent self and Andi at the same time. “She’s not going to be fine!”

  But true to form, CeCe failed to realize the gravity of the situation. “Andi Shack is wherever Andi is,” she insisted, as if she’d never been a teenager herself—and, truth be told, Bex often wondered if CeCe had skipped right past that stage. “Take the sign and make a new one.”

  “It’s not going to be that easy, and you know it!” Now Bex was yelling. She couldn’t help it. How could her mother just stand there with her hands on her hips and act so oblivious? Sure, CeCe had been that way when it came to what would make Bex happy, but this was different…and this wasn’t only about Andi’s happiness; it was about Andi’s entire life!

  Then, adding insult to injury, Bowie held up his hands at Bex and CeCe and said, “Can we all just take a breath?”

  What? Bex spun around to glare at Bowie, yelling at him now, too. “And you! I can’t believe you’re helping her!”

  Bowie’s mouth fell open and he looked at Bex with wounded eyes. For a fleeting moment, she thought maybe she was being too hard on him. But even after glancing around at all the effort he’d put into the yard and acknowledging that his work was exquisite, she couldn’t help pointing out that he was on the side of evil.

  “Evil!” Bex shouted, pointing an accusatory finger at Bowie as she charged to her motorcycle. She tugged on her helmet and revved the engine so it growled at her mother and Bowie like a dutiful ally—the only one she apparently had at the moment—and then sped off.

  CeCe sighed. She shook her head and actually looked like she felt the slightest bit guilty, which made Bowie feel sort of guilty himself. Still reeling from Bex’s yelling at him, he suddenly didn’t know where to turn, so he simply fixed his gaze on the bark he’d agonized over for hours.

  But once Bex’s bike had disappeared down the road, CeCe’s face brightened, and she smiled at Bowie. “I’m on the side of the market that’s up five percent!” she pointed out giddily.

  Of course, Bowie knew it wasn’t all about the money for CeCe; he knew that she and Ham simply didn’t need so much space now that Andi had moved out of the house and in with Bex. At the same time, though, he knew Bex was right: Andi was probably going to be seriously bummed about losing Andi Shack. But she would get over it, like CeCe said…wouldn’t she? The more Bowie thought about what Bex had said about Andi being crushed, the more he could almost feel his daughter’s devastation. Deep down, he knew that all Bex was trying to do was protect Andi, keep her safe and happy—and as Andi’s father, didn’t he have that job, too?

  Bowie frowned. He glanced at CeCe again and felt another pang of guilt. Was Bex right to be so mad at him? Was he on the side of evil? Now that he’d put it all together, Bowie felt like a line had been drawn in the sand—or at least in the spruce bark—and he was going to have to choose a side.

  As if choosing between pine and spruce hadn’t already been hard enough!

  Back at school, Cyrus and Buffy were in PE class—and as in all the other classes that day, they were separated. The Group A kids, including Cyrus, were on one side of the gym, while Group B, with Buffy, was on the other.

  The gym teacher, decked out in his blue gym shorts and red T-shirt, wheeled a rack with a dozen red playground balls across the shiny wood floor. Then he blew his whistle and marched between the two g
roups of kids, eyes widening with maniacal enthusiasm behind his glasses as he growled, “Okay! Who wants to play some DODGEBALL?” He sounded like a sports announcer riling up the crowd before a major heavyweight boxing match.

  But while most of the kids seemed elated, clapping, cheering, and pumping their fists in the air, Cyrus turned fifty shades of pale. “Cheers the bloodthirsty mob,” he mumbled under his breath as he nervously glanced around at his classmates.

  That was when the coach raised his arm and, with a flourish, presented a long strip of black material. “Group B,” he said with a grin, “you’ll be wearing these.”

  “Blindfolds?” Buffy balked and spun around to see if the other kids in her group were equally outraged.

  Cyrus, on the other hand, was stoked! No longer thinking about the pain all those balls would inflict when mercilessly hurled at him, he slowly nodded and whispered, “Ooh, a twist!” before turning to high-five one of the girls on his team.

  As Buffy and the other kids in Group B tried to voice their dissent, the coach just shook his head and shoved the blindfolds at them. “Come on.” He snickered, handing the dark scarves out one by one while mocking their disappointed pouts. “There’s no crying in dodgeball!”

  In the school hallway, Andi was sitting in a sectioned-off lounge area that was partly concealed by a giant sign indicating it was off-limits to Group B. She sighed happily as a woman in a black spa uniform finished up the best shoulder massage Andi had ever had. Andi then wandered out into the hallway to see what other perks were on offer—and, more specifically, to find the waiter who had taken her order for a smoothie several minutes earlier. That was when she noticed a bunch of Group B kids, including Jonah, trying to maneuver long-handled paint rollers over the hallway walls.

  She also noticed Dr. Metcalf farther down the hall, making sure nobody from Group B was wandering into one of the exclusive Group A zones. But when the principal finally disappeared from view, Andi ran over and loud-whispered Jonah’s name, then waved her hand at the wall and asked him what was going on.

  “Art class,” he explained with a shrug, carefully moving his roller up and down and laughing in spite of himself. “Although I’m not sure how painting a wall the same color teaches us anything about art.”

  Andi cringed. The whole day had been so weird, but she had resigned herself to the fact that they weren’t going to get any logical explanations from the principal or their teachers—at least, not yet.

  “What are you doing here?” Jonah glanced over at Andi while dipping his paint roller into a metal tin on the floor.

  “Oh, uh…” Andi wasn’t sure if she should tell Jonah, but how else could she explain it away? “I’ve got a forty-five-minute hall pass, so I’m just killing time before my foot massage.”

  Jonah’s blue eyes practically doubled in size and seemed to turn green…with envy. “Group A gets foot massages?”

  Before Andi could respond, the waiter who’d taken her smoothie order reappeared with a trayful of cups. He wore black pants and a black tie with a crisp white button-down shirt. “Your smoothie,” he said, handing a cup to Andi.

  “Thank you.” Andi grinned and took a sip, then noticed Jonah looking at her like an injured puppy. She frowned and stared down at the cup. “This is wrong.”

  “I know,” Jonah said with a scowl, narrowing his eyes at Andi. His voice betrayed a mixture of hurt, confusion, and irritation. “Why’s your group getting special treatment?”

  “I…meant the smoothie,” Andi said sheepishly, turning around to get the attention of the waiter, who dutifully returned to her side. “I ordered the strawberry-banana.”

  After the waiter swapped out her cup for a different one, Andi took a sip and then looked back at Jonah, who was now glaring at her like she had committed an unforgivable crime.

  “But this, too…also wrong,” Andi finally acknowledged, gesturing at the wall Jonah was still painting, even as he continued to stare at her with those big sad eyes. Then, noticing Dr. Metcalf peering at her down the hall, Andi remembered she wasn’t supposed to be interacting with anyone from Group B. So even though she wished she could figure out a way to help Jonah—to make all the inequity of the day disappear—she instead carefully backed away while frowning apologetically. She felt terrible, but what could she do?

  Maybe she would come up with a plan during her foot massage.

  Meanwhile, the dodgeball game in the gym was underway, and Cyrus was killing it! He chucked a ball at one of the blindfolded Group B players and it slammed into her shoulder, knocking her out of the game. Then he grabbed another ball and sent it flying hard and fast into the legs of a Group B kid, forcing him to buckle and fall to the ground.

  “Yes!” Cyrus grunted like a bona fide jock, his eyes flashing with newfound competitive grit as the Group B players frantically tried to avoid his skillful throws. “Buffy, I wish you could see this! I have great hand-eye coordination!”

  Buffy was still in the game, somehow managing to dodge every last ball, even while visually restricted. “So do I, and I’m blindfolded!” she shouted at Cyrus, miraculously catching a ball as it flew directly at her.

  “Actually, Buffy, I’m the one who’s been blindfolded—metaphorically,” Cyrus pointed out, unable to conceal his burgeoning love of the game as the gym teacher walked over to him with a fiery look in his eyes, shoved a ball into Cyrus’s hands, and gave him an encouraging pat on the back. “My whole life I didn’t think I could play sports!”

  Little did Cyrus know—although he probably could have assumed—that behind her blindfold, Buffy was rolling her eyes. “You were right,” she fired back at him.

  “Silence, B!” Cyrus commanded with a snarl. Then, with even more athletic prowess, he raised his arms overhead and hurled the ball, nailing Buffy right in her upper back.

  Yes! That was it! Cyrus had proven himself to be the better athlete—something neither he nor Buffy had ever imagined they would see in this lifetime.

  And as much as she didn’t want to see it, Buffy pulled off her blindfold and furiously shot a look of disgust at Cyrus. Unfazed, he simply grinned and motioned for her to get off the court. She was out, he was still in, and everything was right with the world. Or at least, everything was right with Group A’s world.

  Later that day, back at the apartment, Bex was desperate for some comfort food. It was the one thing she could count on to make her feel better after an argument with her mother—or, really, when she was upset about anything. Because this argument involved Bowie, and because it was now clearer than ever that Bex was going to have to break some seriously bad news to Andi all by herself, there was really only one comfort food that would ease Bex’s suffering. But before she could pick up the phone to place her pizza order, there was a knock on the door.

  Hmmm, she marveled. Have I developed some sort of pizza-ordering psychic powers?

  Unfortunately, when Bex opened the door, instead of a pizza delivery, she found Bowie standing there, still covered in dirt and grass stains from the garden of evil.

  “Oh…” Bex smiled with gritted teeth. “I think you have the wrong apartment. I didn’t order any betrayal.”

  Bowie produced a pan from behind his back. “I brought fudge,” he said, his tone apologetic.

  Bex grimaced, annoyed that Bowie would attempt to manipulate her with something as obvious as chocolate. But then, as the sweet aroma reached her nose, she was rendered powerless. She couldn’t possibly resist fudge, especially when it was made by a skilled cook like Bowie. It was quite possibly the only comfort food that could compete with pizza for Bex’s affections.

  “Fine,” she said with a sigh, grabbing the pan without a hint of reluctance. “Come in.”

  Following Bex across the hardwood floors with the boho-chic rugs, Bowie glanced around and couldn’t help noticing that Andi had already kind of turned a solid chunk of the apartment into its own version of Andi Shack. She had used long, colorful scarves to create curtains for the windows; ea
ch of the throw pillows on the olive-green velvet couch and chairs in the living room had been decorated with one of her custom designs; there were tiny paper lanterns strung up on the ceiling just like the ones in Andi Shack; and even the old yellow refrigerator had been adorned with zigzagging pieces of orange, pink, turquoise, and red duct tape. It was one of Andi’s favorite supplies for embellishing practically anything.

  It all added up to one thing, in Bowie’s mind: even if CeCe and Ham did wind up selling the house and she no longer had the original Andi Shack, his kid was going to be okay. And it wasn’t only because she would still have a home where she could do her craft projects, but because Bowie and Bex would always be there to protect her heart, to make sure she felt happy and safe and loved. That was really why Bowie had decided to head over to Bex’s place—not to placate her with a chocolaty peace offering, nor to take her side, exactly…but to be by her side when she broke the news to Andi. It was only fair that Bowie shoulder some of the responsibility and help present a unified parental support team.

  But before Bowie could tell Bex any of that, she spun around and—without even mentioning CeCe by name—blurted, “She doesn’t even care that she’s going to break Andi’s heart!”

  Bowie shook his head and sighed. “Of course she cares. A lot! That’s why she wants you to tell her.”

  Bex set the fudge down on the kitchen table and questioningly arched one eyebrow.

  “She can’t bear to do it herself,” he added.

  It was true. Bowie had gotten to know CeCe pretty well over the past few months, and although he realized she and Bex had a complicated relationship that didn’t always bring out CeCe’s softer side, Bowie had witnessed a sensitive heart beating beneath the tough exterior. He also knew CeCe was fiercely protective of Andi’s sensitive heart, which pretty much put them all on the same side as far as Bowie was concerned.

  “Well, if it’s so hard, why sell the house at all?” Bex scowled while pulling the plastic wrap off the pan, unleashing even more of the delicious aroma and sending her taste buds into a salivating tailspin.