Free Pack Up the Moon by Rachael Herron Page B

it on my skin or anything.” Pree felt nervous under his intense gaze.
    “Your parents . . .”
    “Are amazing.”
    “Of course they are. Look at the way you turned out.” He smiled so warmly that Pree’s knees heated. He went on in his uncommonly colored dark gray voice, “So what was your . . . biological mom like?”
    “She was nice. I guess. It feels kind of . . . weird that she was a total stranger. You know? If I’d passed her on the street, I wouldn’t have known her. I’d kind of always assumed there’d be some spiritual link or something. Like I would just know.” Pree felt herself blush. “That sounds stupid, I know. Oh, and I had a half brother.”
    “Had?”
    She fiddled with the edge of the sticker she’d just finished. “The papers say he died when his father killed him in the garage with carbon monoxide.”
    The legs of Jimmy’s chair reconnected to the concrete. “Accidentally or on purpose?”
    “From what I’ve read, it was an accident. The dad fell asleep after driving the boy around. The kid was sick, and I guess he had trouble sleeping? I didn’t ask her about it.”
    Jimmy squinted up at the sky as if looking for his next words. “So.”
    Pree waited.
    “When are you going to see her again?”
    “Dunno. I texted her. I guess if I see her—”
    “If?” Jimmy’s knee jostled the small table so that his pen rolled off the edge and hit the ground. He didn’t bend to pick it up. “You met the woman who gave you life. You have to be interested in that story. It’s part of who you are.” Pree knew. She wondered if he focused on his wife and two kids like this, and if they loved it when he did.
    Pree rolled her pen in her fingers. “It’s what I always wanted, to know who she was. I knew who she was even before I moved here, part of why I came. And now that I’ve met her—what more am I really going to get from her? I mean, I have two moms already. Do I really need another?”
    Jimmy arched a questioning eyebrow.
    Pree laughed. “Lesbian moms. Double the fun, double the kale.”
    “Gotcha. So, do you think your dad is the same as the guy who did the carbon monoxide thing?”
    “No. She was, like, sixteen when she had me. And that was just barely. No one stays with the person they’re with when they’re that age.”
    “True. How long have you been with . . . what’s his name? Finn?”
    “Flynn.”
    “Yeah. Him.”
    Pree peeled a sticker from its backing and then concentrated on putting it back, exactly where it had come from. “Not that long.”
Three years, since junior year.
    Jimmy smiled. “How about that.” His voice was darker gray than a storm cloud.
    “How about that,” she repeated.
    “You two serious?”
    This was where she should tell him,
Yes. We’re serious. I love my boyfriend.
Instead she said, “Not really.”
    “Not exclusive.”
    She and Flynn were monogamous. It was something they’d expressed clearly to each other. “No.”
    The smile spread slowly over Jimmy’s face. He was the kind of handsome that belonged on a TV show about motorcycles. “I like hearing that. You’ve got something in you, you know that? Something special.” He paused. “It seems like still waters run deep with you. There’s something you’re not admitting. You can tell me anything, you know. I’m a good secret keeper.”
    What, did he
know
or something? The look on Jimmy’s face was both kind and frightening in its intensity. All of this could be such a bad idea.
He
was a very bad idea.
    Shit. She had to tell Flynn about the pregnancy. This cemented it. Flynn the Safe. Flynn the Good.
    “So,” she said. “Your slap looks great.”
    It did. He’d drawn ADOG just right, with enough boldness and thick/thin variation that it looked real.
    “You sure you’re okay?” Jimmy asked.
    Under the table she removed her sticker’s backing quickly—she was good at that—and pressed it to the underside. “I’m okay. I guess. Whatever. I will be.”
    If