The Thing About Three

chapter twenty-three | thanks

IT WAS FUN having a boyfriend—or whatever it was Noah was to me. In the two days since the party, we had texted constantly when we weren't together, and I had found out that I loved being in a relationship.

It was nice waking up to a good morning text. Made the world seem a bit brighter and my heart fuller in my chest.

I could probably get high off of that feeling alone.

Dad started to notice my new outlook on life when I was responding to one of Noah's texts that Thanksgiving afternoon.

I was laying across the couch on my stomach, legs kicked up in the air like a girl about to write in her diary as I responded to Noah's "I can't stop thinking about you right now" text.

"Why are you all smiley?" Dad asked, grinning along with me. "You texting Dallas?"

I shook my head, blushing. "No," I told him, "I'm texting Noah."

He frowned. "Huh? Are you two . . ?"

I shook my head again, blushing harder. "We're just friends," I told him, partially lying.

The one caveat to our little arrangement was that we weren't going to tell anyone, just in case things didn't work out.

I agreed to the condition at first, but after a day of feeling like I was on cloud nine and not having anyone to brag to about it, I was starting to go nuts.

"What time is the thing at Dallas's?" Dad asked as he sat in his recliner, brandishing his phone. "I need to tell your brother when to get here." He smiled as he said the familial term.

He'd been using the phrases brother and son ever since we got the results of the paternity test a few days before and—drum roll, please—we were, in fact, related.

"Dallas said to come by around 4:00," I told Dad.

Dad looked at his wrist watch. "Alright. That gives us two hours to get ready, then."

Two hours later, I was the first one ready, because I was excited to see Dallas and his family and to get to spend some time with my new brother.

Jeremiah showed up only minutes later, and we were all trucking down the road in my dad's sedan soon after.

Jeremiah sat in the back with me, and something about riding in the car with my brother beside me and my dad at the helm healed my inner child.

Because I was on a road trip with my dad and brother. It wasn't just me and Dad anymore.

Jeremiah offered to play the alphabet game with me, where we scoured billboards and license plates for each letter of the alphabet to see who could reach 'Z' the fastest.

This led to lighthearted bickering, because apparently being competitive ran in the family and we just couldn't agree to a tie when the both of us called out the same letter at the same time.

I smiled throughout the ordeal, grinning like a fool when Dad had to intercept our arguing and calm us down. It felt like I was in a sitcom, me being the annoying younger sister to Jeremiah's annoyed older brother. I loved it. So did Jeremiah from the smile he sported.

When we got to Dallas's parents' house, I was almost sad that our little road trip was over for the time being, but I forgot
about my sadness the second I spotted Dallas step out of his house to greet us.

He opened my car door before I could, smiling at me as I stepped out.

"You look pretty, Claire," he complimented my autumn-colored outfit. "Very festive."