The Cake Girl

Twelfth.

“you two still alive in there?” I wake up to Tylers voice calling to us from the otherside of the door.

Sean yawns and stretches out his arms. I guess he forgot I was there or something because his arm hits my stomach pretty hard. “ow!” I yelp, not expecting anything like that in the morning.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” Tyler says and I hear his footsteps go down the stairs.

I turn on my side to Sean, “this is when you apologize for punching me in the stomach Sean.” I explain.

“right. Sorry about that.” He looked a little daze.

“what’s wrong?” I ask, sitting up a little.

He sits up some too, “nothing’s really wrong. I just wasn’t exactly expecting you in my bed this morning.”

I laugh, “yeah, well…” I trail off, not quite knowing what to say. I look over at the clock and notice that it’s already noon. “I’ve got to go.” I say while pushing the covers off of us.

“now it’s my turn to ask what’s wrong.” Sean says, following me with his eyes as I grab my stuff from around his room.

“well, in short. My mom just died, my dad is in town trying to get custody of me, and I haven’t talked to my aunt in over a day.”

“right. Want me to give you a ride?”

I slip on my shoes, “that would be great.”

The car ride was silent, nice though. I didn’t really feel like talking. Sean let me off and made sure I got in safely, which I did of course.

“Is that you Lindsey!?” My aunt calls from the back.

“yes.” I reply, walking toward the kitchen. She comes out before I could enter, holding one of the cakes I had made yesterday.

“would you like to explain why my kitchen is filled with desserts?”

“um, no.” I say, “my dad though, is he…”

“he’s gone.”

“what?”

“I told him to leave and that I knew enough attorneys to know that I would win in court if he tried taking you from me. And yeah, I filled out adoption papers and it should be final in like twenty-four hours.”

“wait, what?”

“I, uh, adopted you. it was quicker than applying for custody. I hope that was okay.”

“yes? Um, so I’m living here now?”

“well, yes and no.”

“yes and no?”

“you see…Matthew sort of proposed to me the other night and since his house is so much bigger we were going to move there. Of course, there’s only one extra bedroom at that house, so you or Tyler will have to stay here.”

“Me!” I say quickly.

Sally laughs, “if I remember correctly, you and Sean hit it off, seems like you’d want to be closer.”

“precisely the reason why I don’t want to live there. What if things didn’t work out? It would be more than awkward.”

“true. So you’ll stay here, you’ll be okay, right?”

“of course, you guys are only about five minutes away. When do you move?”

“oh, over a bit of time.”

“that’s really exciting Sally.” I say, happy for her, “Doug would want you happy.” Doug was my biological uncle, my mom’s brother. He died of some cancer a couple years back. So for her to have moved on is really great.