[2020 Watty Award Winner!]
[BOOK 1 OF THE HAVOC SERIES]
❝you may be the best web-slinger
around, but you're terrible
at keeping secrets.❞
in which even though peter has a new,
high-tech suit, it doesn't stop a girl with
common sense from discove...
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HOMECOMING IS TONIGHT, AND Lena is at her apartment, helping her parents cook dinner instead of attending the dance. They're using Pa's iPad to Facetime with Graham's mother so they can see him off, much to Graham's dismay. He's wearing a gray suit, which compliments his date's navy blue dress wonderfully. His younger brothers keep teasing him about how pretty Kaitlyn is and making kissy noises. The strained smile on his face promises they're going to regret it later, his eyes flashing.
"Graham, you look so handsome!" Ma gushes as she stirs a pot of sweet spaghetti sauce. Her hair is tied back in a bun at the back of her head, apron neatly worn over her clothes so she doesn't splatter anything onto them.
"Doesn't he?" Mrs. Seager gushes, the camera shaking as Max runs into her. "Max, Owen, stop running around! You're going to knock into something!"
"Mo — om," Graham whines and motions toward his date. Kaitlyn is an only child, unaccustomed to the horrors that siblings involve. Her parents merely laugh at the twin boys who keep darting around the small living room.
"What?" his mother asks innocently, unaware that scolding her sons is embarrassing her eldest. "Come on, I want to get another picture."
"Smile for the camera!" Lena teases as she dumps noodles into a boiling pot of water. He glares in the direction of his mom's phone.
As chaos ensues in the Seager household once more and the parents fight the kids to take photos, the Rivera family enjoys the peace in their own home. A disk of Lena's parents' favorite Filipino music plays quietly in the background amongst the sounds of their cooking. While Ma and Lena are at the stove, Pa is working on chopping the tomatoes and onions.
"Why aren't you going to homecoming, Lena?" Ma questions, trying to sound casual, but her daughter can tell by the tone of her voice that she had been thinking about it for a while.
She shrugs in an attempt to sound nonchalant. "Busy."
"You could have asked Peter!" Ma exclaims, causing Lena's heart to sink even further. "Did he like the babingka?"
Lena glances to the left at her father, who has tensed up at the mention of her bringing a boy to a dance like she isn't sixteen years old already. Her stomach feels sour as she responds, "Yeah, and I did ask him, actually." Her mother drops the spoon she'd been using to stir the sauce, but Lena quickly adds, "He already has a date."
