Signs Point to Yes (6 page)

“Of course,” Jane said.

“Do you ever have playdates?” Piper asked.

Claudia snorted. Teo had kind of forgotten she was still sitting there.

“Not anymore,” Jane said. “Moms don't really set up playdates for kids in high school.”

Piper nodded seriously.

Claudia and her stepsiblings left a minute later, and Jane started getting the girls ready to go home.

“Hey,” Teo said, putting his hand on Jane's arm. “I wanted to thank you again for offering to clean up the basement for me. That was cool of you.”

“Yeah, no problem. We haven't done it yet, because we needed to get ready for swim class. But I figure I'll trick the girls into doing most of it by telling them it's a race.”

“You have quite the devious mind, Jane Connelly.”

“I'll take that as a compliment.”

After work, Teo was happy to find that the basement was in perfect shape. Not only that, but he had been wrong: He
had
closed out his tabs from earlier that morning. He hadn't wiped his history, but at least the dad search hadn't been sitting there for the whole world to see.

It was also nice to know he had an ally in Jane. Now he just had to try to get Ravi to stop antagonizing her, and they'd be in pretty good shape.

 

Chapter 6

On Jane's second day of babysitting, she made the girls a huge pile of cootie catchers. They spent most of the morning before swim class making up creative fortunes to write inside them.

“‘Your babies will look like puppies,'” Keegan said.

“That's not very nice,” Jane said. “You don't want babies to look like dogs.”

“But puppies are cute!”

“They are,” Jane said. “But I think we can do better.”

“‘You will get a puppy'?” Rory said.

“I like that one,” Jane said, writing it down.

Jane worked on creating a long list of ideas because the girls wanted to make unique cootie catchers for each of their friends and Teo.

“What should we put in Teo's?” Jane asked.

“‘You will marry Jane so she can be our sister,'” Piper said.

“Wow, thanks, guys. But I don't want Teo—”

“Teo is going to marry his girlfriend, Megan,” Rory said.

“Teo has a girlfriend?” Jane asked.

“Not anymore,” Keegan said. “He told Mom they broke up a long time ago.”

Jane wasn't sure what “a long time ago” was in kid time, but it got her thinking: She never heard much about Teo and girls. Not that they were exactly in the same social circle, though.

They were the same level of dork at their school, just at opposite ends of the spectrum. Jane was band dork adjacent, and Teo was a kind of smart, sort of athletic dork. In fact, if he didn't hang out with Ravi, who was mostly just too smart for his own good and had a tendency to turn people off, Teo might even have been popular. He was cute and on the soccer team. Jane had to wonder if he actually chose his dork status.

When she and the girls got home from swim class, Jane was not thrilled to find Ravi on the back deck, reading a book and acting like he owned the place.

“Jane,” he said, not even trying to hide his air of disdain while Teo wasn't around.

She rolled her eyes and corralled the girls into the house—except for Piper, who decided to sit on the deck and give Ravi the third degree. Jane listened through the screen door.

“What are you reading?”

“
The Jungle
.”

“Why?”

“For school.”

“What it's about? Tarzan?”

“If only,” Ravi said.

Jane found it kind of fitting that Ravi got along better with a five-year-old than he did with most of his peers. Except for Teo. He obviously really liked Teo.

“Time for lunch,” she said to Piper through the screen door. Piper scampered inside, and Jane stepped out onto the deck, shielding her eyes from the sun.

“Teo won't be home from work until four o'clock,” she told Ravi.

“Like I don't know my best friend's work schedule,” Ravi said, shaking his head. And then a devilish expression flitted across his face. “Any chance you want to bring me a drink? Maybe make me some lunch, along with the girls?”

Jane shook her head slowly, staring at Ravi to drive the point home.

“I'll take that as a no.”

Jane raised an eyebrow and then turned to go back in the house.

“So that's definitely a no, then. Maybe I'll just order a pizza.”

Jane gritted her teeth but said nothing. She had a headache just thinking about Ravi hanging around the house for the rest of the afternoon. Or, even worse, the rest of the summer.

As Jane set out the girls' sandwiches, Keegan said, “We should invite Ravi in for lunch.”

“Ravi is fine.”

After checking and rechecking the schedule, Jane saw that the girls had no activities for the rest of the afternoon, so she was going to have to come up with something for them to do while also resolutely ignoring Ravi. She'd rather not hang around the house and have Ravi insult her all day.

“What do you guys want to do after lunch?” Jane asked, hoping beyond hope that they would have a good idea.

“Can we play with sidewalk chalk in the driveway?” Piper asked.

“Of course,” Jane said, relieved that it wasn't a backyard activity.

“Awesome. Ravi is the best at drawing with sidewalk chalk,” Rory said.

“Did I hear my name?” Ravi asked, sticking his head through the door and smirking at Jane.

“You wanna play sidewalk chalk with us?” Keegan asked.

“You know it,” he said, walking into the kitchen and surveying the table. “Now, who wants to be a good sharer and let me have a piece of their sandwich?”

Each girl gave him half her lunch. Jane felt sick to her stomach as they marched out the front door to play.

“Do you really need to be here?” he muttered as the girls dumped their bin of chalk onto the driveway.

“I'm sorry. Where would I go?”

“Inside? Somewhere else? Home?”

“This is my job. You do realize that, right?” Jane asked, crossing her arms.

“Maybe it should be
my
job.”

Jane rolled her eyes.

“I mean, if you're doing it, obviously anyone could do it. A trained monkey could probably do it,” Ravi said.

“Look, we don't have to be friends, and we don't have to talk—”

“You're the one who started talking to me.”

Jane narrowed her eyes. Obviously, Ravi had started this conversation, but if he was too delusional to remember something he'd done a minute ago, that wasn't her fault.

“Come on, Ravi,” Keegan said, handing him a piece of chalk.

He set to work making the girls the most epic hopscotch court. Jane would have been impressed if anyone else on earth had made it. It was huge. He was making little doodles and drawings in the boxes. The girls loved every second of it.

Jane decided to go in the house and grab the notebook she used to plot fan fiction. She might as well make use of the time.

It was on her way back out of the house that Jane heard a cry and ran toward the driveway.

Rory was sitting on the ground holding her knee, and Ravi, rather than doing anything useful, was raking his hands through his hair and spinning around in circles.

“Hey, Rory,” Jane said calmly, kneeling down next to her. She gave Ravi a dirty look. “Hey, hey, what happened?”

“I fell down.” She sniffled.

“She tripped over her hopscotch rock,” Keegan said.

“Can I see?”

Rory showed Jane her knee. It was scraped, but not too badly.

“Why didn't you tell you me you went in the house?” Ravi asked.

“I was inside for literally two and a half seconds.”

“Literally, Jane? Literally? No human moves that fast.”

“Why didn't you try to check her knee?”

“'Cause blood skeeves me out,” Ravi said.

Jane didn't have time for Ravi's phobias.

She picked up Rory and took her into the house, followed by the other two girls and, unfortunately, Ravi. He lurked while Jane cleaned Rory's cuts. Rory calmed down once Jane put a Band-Aid on her knee and kissed it “all better.” Rory's sisters let her pick out a movie, and then they all climbed onto the couch together to cuddle.

Ravi stood in the doorway of the bathroom while Jane washed her hands. He still looked awfully pale.

“You okay?” Jane asked. “Not that I care. But I would rather not clean up your puke.”

Ravi opened his mouth and Jane braced for the worst. “You're really good at that.”

“At what?”

“At taking care of them.”

“It is my job,” Jane said pointedly.

Ravi started slow clapping. “I pay you the first compliment of your entire life, and you don't even thank me. Stay classy, Jane.”

He turned on his heel and went out to the back deck.

All Jane wanted was to curl up on the couch with the girls, but she needed to deal with Ravi, no matter how unappealing that sounded. It was time she stood up for herself.

“If you're going to be hanging out here all freaking day, you could at least try to be helpful with the kids,” Jane said as she walked out the back door.

He lifted his chin defiantly. “Aren't they your responsibility?”

“Yes.”

“You gonna share your money with me if I help out?”

Jane sighed. “You know that's not what I mean. Like the very, very least you could have done was kneel down and make sure Rory was okay. You don't like blood—that's fine. Talk to her. Calm her down. You don't have to do anything with the blood. They obviously like you. I get that you can't stand me, but couldn't you at least be nice to them?”

The confrontation was making Jane shake. She'd been watching the girls for only two days, and she already loved them and wanted the best for them. Ravi acting like a complete useless jackass when one of them fell really pissed her off.

“Dude, chill out,” he said.

“I'm perfectly chill, thank you,” Jane said. Ravi's response was a really good example of why she hated confrontation. The way the other person could so quickly take the upper hand, no matter how righteous you felt about the situation, made her so angry. “I don't really understand why you're here when Teo isn't. It's weird.”

“Because my parents don't put on our air-conditioning—”

Jane cut him off. “You're sitting outside, dumb ass. You could sit outside at your own house.”

“Are you telling me to leave?”

Jane crossed her arms and took a deep breath. “Yes. Please.”

“Hell, no. This isn't your house.”

“But it is ‘my responsibility,'” Jane said, making air quotes.

“I'm not gonna leave unless one of the people who actually lives here tells me to.”

“Oh, we'll just see about that!” Jane said.

Jane went back inside and closed the kitchen door, locking it behind her. She could barely contain her rage. What had been minor shaky hands a few seconds ago now felt like full-blown spasms. She opened and closed her fists and tried to calm herself.

The last time Jane remembered having had the nerve to confront anyone quite like that was …

Never.

She'd never done anything like that before. She was like a mama bear protecting her cubs. She finally understood all those stories about mothers who were able to lift cars to save their kids. She cared about Rory, Piper, and Keegan so much she was willing to stand up to Ravi for them.

She didn't actually have any effect on Ravi, but that was a mere detail in the scheme of things. For once she had said what she was thinking.

By the time Teo got home an hour later, Jane had worked herself into a fit of worry and anger. Ravi had left once he realized that Jane had locked all the doors. But she knew that now she was headed toward a confrontation with Teo. She really didn't think she could handle two confrontations in one day.

The girls were watching
The Lion King
for the billionth time while Jane paced in the kitchen, wringing her hands and waiting for Teo to come in.

What if Connie heard about all this and thought Jane was acting like a big baby? Ravi was Teo's friend; he was allowed in the house if he wanted to be there.

Teo came in the back door.

“Hey,” he said, smiling.

“Hi. I'm sorry.”

“For?”

“For what happened with Ravi today.”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

“I'm sure he's left a boatload of messages about it for you.”

Teo fished his cell phone from the bottom of his bag and checked his texts.

“Oh. Wow.” He scrolled and scrolled and scrolled. Teo's face was shocked, but his voice was still kind. “He is
not
happy with you.”

“I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to start a fight. You know how he is with me,” Jane said.

Teo looked at her, his face soft, almost sympathetic. “Yeah, I know.”

“He was here for so long and I ran inside for a second and Rory fell,” Jane said.

“Is Rory okay?” Teo asked, looking concerned.

“Yeah, she's fine, but Ravi was such an ass about it.” Jane paused and bit her lip. “I'm sorry, I'll stop calling your best friend names.”

“No, please, feel free. He called you a whole slew of different things in these text messages.”

Jane's heart dropped. “I don't think that makes me feel any better.”

“Oh!” Teo exclaimed. “Yeah. That wasn't very nice of me. But I meant, don't feel bad. And don't apologize again. I don't really know what he was doing here. If my mom had been home, he wouldn't have been hanging around the house.”

Jane nodded. “I'll be cooler from now on. I promise.”

Teo tapped out a message and hit Send. “You shouldn't have to be. Here, look.”