A Measure of Love (5 page)

When he reopened his eyes, the doctor and his mother had gone.

“So what now?” Seb asked, pushing his hands into his jeans pockets.

“We wait for Mom and go home,” Tate answered, holding a hand up toward Riley when he opened his mouth to protest. “There’s nothing more we can do. He’s in the best place. We can come back first thing tomorrow. We all need to sleep.”

Riley glanced at his watch to see it was almost 5 a.m., and then at Seb, who shrugged. “Fine,” Riley retorted, suddenly feeling really fucking tired. “Fine.”

Eighteen years ago . . .

Lexie’s mom, Christine, opened the front door and smiled. “Hi, Riley. How was school?” Instead of answering, he glanced over her shoulder toward the stairs leading up to Lexie’s bedroom. Christine opened the door wider to let him pass.

Riley entered and placed his school bag, as he always did, under the coat rack next to Lexie’s, and shucked off his coat and the January cold, hanging it up. “Is she feeling better?”

Lexie hadn’t been to school for three days and, Riley had to confess, it sucked ass. His walks to and from the place and lunchtimes were certainly quiet. And boring. He wasn’t too cool to admit that he missed her.

“She hasn’t been down since lunch,” Christine replied, walking toward the kitchen. “I just made some hot chocolate. How about you take it up for her?”

Riley shrugged and followed. He’d always felt at home in Lexie’s house, but it was still weird talking to her mom without his friend there. “Is she still sick?”

Christine poured hot water into three cups, glancing back at Riley a couple of times before she spoke. “No. I think whatever she had has passed.” She held up a bag of sugar and Riley nodded. He liked his hot chocolate sweet. “So maybe you can help me with something, Riley,” Christine added as she spooned the sugar into the cups.

Riley frowned and took a step closer. “Help you?”

Christine hummed and turned, holding out a cup, which he took. She leaned her hip against the kitchen counter and blew into her own hot chocolate. “I was wondering if you know a boy at school named Blake Richards.”

Riley pursed his lips at the sound of the name and huffed. Yeah, he knew Blake Richards. Everyone knew him. He was the new boy in fifth grade—he started a little before Christmas break—and he talked to Lexie a lot. He also made her laugh, and Riley really didn’t like it.
Him.
Riley didn’t like
him
. He was so full of himself. And he had weird hair.

“Is he a nice boy?” Christine asked.

Riley lifted his gaze. Christine looked worried. “I don’t really know him,” he muttered. It wasn’t a total lie. He simply hadn’t made an effort to get to know the douchebag. Lexie seemed to like him. He licked his lips at the sting of that thought. “Why?”

She placed her cup down next to the sink. “Lexie won’t tell me because I’m her mom, and I know it’s uncool for an eleven-year-old to talk to her mother about stuff, but I think she might talk to you.”

Riley was entirely confused. “About what?”

“I think Blake Richards might have . . . upset Lexie.”

At her words, something dark and angry squirmed in Riley’s chest, causing him to squeeze the cup in his hand. If someone had hurt Lexie, Riley would have plenty to say about it. “What do you mean?”

“It’s just a feeling I have.” Christine smiled tightly. “It could be nothing. Maybe you could find out for me?” Before Riley could answer, she handed him the last cup of hot chocolate. “Here. Take this up to her. You wanna stay for dinner? I’m making lamb chops.”

His favorite. “Sure.”

“I’ll call your mom and tell her.”

Holding the two cups of hot chocolate, Riley crept up the stairs to Lexie’s room and knocked on her door with his elbow.

The voice he heard sounded tired and very unlike the Lexie he knew. “What?”

“It’s me,” he called back. “I brought hot chocolate.”

“Come in.”

Using the same elbow to push down the door handle, Riley managed to open it. The first thing he saw when he entered was a Lexie-shaped lump on the bed under a bright pink duvet. Actually, most of Lexie’s room was pink. Everything from her carpet to her curtains was some shade of flamingo. The only things that weren’t were her desk and wardrobe, though she constantly pestered her mom about painting them to match.

Riley approached the bed, rolling his eyes at the new posters she’d put up above her bed next to the Spice Girls and solar system ones she’d had up for ages. They were of that dude from
Titanic,
the one with the stupid floppy hair. Lexie said he was “dreamy,” whatever that meant. In fact, looking at the posters now, Riley was reminded of Blake Richards and the new word Tate had taught him.
Douchebag.

He placed Lexie’s cup of hot chocolate on her bedside table and moved to the chair by her desk. He swung the chair a little from side to side while fingering the pile of books and CDs on the shelf closest to him. Despite there being a good selection of bands and singers in the music pile, she still listened to the Spice Girls and the Backstreet Boys constantly, but Riley didn’t mind. He liked watching her sing and dance along to them.

The duvet moved and Lexie’s head gradually appeared. She squinted at him over the edge of the covers and grimaced. Riley had never seen her look so awful. Her blonde hair stuck up in several different directions and her blue eyes were surrounded by large, dark circles. “How are you feeling?”

“Crappy,” she answered, her voice hoarse and quiet. She reached for her cup and the pair of glasses she’d had to start wearing three months prior, and sat up against the headboard of her bed with a sigh. As much as Lexie complained about having to wear the glasses, Riley liked them. They were pink, of course, and made her—in Riley’s opinion—look sophisticated.

As she adjusted herself on the bed, he noticed she was wearing the
Suicide Squad
hoodie he’d loaned her one night when they’d been hanging out in the woods behind her house and she’d gotten cold. For some strange reason, seeing her wearing it pleased him.

“Are you coming back to school tomorrow?” he asked hopefully.

Lexie lifted one shoulder, keeping her gaze on her drink. “Only if I feel better.”

“Your mom said you weren’t sick anymore.”

She didn’t answer but pulled the duvet closer. Watching her, Riley thought carefully about what Christine had said. He couldn’t remember ever seeing Blake Richards being mean to her, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t happened. Lexie and Blake did have three classes together, which Riley hated, so it was entirely possible. But surely she would have said something.

“You’d tell me if there was something wrong, wouldn’t you?” he asked, pressing play on her CD player, unsurprised to hear the Spice Girls’ “Wannabe.”

Lexie frowned instead of singing along. “What do you mean?”

Riley chewed the inside of his mouth, knowing Lexie well enough to realize she might get mad if he told her what Christine had said. “I don’t know,” he muttered toward his feet. “If someone was, like, mean to you or something.”

He looked up at her to see an expression he didn’t see on her very often. It was panic. He pressed his lips together, suddenly wanting to find Blake Richards and punch him. Riley had never punched anyone in his life, except maybe his brothers, but that was playing. Or so they told their mother.

“Lexie,” he said softly. “Is Blake Richards giving you a hard time?”

“No,” she blurted, blinking quickly. “No. Why would you think that? What did he say?”

Riley sat back in his chair, ignoring her lie and hating that he hadn’t recognized what was going on with her. “He didn’t say anything to me. He never does. I just thought I’d ask.”

Lexie narrowed her eyes, which suddenly looked a little brighter. “My mom said something to you, didn’t she?”

Riley didn’t answer other than to sip from his cup.

Lexie sighed. “He’s not giving me a hard time,” she said eventually, but her tone had Riley unconvinced.

“But you’d tell me if he did.”

“Why?” A smile teased at her lips. “You gonna beat him up?”

“Maybe,” Riley replied nonchalantly. “If you wanted me to.” And he meant it. Why wouldn’t he? Lexie was his friend. She was his best friend. He tapped his fingers against his cup as he shook his head. “I don’t know why you like him anyway.”

“I don’t,” Lexie mumbled. “Besides, it doesn’t matter. He’s seeing Hannah Grand now.”

“Hannah Grand?” Riley asked incredulously. “That stupid brown-haired thing who called you fat in third grade?”

Lexie nodded and crossed her arms. Riley remembered how upset she’d been when Hannah Grand had said what she’d said and how he’d watched as Lexie’s sister, Savannah, and Lexie’s mom had tried to convince Lexie that she was perfect.

Riley shook his head. “Then he’s as stupid as she is.” Lexie didn’t respond while she picked at her thumbnail. Then it occurred to him. “Has
she
said something to you?”

“Nothing worth mentioning,” she replied with a careless shrug.

“Lexie.”

“It’s fine.”

Without any solution or words of comfort, Riley simply repeated, “Does that mean you’re coming back to school tomorrow? It sucks without you.”

Lexie looked at Riley for such a long moment that he began to fidget. “Pinkie promise,” she uttered.

The following morning, Lexie was waiting for Riley on her porch step just as she’d said she would. She looked so much better and even smiled when she saw him walking down her street. She always did that, but each time it was as if it were the first. They walked to school, talking about the Cardinals game taking place on the upcoming weekend, and the new Superman comic Riley’s mom had given him the night before.

If Riley thought hard about it, it was the walks to and from school that he liked the best. He’d watch Lexie walk along the curb, acting like a trapeze artist, grabbing his shoulder every time she lost her balance, and he’d laugh about her ambitions of being the Harley Quinn to his Joker or the Catwoman to his Batman. He loved that she indulged his comic book obsession. He’d even convinced her to read a couple of them.

“I’d want to have a long tail and cute ears, though,” she complained after Riley had explained about Harley Quinn’s jester outfit in the animated series. “I don’t want bells. That’s it. I’ll have to be Catwoman.”