He shrugged, then mumbled, “There were some days she was really scary. I had no idea what she’d do. Mostly now she’s… extra teenager-ish, I guess.”

He sighed, dramatic.

“It’s tough being the odd one out, isn’t it?” Amy asked. She was sitting on the short couch beneath the window, feet curled up beside her, a folded book in her lap.

“Really tough.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Amy asked.

“Nah.”

“You can reach out to us anytime,” Amy said.

“Okay. Thanks, I guess.”

He got up and pulled a controller out from under the television. He flipped the switches to turn the TV and console on, and it “Thwooomed” with the console’s startup sound.

He held out a controller, offering it to Amy and me.

“Reading,” Amy said. “Thanks though.”

“What game?” I asked.

“Q-bert Qart?” he offered. “Or Princess Run?”

“Are you offering that to me because I’m a girl?” I asked him.

“Crystal likes it, so I figured?”

“Dean likes it too,” I noted, recognizing the art on the box. “No thanks. Not really in the mood. I’ll watch.”

“I was just being polite anyway,” Eric said.

He loaded up a game and swiped two cards from the stack by the console before sitting down. The room was soon filled with music.

Amy took a second to pull a throw blanket down from the back of the couch and toss it over her legs and feet, before picking up her book.

I walked around the end of the couch, leaning over the arm, my head parallel to hers as I read over her shoulder.

“You’re distracting me,” she said. Her head moved, frizzy brown hair mashing into my face as she butted her head lightly into mine.

“Who’s Roaraxia?” I asked.

“Do you want to read this after I’m done?” she asked. “Emphasis on after?”

“Depends. Is Roaraxia cool?”

“She’s the bad guy, and yeah, I guess.”

“Is the good guy cool?” I asked.

“No,” Amy said, sighing. “Almost never, in books.”

“In your books, maybe.”

“It’s the appeal, isn’t it? Peasants, criminals, orphans, they get a chance and they become cool by the end of the book.”

I snorted, got up, and took my seat at the other end of the short couch. I stuck my feet out and wormed them beneath Amy’s blanket.

“Your feet are cold,” Amy told me, kicking me in the shin.

“So are yours,” I said, grabbing the corner of the blanket and pulling it away from her foot. “Now they’re colder.”

What ensued was like thumb wrestling, feet kicking at and pushing against feet in a battle for control. She wasn’t trying very hard, though, because she had her eyes on the book. The battle was less about the feet and more about me trying to get her attention as much as she tried to avoid giving it to me.