#theforceisstrongwiththisone
WHEN CARMEN WALKS down the stairs, Jack and I inhale at the same time. The dark purple dress she picked for tonight is fitted on top, showing off her slender frame. The skirt flares out a little in that way that makes every woman feel like a princess.
“You’re pretty, Mama,” Jack says as she descends the last stair.
He’s giving her a gap-toothed grin, eyes wide and shining with happiness. This might be the best idea I’ve ever had.
I’m feigning illness tonight, and as my best friend, I told Carmen she needed to do me a solid and go to the Firefighters’ Ball with my brother.
I did it because she hasn’t gotten dressed up for a night out in years, and I know this will be good for her. I can tell I was right by the way she’s looking at herself in the mirror hanging above my couch.
“So this is what makeup is like,” she murmurs. “I’d forgotten.”
She runs her hand over her hair, which I styled in long, smooth waves. I love her for being so devoted to Jack that she doesn’t worry about dating, makeup, or hair, but I also love that she’s getting a night to be the beautiful woman she still is.
This is working out for both of us, because I’m not up for a night out. It’s been a week since I spanked Ben and stopped messaging RoughRider. I’m finally feeling okay again, and I no longer think about reading the unopened messages from him on an hourly basis.
“Did you order the pizza, Cici?” Jack asks me.
I smile at his use of the nickname he hasn’t used in a while. When he was a toddler, he couldn’t pronounce “Sienna,” so he started calling me “Cici.”
“Yep. One extra large Giordano’s with extra cheese.”
“What movie are we watching?”
“You pick,” I tell him, sitting down on the couch with a bag of chocolate-covered almonds.
“Rogue One. But we can’t start it until the pizza gets here.”
“Wanna play slapjack while we wait?”
Carmen interjects, a hand on her hip as she eyes us. “Sienna, you don’t seem all that sick. This isn’t a fix-up, is it?”
I arch my brows with surprise. “No, absolutely not. I’d never fix you up with Coop. He’s a total player.”
“What’s a player?” Jack asks me.
“It’s . . . someone who loves board games.”
“Cool.”
Carmen clears her throat. “You’re not sick, though. What’s this about?”
I give her a serious look and put a hand on my throat. “I told you, my throat hurts. I definitely need to take it easy tonight.”
“Mmm-hmm.” Her expression is skeptical.
“Just have fun, okay? Dance and drink and . . . be merry. All that good stuff.”
She looks at her reflection in the mirror again. “I’ll try.”
When the doorbell rings, she jumps. I get up from the couch at the same time she turns to go open the door. She wobbles on one heel and then falls down, landing on her ass with a surprised squeal.
“I can’t do this,” she mutters. “Do you know how long it’s been since I wore heels?”
“You’re fine.” I reach down to help her up. “Just lean on Coop all night. He’s a sturdy guy.”
She gives me a pleading look as she gets to her feet. “Promise me he doesn’t think this is a date. I’m not up for a date.”
“I swear, Carm. In fact, I told him he’s in deep . . . excrement if he tries anything with you.”
“What’s extrement?” Jack asks.
“It’s . . . yucky stuff.” I wrinkle my nose and walk over to the front door, throwing it open.
Both Coop and the delivery guy from Giordano’s are standing on the front porch.
“You buying me dinner?” I ask Coop with a grin.
“What the hell, may as well.” He reaches for the wallet and passes the delivery guy several bills.
“Hey, thanks.” The teenager arches his brows, apparently impressed with his tip.
I take the giant box, and Coop comes inside.
“Hey, you’re looking pretty okay,” I tell him, surveying him up and down.
He’s wearing a tuxedo, his dark hair a perfect mix of messy and in place.
“Thanks. Can’t say the same for you.” He side-eyes my Pillsbury Doughboy pajama pants, which have the words “This Is How I Roll!” all over them. They’re a perfect match for my baggy, threadbare Chicago Bears T-shirt.
“Jack’s my date tonight, and he thinks I look amazing.” I set the pizza box on the coffee table and flop down on the couch.
“Wow,” Coop says softly.
I look between him and Carmen, my internal alarm sounding. I did not like the sound of that “wow.” His eyes are wide as he keeps taking her in. She’s blushing . . . blushing! I’ve never seen Carmen blush like she is right now.
Jack opens the box and reaches for a piece of pizza, oblivious to the visual foreplay happening just a few feet away.
“All right, you crazy kids!” I say, clapping my hands together. “Go enjoy your completely platonic evening together.”
Coop tears his gaze away from Carmen and locks eyes with me, challenging me for just a second before he sees that I’m completely serious. I’m silently telling him—again—that I’ll never forgive him if he messes with my best friend’s emotions. She’s fragile. He needs to find his one-night stands elsewhere. Carmen is my family.
His nod is almost imperceptible, but it tells me everything I need to hear. He’s going to respect my wishes.
Coop reaches into his jacket pocket and takes out a small box. Carmen smiles when he opens it and takes out a tiny corsage of white flowers.
“Ha! I get your corsage now,” she says to me with a grin.
“I picked this out just for you,” Coop says as he slides it onto her wrist. “Got it on my way here, and I already knew you were my date.”
Carmen’s smile slides away, and the blush returns. “It’s so pretty. Thank you.”
“I want to see, Mama.” Jack gets off the couch and bounces over to admire the flowers.
“What’s this in my other pocket?” Coop looks confused as he reaches in and pulls out something shiny. “Ah, that’s right. This is for you, Jack.”
Jack’s mouth drops open when he sees the shiny gold firefighter’s badge. “For me?”
“Yep.” Coop gets down on one knee to pin it onto Jack’s Darth Vader pajama top. “A bunch of the guys saw you in action when you came to the station for that tour. Your siren-blaring and hose-holding skills were the best we’ve ever seen in a kid your age. We want you to be an honorary firefighter.”
Jack grins and looks up at Carmen. “It has my name on it, look!” He runs his finger over the letters on the badge.
I have to close my eyes to hold back the tears clouding my vision. Flawed as Cooper Mills may be, I love him fiercely, and this is why.
“Let me grab a picture of you two real quick,” I say, clearing my throat to get rid of the lump there.
Coop stays on one knee, and Jack puts an arm around his neck. Their smiles make me tear up again. If only things were different. If only there were even a chance Jack could beat the horrible disease he has.
I try to live in the now and feel the joy, but bitter anger starts to creep in. It’s so unfair that this beautiful boy, so full of light and happiness, will never reach adulthood.
“Take one of me and Mom too,” Jack says.
Carmen smiles brightly for the photo, giving me the mental reset I needed. If she can be in the now, so can I.
“I can keep this, right?” Jack asks Coop.
“Absolutely. But if you do, it means you have to come by the station to have dinner with us sometimes. Make sure you’re wearing your badge so everyone knows you’re one of us.”
Jack nods eagerly. I meet Coop’s gaze with a grateful look.
“Ready?” He offers Carmen his arm, and she takes it.
I get up to close the door behind them and lock it, and then I settle in on the couch with Jack for pizza, Star Wars, and snuggles. It’s the first time since I stopped communicating with RoughRider that I feel completely content.
The sound of the front door opening makes me stir. I can barely make out Carmen’s outline in the dusky light.
I fell asleep curled up in a chair in the living room, and my neck aches when I move to get up. Instinctively, I look over at Jack, who’s snoring on the couch, to confirm he’s okay.
“Hey,” I whisper to Carmen. “What time is it?”
“Uh . . . four thirty.” She’s holding her heels in her hand and tiptoeing over to the stairway.
“A.m.?” I whisper-shout.
“Yeah. I’m going to bed.”
I walk over to her as quietly, yet quickly, as I can, my heart pounding. “What did he do? Did you guys sleep together?”
She looks down. “No.”
“If you did, tell me.”
Carmen tips her face up to meet my gaze. “We didn’t. He never laid a hand on me. We went to the ball, and it was great. Then we went to a diner to eat, and after that, we just walked around and talked.”
“Until four-thirty a.m.?” I narrow my eyes skeptically.
“Yes, Mom. Now let me get some sleep before Jack wakes up.”
I wave dismissively. “I’ll take him out for breakfast and the park or something. Sleep late.”
“Thanks.” She turns to walk upstairs.
“Why do you look sad?”
Carmen sighs and doesn’t turn around. “Can we not talk about it right now?”
“I guess so . . . but I’m gonna call my brother and ask him what he did if you don’t tell me.”
She turns to face me. “He didn’t do anything. Just—” she puts a hand up “—back off for now, please?”
“Okay. But I’m here if you need me. Don’t feel like you can’t bitch about Coop to me because he’s my brother.”
She gives me a half smile before turning away and walking upstairs. I go back to my chair, where I can keep an eye on Jack, and after an hour of restlessness, I finally fall back asleep.
Much later that morning, Jack and I are walking back from eating at a restaurant a couple blocks from home when we pass some kids playing in a small, fenced-in yard. Jack gives them a longing look, which tugs at my heart.
He played with kids at the park for more than an hour before we left there to go eat a late breakfast, but I know it’s not the same. The kids in the yard are laughing and are clearly familiar with each other. Jack went to kindergarten last year and will attend first grade starting soon, and he misses his friends.
“Are you all set for school to start?” I ask him.
“Yeah.”
“You guys got all your supplies and stuff, right?”
He nods. “All I need is new underwear.”
“You want some princess underwear?”
He laughs and wrinkles his nose. “No, Cici . . . I want Star Wars. They didn’t have that kind at the store Mom took me to.”
“Ah. I wish I could have some Star Wars underwear.”
Jack laughs louder this time. “They don’t make Star Wars underwear for grown-ups.”
“I know.” I sigh heavily. “I wish they did, though. I’d want Han Solo on mine.”
“And Luke Skywalker?”
“Definitely him too. And Jabba the Hut.”
“Not him!” Jack giggles and gives me a look that tells me he thinks I’ve lost it.
“No? You don’t like him?”
“He’s a bad guy.”
“True. I guess I wouldn’t want bad guys on my drawers. Bad mojo and all.”
“You’re funny.”
I grin down at him and take his hand to cross the final intersection before home. When I look ahead at our block, I see a cluster of people out in the street. I squint and see that many of them are dressed in white.
“Something’s going on up there,” I murmur.
Keeping Jack’s hand in mine, I watch the group, and my heart pounds a little as we get closer. The people wearing white are dressed as Stormtroopers from the movie Star Wars—and there are a couple dozen of them.
“What’s going on?” Jack asks, looking up at me.
“I don’t know, sweets.”
When we’re almost back to the brownstone, someone in the group seems to recognize Jack, because the Stormtroopers move into formation in the middle of the street, which is closed to traffic. And just when I think it can’t get any more surreal, Darth Vader takes his place in front of the group and the song “Uptown Funk” starts to play.
It seems to be some sort of flash mob, and Jack is beside himself with excitement. Carmen is sitting on the front steps, grinning from ear to ear, and Jack runs to sit in her lap and watch the performance.
They’re good, and the image of Darth Vader dancing and swinging his light saber to the song is too funny not to laugh at. The Stormtroopers all keep pace behind him. Neighbors are standing outside watching the performance, all of them smiling.
I take out my phone to record the rest of the dance, also getting footage of Jack in Carmen’s lap, both of them obviously delighted. She rests her head on his, looking joyful and blissfully unaware she’s wearing pajama pants, a T-shirt, and a messy bun.
When the song ends, the Stormtroopers all stand in perfect formation, and Darth Vader approaches Jack.
“Jack Elliott?” he asks, his voice a deep, authentically filtered version of the real Darth’s.
“Yes, sir.” Jack looks up at him, his eyes wide and awestruck.
I realize that in his little mind, this is the Darth Vader, and it melts me.
“Your father sent me,” Darth says. “He loves you very much and said you’ve got the heart of a Jedi.”
“My dad? You know my dad?” Jack’s smile is wide.
“Yes. Remember that the Jedi are always with you in your heart. Will you do that?”
Jack nods and Darth touches the top of his head before standing, giving a flick of his hand to the assembled Stormtroopers and leading them down the street. The neighbors who were watching clap and cheer as the Stormtroopers slow-jog in formation.
Neighbor kids approach the front steps, all of them wowed by what just happened and dying to know how Jack knows Darth Vader.
Carmen lets him enjoy being swarmed, and she walks over to me with an incredulous look.
“Did you do that?” she asks me in a whisper.
“No.”
“I haven’t heard a peep from Danny in almost four years . . .” Her voice is nearly inaudible so no one but me can hear. “Do you really think he could have . . . ?”
“It sounds like it.”
She smiles, her expression softening. “Jack’s going to have some great stories when school starts, between that fireman’s badge and this.”
I hug her and hold up the brown paper bag in my hand. “We brought you some of those banana walnut pancakes you like.”
“You’re amazing.”
“So are you.”
She furrows her brow. “Do you think maybe . . . Coop did that?”
“One way to find out.” I take out my phone and press the button to call my brother.
After a few rings, he answers in a pissy, sleepy tone. “We didn’t do anything, I swear. We walked and talked, that’s it.”
“I know. I was just wondering if you set up the flash mob that just happened in front of my house.”
“Flash mob?” he asks, irritated. “I had to stop by the station after I dropped Carmen off, and I’ve only been asleep for an hour. Are you fucking with me right now?”
“No. Go back to sleep. Sorry I woke you up.”
He grunts and hangs up.
“Wasn’t him,” I tell Carmen. “So I guess Danny did set it up.”
Carmen wraps her arms around herself and smiles. “For all he’s done wrong, and there’s plenty . . . that meant everything to Jack.”
We walk inside, and Carmen lets Jack talk to the neighborhood kids alone on the porch. She keeps watch the entire time from the front window, of course. But still, it’s the most normal moment he’s ever had with the neighbor kids, and that means as much to me as it does to Carmen.