Love & Luck

by Jenna Evans Welch

  Ian flopped around dramatically, making my bedsprings squeak. “Mom is fine with us missing dinner for our important Student Athlete Committee meeting.”

  “SAC?” I spun around, my chair twisting with me. “Please tell me you did not sign me up for that.” SAC was a new and desperate attempt to repair our school’s reputation as having the most aggressive (read: mean) spectators in the state.

  Ian grinned his signature grin, the one that took over his whole face and let me know that something exciting was about to happen. “Don’t worry. I did not sign you up for that. Although if Mom asks, that’s where we’re going.”

  I let my pencil clatter onto the desk. “You know they’re going to make you do it, though, right? Ms. Hampton said they were going to recruit the school’s ‘most beloved student athletes,’ and I swear she was making googly eyes at you when she said it.” I placed my hand over my heart, doing my best impression of her shaky falsetto. “Ian, you shining star of perfection. Save us from ourselves!”

  He made a gagging face. “Please, please, please, can we not talk about football? I’ll be in the car.” He jumped up and thundered out, leaving a muddy body print splayed out on my white sheets.

  “Ian,” I groaned, looking at his imprint. But I grabbed my sneakers from under my desk and took off after him. Chasing after Ian never felt like a choice—it was like sleeping or brushing my teeth. It was just what I did.

  The Cliffs of Moher

  Every time a traveler goes to Ireland and doesn’t stop at the Cliffs of Moher, a banshee loses her voice. That’s right, sweet pea, a banshee. We are in Ireland after all. Shrieky ghosts abound. And as your tour guide and now friend, I’m required to tell you that one simply does not go to Ireland and not see the cliffs. They’re nonnegotiable. Required reading. They are the entire point.

  Here’s why. The cliffs are gorgeous. Breath-stealing, really. But not in the soft, endearing way of a sunset or a wobbly new lamb. They’re gorgeous like a storm is gorgeous—one of those raw, tempestuous ones that leave you feeling awed and scared at the same time. Ever been trapped in a car during a particularly brutal thunderstorm? The cliffs are that kind of beautiful. Think drama, rage, and peace all packed up into one stunning package.

  I studied the cliffs for years before I figured out their secret—the thing that takes them from merely scenic to life-altering: they’re beautiful because they contradict themselves. Soft, mossy hills turn to petrifying cliffs. A roiling sea rages against a serene sky. Visitors stand around in a combined state of reverence and exuberance. Before the cliffs I knew that beauty could be delightful and inspiring. After the cliffs I knew that it could also be stark and miserable.

  In fact, the cliffs are an awful lot like a certain heart I know. You know, the one that has managed to contain both splintering joy and shattering sorrow and still remain exquisitely beautiful?

  Not that anyone asked me.

  HEARTACHE HOMEWORK: Let’s unleash a little rage, shall we, pet? I want you to find something to throw. A rock? An annoying pigeon? Now name it. Give it the identity of the thing that is bothering you the most about this situation, and then let it fly. Sometimes a little rage is good for the system. After that, I want you to take a deep breath. And then another. Notice how the breaths just keep coming? Notice how they just take care of themselves?

  —Excerpt from Ireland for the Heartbroken: An Unconventional Guide to the Emerald Isle, third edition

  “NICE DRESS, SIS. YOU DOING a houses showing later?”

  I looked up from my book, fully intending to scowl murderously at Archie, but I made it only halfway before my energy fizzled, landing me somewhere between disgust and disdain. After the day I’d had, I just didn’t have any murderous left in me.

  Archie, being Archie, took my passivity for an invitation and did a sideways trust fall onto the sofa, launching me and the guidebook off in the process.

  “Archie, what the hell?” I growled, scrambling back into place and suddenly panicking over the fact that I was holding a book with the word “heartbroken” in the title.

  The book had all but jumped into my arms from the shelf of the tiny library off the hotel ballroom. The library was convenient for a lot of reasons. Along with providing a solid view of my still-raging mother, it smelled like a soothing combination of lavender and dust and was packed full of what appeared to be cast-off books from previous hotel guests. In other words, the perfect place to hide out.

  Ireland for the Heartbroken had caught my eye immediately. It wasn’t much to look at. The cover was decorated with heart-shaped clovers, and a coffee ring obstructed the too-long title. But the cover didn’t matter: I was in Ireland, and I was heartbroken. This book was my soul mate.

  “What are you reading?” Archie asked as I attempted to stuff the book behind the sofa’s cushions.

  “Little House on the Prairie,” I said, spouting off the first thing that came to mind. As a child I’d been slow to reading, but once I picked it up, I’d read those books until they fell apart. “Also, you shouldn’t jump on the furniture. I think this sofa’s an antique.”

  “This whole hotel’s an antique.” He gestured toward the ballroom stuffed with more antique furniture, glittery chandeliers, and precious crystal than I’d ever seen in my entire life.

  But even as a pretentious wedding host, Ross Manor definitely had a magical woodland cottage feel to it, thanks to the lush lawn lined with gnarled rosebushes and the freshly plumped pillows that sprouted golden-wrapped chocolates every night before bed. Even the caretakers were adorable—a white-haired wrinkly couple that were constantly in the process of ambushing guests with offers of tea and biscuits. Walter had dubbed them the garden gnomes. It fit.

  “How much would Dad hate this, by the way?” Archie said.

  “I’m so glad he’s not here.” Earlier this summer, when news of our aunt’s engagement had descended on our house like a particularly expensive swarm of bees, my dad had put his foot down fast and firm. Your sister collects men like other people collect shot glasses. I am not going to another wedding where we spend a week trying to re-create a fairy tale.

  I leaned forward, doing my quarter hourly Mom check. Right now she was walking around the ballroom spiffing up the floral centerpieces that an hour ago Aunt Mel had begun shrieking were starting in on a “slow dance of death.” There was obviously no room for slow dances of death. Not when ratings were involved.

  Five years ago my aunt Mel started a home design show that had been picked up by HGTV. That meant that on any given afternoon I could plop down on the couch with a couple of strawberry Pop-Tarts and watch her do one of her Thirty Minutes with Mel renovations, where she showed viewers how to turn an old pallet into a bookcase using just a screwdriver and a dried-up jar of nail polish. Or at least I think that’s what she did. I never seemed to make it all the way through an episode.

  Archie tilted his head toward Aunt Mel. “How do you think she tricked this one into marrying her?”

  “Clark?” I asked. Our new uncle was standing near the bar, swaying tipsily. Ever since they’d announced their engagement, he’d had the dazed look of a piece of driftwood caught in a persistent current. Par for the course. Uncles number one and two had had that look as well. I’d once heard my dad describe Aunt Mel as a riptide, which made my mom angry and my dad truthful. Mom only got mad when people were telling the truth.

  “Probably with her money. And easygoing ‘modern eclectic’ style,” I said, doing an Aunt Mel voice.

  “Yeah, but is that really enough? Mom told me she made him lose twenty pounds.”

  “And shave off his mustache,” I added.

  “Society should have made him shave off his mustache. It looked like he had a wet rat stuck to his face.”

  I laughed, my first real laugh in ten days, and it came out creaky, like a door that hadn’t been opened in a long time.

  Archie flashed me a smile. “Nice to hear that. It’s been a while. You’ve been kind of . . . depresse
d.”

  My mood tumbled back down again. He was right. Every time I somehow forgot what junior year was going to be like, Cubby suddenly appeared, landing on my shoulders and sinking my mood a solid three feet. Like now. How could I have been so stupid?

  “You and Ian do an adequate job of groveling?” Archie asked.

  I nodded, grateful for the subject change. “I did. Ian mostly just stood there scowling defiantly.”

  He groaned. “So in other words, being Ian.”

  “Exactly.” It was just like on the cliffs with the tourists. Me scrambling for an explanation while Ian played dead. At least this time he was upright.

  “Speaking of, where is Ian?” Archie asked.

  I lifted my chin. “Eight o’clock. Sitting in that throne-looking chair.” Ian had come up with the same survival strategy I had: find an out-of-the-way piece of antique furniture to camp out on and pretend you’re anywhere other than where you were. Except he’d been texting all night, his face stretched in an expression I could only describe as gleeful.

  “Is he smiling?” Archie said incredulously. “After everything that happened today? That kid is such a weirdo.”

  I bit my lip, fighting off my automatic instinct to defend Ian. That’s the way our family had always lined up: Ian/Addie versus Walter/Archie. We occasionally formed alliances, but our core allegiances stayed the same. Had I ruined that forever? “He’s been grinning at his phone ever since we left the cliffs. Whoever he’s texting, it must be good.”

  “Probably a girl,” Archie said.

  “Doubt it.” Every girl in the world was in love with Ian, but he rarely surfaced long enough to notice them, which left me to fend off all the wannabes who thought that getting close to his little sister was the certain way to his heart. Ha.

  Archie plucked at my sleeve. “Seriously, though, sis. This dress. You look like Miss Seattle Real Estate.”

  This time the glare came without effort. “Come on, Archie. You saw what happened to my dress at the cliffs. I didn’t exactly have a lot of options. I had to wear one of Mom’s.”

  “Didn’t she have anything less . . . realtory?”

  “Um, you’ve met our mom, haven’t you?” I said.

  “Briefly. She’s the one who’s always yelling at us, right? Short hair? Occasionally seen on billboards?”

  I shuddered. “We’ve got to talk her out of those this year.”

  “Good luck with that. Those billboards are paying my tuition.”

  “Football is paying your tuition. And Walt’s,” I pointed out. “And Ian is probably going to be the first college student in history to get paid to play. I’m the only one who’s going to need those billboards to help pay for college.”

  That wasn’t self-pity talking; it was truth. My brothers had used up all the natural athlete genes, leaving me to do my best with enthusiastic athlete. I was good, but not the star. Bad news when your brothers had shrines dedicated to them in the athletics hall.

  Archie’s face softened. “Hey, don’t give up on playing in college so soon. I saw huge improvements in your game last year. You definitely have a shot.”

  I shrugged. I was in way too wallowy of a mood for a pep talk. “Unless I blow it with Ian.”

  “You won’t. You’ll just be with Lina, and Ian will be . . . I don’t know. Being Ian.”

  Being Ian. It was like its own extreme Olympic sport. Music, football, school—all at a higher intensity than everyone else. “Do you have any idea why Ian wants to come to Italy with me? Because I don’t think he even likes Lina. She lived with us for six months, and he barely even talked to her. Is he just trying to torture me?”

  He shrugged. “Little Lina? I’m sure he likes her. She’s funny and kind of quirky. Plus, she has all that crazy hair. How long has she been gone again?”

  I wanted to say the actual number of days, but I knew that would sound neurotic. “Since the beginning of June.”

  “And she’s staying in Italy permanently?”

  My shoulders rounded in on themselves. “Permanent” sounded like a life sentence. “She’s staying for the school year. Her dad, Howard, is a serious traveler, so they go all over the place. In October he’s taking her and her boyfriend to Paris.”

  Lina’s boyfriend. Yet another thing that had changed. Over the past year, Lina had gone through a lot of changes, starting when her mom, Hadley, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. A familiar ache ignited in my throat—the one that always flamed up when I thought about Hadley. She had been special, no doubt about it—creative, adventurous, chaotic, and just the right amount of hovering to make you feel cared about but not smothered.

  Sometimes I felt like I’d experienced Hadley’s loss twice—once for myself and once for Lina. I’d been desperate to drag Lina out of the grief she was floundering in—to the point that I’d made myself sick with worry.

  I bit my cheek, fighting back old feelings of helplessness to refocus on Archie and the trip. “It makes way more sense that Ian would choose to visit all the castles and other sites you guys are seeing this week. Aren’t you going to the castle where Braveheart was filmed?”

  Archie perked up, just like I knew he would. Every single one of my brothers could recite that movie by heart. “We are definitely going to the Braveheart castle. Walt brought face paint so we can do some reenactments.”

  Oh, geez. Aunt Mel was going to love that. “See? Ian loves that movie. He used to fall asleep watching it. I think he’s coming to Italy just to bug me.”

  “Maybe he just wanted a little quality time with his sister.”

  “Right, because he’s been spending so much time with me this summer.” Archie rolled his eyes, but there was no arguing with my sarcasm. Ian had spent most of the summer locked in his room writing college application essays and driving around on mystery errands, his music blaring. And then I’d gotten involved with Cubby and brought our relationship to a standstill.

  Not to mention what happened at football camp.

  Suddenly, Archie shifted, his eyes boring into mine. “So, Addie, talk.”

  There was a serious edge to his voice, and my heart rate climbed to a rickety pace. “About what?”

  “What’s the deal?”

  “With . . . Ian?” I asked uncertainly. Please tell me he didn’t hear.

  Archie shook his head no. My heart clawed its way up to my throat, pushing my voice out in an angry burst. “Well, then I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Easy, sis. I’m not the brother you’re mad at.” He steadied me with his gaze. “I heard what Ian said. Before you pushed him.”

  My breath caught in my throat, and I scrambled, trying to remember exactly what Ian had said. How much could Archie have pieced together from one whispered conversation? “What did you hear?”

  “Are you in some kind of trouble? What does Ian want you to tell Mom and Dad about?”

  Archie doesn’t know what happened. I flopped back in relief. “I’m not in trouble,” I said quickly. So far that was the truth. As long as this thing didn’t spread any further than it already had, I was not in trouble. Embarrassed and heartbroken? Yes. In trouble? No. Which was why I was not telling my mom.

  Archie studied me, his head resting on his hand. “So, what? Does this have something to do with a guy? I’m guessing someone on Ian’s team from how pissed off he sounded?”

  Was that incredulity? My body tensed. “Why, you think it’s impossible that a popular football player would like someone like me?” I snapped.

  “What? No.” He held his hands up defensively, his blue eyes wide. “Addie, I didn’t say that at all. Why are you acting so strange?”

  Because my heart hurts. Because it actually is impossible for someone like Cubby to like someone like me. I kept my eyeballs glued to the green velvet upholstery, scratching my thumbnail against a tear in the seat. Tears burned hot in my eyes. “Did Mom and Walt hear?”

  He shook his head. “Mom was secretly negotiating a deal on her phone,
and Walt had headphones hidden under his hair. He didn’t even know you guys had gone over the side until everyone started freaking out.”

  At least it was Archie who had heard, and not Walter. Of all my brothers, Archie was the most normal secret keeper, as in he kept most secrets most of the time. It was the other two who were extreme. On the one end was Ian. The second you told him anything, he turned into a human vault—it was the reason I didn’t have to worry about him being the one to tell my parents about Cubby. And then there was Walt, the exact opposite. Any time he had a secret to keep, it was like a game of Hot Potato—he just had to throw it somewhere, usually dead center of wherever you didn’t want it to go.

  “If this guy messed with you, I’d be happy to pay him a visit on my way back to campus. Maybe just wait until he’s out in the road and do some distracted driving? Back out without looking behind me first? All I need is his name.” His tone had gone from his usual laid-back Archie to hyperintense Archie, which was rare.

  “No. Archie, I do not want you to run over anyone,” I said emphatically, just in case his half joke was half-serious.

  “You sure?”

  “Yes, I’m sure,” I wailed. “It’s not like it would fix anything.”

  “It would fix the fact that he’s messing with people he shouldn’t be messing with.”

  I put my hands on his shoulders. “Archibald Henry Bennett. Promise me you won’t do anything.”

  “You sure?”

  “Promise me!” I yelled.

  “Fine. I promise.”

  Oh my hell. Brothers. It was like having a bunch of guard dogs that occasionally turned on you. I was completely exhausted by this conversation. By this whole day. “Well, thanks for the talk, but I could use some time alone,” I said, tilting my head ungracefully toward the door. I’d learned long ago that hints get you nowhere with boys—or at least not with the ones I was related to. The more direct the better.

  Archie jumped gracefully to his feet and patted me clumsily on the shoulder. “I’m here for you, Addie,” he said.