Even the silences between them were comfortable. It wasn’t awkward. Just comfortable. Mouse still tried to keep from looking at him too much, constantly reminding herself that he was going to catch onto her if she kept being so damn obvious about things. What had ever happened to pushing the feelings down and just playing things off? She’d been doing a pretty good job of it until then, and having all that work ruined in just one afternoon was definitely not her intention. Because if he asked why she was looking at him the way that she was, Mouse was more than sure that it would just be the beginning of something bad. She would have to admit how she felt and fully deal with the fact that he didn’t and wouldn’t feel the same about her. Things would be ruined. It was better to be close to him as a friend than to not be close to him at all, she was more than sure of that. And if just being the “little sister” for the rest of her life was the only way to keep him close, Mouse was prepared to do exactly that.
She took another couple bites of the sandwich, tucking her hair back when a breeze blew a few stray strands into her line of vision. The question about Spotter breaking his arm broke the little bit of silence. “Yeah, I was there. The ‘clumsy Spotter’ bit is about half-true. I guess you can blame the other half on ‘boys being boys’ or something like that.” She shifted a little bit so that she was more fully facing him. “He and Dash were playing like normal with some of the other kids. I think they were playing Cops and Robbers or something. So when I found them goofing off, the ones that were the Cops told me that nobody had told them what chores they were supposed to do. I figured that was a lie.”
She took a second to tuck her hair back again. “Anyway...I was going to give them something to do and I had my back turned for all of two seconds before I heard what sounded like a struggle. So I turn around and Dash is up a tree yelling, ‘I tagged you, I tagged you! You’re out!’ while Spotter was yelling, ‘Nu-uh, you cheated!’. They were rough-housing up in a tree. And before I could tell them to get down, Spotter was falling backwards off the branch while Dash was trying unsuccessfully to catch him. So it’s kind of both of their faults.”