Page 56 of After the Snap

“If you already have their availability, why do you need me?”

“Because I need someone who can compare two lists without requiring adult supervision.”

“I’m sitting right here,” Tuck says.

Whit looks at him. “Exactly.”

Tuck considers that for a second before nodding. “Fair.”

Whit walks away before I can tell him I never agreed to help, dropping into the empty chair beside Archer and reaching for his laptop. I’m still standing there holding the schedule when Easton hooks his foot around the leg of the chair beside him and pulls it out. He doesn’t ask if I’m staying, just makes room as if he expects me to take it, and the moment I sit, his tablet slides in front of me.

“Great. Fix mine first.”

“What did you do?”

“I don’t remember what I signed up for. I was talking when I did it.”

“That explains everything,” Tuck says.

Unfortunately, it does. I’ve known Easton long enough to remember teachers waiting for him to finish whatever story absolutely couldn’t wait until after class. I shake my head and pull Whit’s schedule closer.

“Where’s the shared calendar?”

Easton scoots his chair closer and reaches for the tablet. “Here.”

His shoulder bumps mine as he taps through the team portal, and I shift closer so I can see what he’s doing. Sitting shoulder to shoulder while Easton shows me whatever I missed feels so familiar that for a second, I could be seventeen again, but a color-coded calendar fills the screen before I can linger on it.

“There.”

I take the tablet back and find his name on Whit’s schedule. “You signed up for the school visit on the eighteenth. You also have a sponsor event that afternoon.”

“I do?” His forehead wrinkles as I turn the tablet toward him, tapping the bright blue block taking up three hours of his afternoon.

“You do. There’s another school visit the following Thursday, and you’re free that afternoon. Want me to move you?”

Easton glances at the date. “Yeah, do that.”

“Now you can inspire young minds without blowing off whoever is paying you to smile for three hours.” I make the change, then switch back to the shared calendar. “How have you survived so long without supervision?”

“Charisma.”

“Callie,” Tuck says from across the table, already holding out his phone. “Do mine next.”

Tuck’s schedule is worse than Easton’s. He’s volunteered for one event during a team meeting and another on an afternoon already blocked for something else, giving me one problem after another to solve while the conversation moves on without waiting for me to catch up.

I came into this room expecting to help Whit and leave, but Easton’s tablet is still beside my elbow, Tuck has trusted me with his phone, and Sullivan is defending his right to emotionally devastate a group of children at a bowling alley while I find another date that works. Nobody is making a point of welcoming me or asking whether I plan to stay. They’re simply including me in whatever happens next, and at some point, I stopped waiting for someone to remind me I’m only here because of Dad.

Tuck leans over to look at his phone. “Did you fix it?”

“I’m working on it.”

“That sounds like a no.”

“That sounds like you’re about to get your phone back exactly the way you gave it to me.”

He retreats immediately, holding his hands up in surrender. “Take your time.”

A laugh escapes me, and I find an open date for his second event. “The twenty-fifth works.”