“You doing okay?” she asked, waiting for him to complain about it.
“This is great,” he said after a big swallow. “I want this kind next time. Me and Ethan can share a big pizza.”
“Sounds good to me,” Ethan agreed. He smiled at Laura, and she couldn't help but smile back. It felt so natural to have him there. He felt like the missing piece of their world. She felt like they were a family when he was around.
The thought of family nearly made her choke. She coughed to remove the pizza from her throat. She'd been with the guy maybe a week, and she was already ready to have him be family? She should know better than that.
“You okay?” Ethan asked, reaching over and patting her back as she coughed.
“Yeah, just the wrong pipe,” she replied, reaching for a glass of water. Ethan smiled at her before turning back to Dallas to talk about their pizza some more.
Yet, the thought stuck with her. Ethan felt right in their world. She was probably just reading too much into things. She usually didn't bring her boyfriends by for her siblings to approve, or at least she didn't before their parents died. Maybe that was why it was working. They'd just never met any of her boyfriends and would have liked them all this much.
“So what movie are we watching tonight?” Ethan asked, leaning back in his chair and wiping his face with a napkin.
“The ninja one!” shouted Dallas.
“The princess one!” yelled Ivy.
Laura shook her head. This was the nightly debate. The few times they actually agreed on a movie was when they had a brand new one. They still had five or six new ones from their sick day, so there was very little chance of agreement.
Ethan got up and went over to the movie pile. He thought carefully before picking one out of the stack.
“How about this one? It's about a girl from Hawaii,” he said, holding up the animated movie case.
Both kids looked skeptical.
“It has a princess, kind of,” Ethan said. “And it's got this guy that can change into any animal he wants. Oh, and it has the ocean in it.”
“The ocean is your selling point?” Laura asked from across the room. She shared her siblings' skepticism.
“The ocean is totally a selling point,” Ethan told her. “The ocean is awesome. Haven't you ever played tag with the ocean?”
All three of them shook their heads in unison.
“We've never seen the ocean,” Ivy informed him. “We were going to go to Florida next year, but...” She trailed off and shrugged.
“You two have never seen the ocean?” he asked, looking baffled.
“No,” Ivy replied. “There isn't one nearby. I've seen a really big lake though. That's kind of the same thing, right?”
“No. Not even close,” Ethan replied, shaking his head.
“I've seen Lake McConaughy in Nebraska,” Dallas said proudly. “It had waves and stuff.”
“That's not the ocean,” Ethan said. “How have you not seen it? Laura, you've seen the ocean, right?
“I saw it for the first time when I went out to California for the Christmas party,” she replied. “I went to the beach by the hotel.”
He looked at her and shook his head. “That's terrible ocean. That's not even the good ocean. Did you go in?”
“I went up to my knees,” she replied. “Until someone came by and told me I couldn't do that there.”
Ethan put his head in his hands. “How have you three never experienced the ocean? That's terrible.”
“We just don't live near one,” Laura told him. “You'd think we’ve never seen the sun the way you're acting.”
Ethan just looked at her like that might be the case.