Shane laced his shoes at the bottom of the stairs, and glanced into the living room to check Dad and Jason were preoccupied with the telly before sneaking back into the kitchen, where Chloe was separating leftovers into plastic boxes.
“Hi, Shane,” she chirped, and glanced at his jacket. “Going out?”
“Mm. Sleepover.”
“Just you and Luke, huh?”
Shane smiled. “No. Girls and all.”
“Well, have fun,” she said.
“Chloe.”
“Hmm?”
“I know I’ve been a prick lately…”
She paused and glanced his way again, her white-blonde hair swishing gently around her face. She was only ten years older than Jason, and sometimes when she gave him that startled, wide-eyed look, Shane found it a little weird that if she and Dad kept going the way they were, she’d become his stepmother. And she wasn’t even thirty.
