Chapter 22Cato
In the car on the way home, Cato talked about lots of things: the cake, their sisters, babysitting, Izzy’s foster home and how she was allowed to have her phone after her homework was done and before bedtime—a nine-thirty bedtime for a teen, wasn’t that ridiculous?
Cato did want to tell Roy all those things, but they weren’t the things he wanted to say right now. He turned the pink-gold ring round and round on his finger and babbled.
He kept talking when they got home, leading Roy upstairs by the hand, as if a break in the flow of words would let Roy escape.
Roy listened with a slight smile, but not the wide one that made his eyes crinkle, the smile that always made Cato feel as if he’d accomplished something and the smile was his prize.
“I heard what you said, about me
