Chapter Seven

Delia's POV

My brother and Madison were acting like complete freaks around each other. Even my dad noticed, and he only sees them for like 5 seconds when he comes to pick me up from Nonny and Grandpa's house, because Ephram still won't speak to Dad. I asked Dad why they don't speak to each other, but he just said it was complicated. Ephram said that it was nothing to do with me.

Madison wouldn't tell me why she and Ephram were acting insane and refusing to look at each other. She just said it was nothing. But c'mon, I'm 12, not an idiot. I was pretty sure that they were both in love with each other but they were convinced the other one didn't feel the same way. They kept looking at each other when the other one was looking the other way. It was actually kind of romantic, like in this movie that I watched at Brittney's house. It was about this girl who was in love with her best friend, but didn't know he was in love with her too. It was a good movie, but it was kind of gross because it was an R and they ended up having sex. Plus there were a lot of curse words in it that were way bad.

But anyway, they'd been acting like this for weeks. It was kind of funny to watch, but not really. Then Ephram remembered that it was almost Madison's birthday. She was going to be 22, which is like 10 years older than me. Ephram decided to throw Madison a party.

"Is this for her birthday, or so you can make up for whatever you did?" I asked.

"You just assume it was me?" Ephram tried to look all offended, but it was kind of hard because he was feeding Mac at the time and he always looks like a mushy dork when he's feeding her. "It's just a birthday party. She hasn't exactly had the best year."

"So, who you gonna invite? Because it's going to suck if you just have your friends there."

Ephram's POV

For once Delia was right. "I was going to call her friend Mindy and get her to organize it. She did it last year, and except for the whole Madison breaking up with me the next day, it was a good party."

Delia just laughed at me. Not that I blamed her, because I was being kind of pathetic. It was just that I loved Madison so much, and then we'd kissed again and it was great. But it was a mistake and now Madison barely looked at me. I just wanted to say sorry.

I called Mindy the next afternoon. I had to steal her number from Madison's cell but I guess that's kind of a tradition for us.

"Hello?" a voice answered.

"Um, hi. Is this Mindy?" I sounded like such a dork.

"Yeah, who is this?"

"It's Ephram Brown, Madison's..."

Mindy interrupted me. "Jailbait! Hey! How's it going?"

"Pretty good. Look, I know it's kind of weird me calling you. It's just that it's Madison's birthday in a couple of weeks."

"Yeah, I was thinking about that. I thought about a party again, but I don't know. Wouldn't that be kind of weird?"

"Why?"

"I don't know? Wouldn't it be kind of odd for her, just acting like nothing's changed in the last year. I don't know, what about like an all day thing. Like a lunch for all her friends."

"Like kind of an indoor barbeque?"

"Kind of. Just hanging out, some beers, some food. Then everyone could meet the adorable little girl Maddy never stops talking about."

I couldn't help smiling. "Sounds good."

"I'll call everyone and sort everything. You'll have to get Maddy out of the house again. You live with your Grandparents, right?"

"Yeah. I'll talk to them."

"That would be great, but can I have your home phone number? I guess I'll have to talk to them too at some point."

It actually turned out to be pretty easy to organize everything. Mindy talked to Nonny and then together they took care of everything. It was actually kind of scary.

I was pretty amazed that it managed to stay a secret though. Nonny invited Delia and even she kept her mouth shut. The only thing that almost went wrong was that I almost didn't get her back in time for the party. I took her shopping at the mall, to buy some new clothes for Mac and Madison didn't want to leave.

Madison's POV

I was kind of pissed that Ephram wanted to leave the mall at 11. We'd only been there for three hours and as the mall is an hour away it kind of sucked. Mac was growing so fast now that we ended up buying her new clothes about every month. I got over being pissed when I got home though.

I couldn't believe that they'd managed to throw surprise parties for me two years in a row. I guess Mindy and Ephram make a pretty good team. It was so great to see all my friends again. I hadn't seen most of them since I left Everwood when I found out I was pregnant. The only one I'd seen recently was Mindy, who had visited me a couple of times in the hospital. None of them had met Mac.

They all crowded around Mackenzie and I don't think she'd ever had that much attention in her 4 month long life. Ephram handed me a drink and went back into the kitchen, away from all my friends. I followed him.

"Thank you Ephram." I kissed him on the cheek. I wanted to do so much more, but I stopped myself.

He smiled. "Don't thank me. This was all Mindy and Nonny."

"Sure. Mindy just happened to phone up your grandmother out of the blue." I paused. "I'm sure you had more to do with this than you'll admit, so thank you anyway."

"Well, whatever. But hey, this is more fun for me than your birthday last year."

"That sucked for me too. But hey, it's a year later. We're friends now and we're doing ok as parents." I didn't add that I was more in love with him now than I had been a year ago.

"We're great parents. Well, most of the time anyway. So get back in there and show off our girl to your friends." Our girl. I hadn't heard him say that before, but I like it.

"You have to come too. C'mon."

"Are you kidding? Your friends scare the crap out of me. Besides, Mindy insists on still calling me Jailbait. Do you want to explain to Delia what felonies you committed to give me that nickname?"

I just rolled my eyes and left him in the kitchen.