before he can really get rolling.”
* * *
I take the long way home. It’s cold, but the roads and walkways are mostly dry as I wind my way from the Loud Lizard to our cozy west-side neighborhood. Zack’s Jeep is already in the drive, and all the lights are on. I push open the front door to a deceptively quiet house and prop my board against the back of a closet. My glasses immediately fog up at the temperature change, and I swipe them up on top of my head to deal with later. I could get contacts, but it feels like the cold freezes them to my eyeballs when I board. I’ve tried Lasik. It worked for about a minute, and a year ago, I was back in glasses because of my super-healing, super-broken eyes. I’m a medical wonder of devolution.
Shrugging off the rest of my things, I pile them by the door with all the various winter paraphernalia before heading to the kitchen where my mum is cleaning up after dinner. I walk over to the stove and pick up a slice of cold pizza off the stone and eat it while propped against the island.
“How’d the podcast go?”
I swallow and shrug. “Good. Cullen’s got to work his magic, obviously, but we should have enough material.”
My mum grins, scrubbing at the counter. Her blue-black hair is pulled back in a barrette, but loose strands fall in front of her eyes. She tucks them away, turning to me. “Cull filled me in on the Teen Wolf kiss, marry, kill. I’m with him. Derek all the way; he’s scrumptious.”
“Gross. He’s at least twenty years younger than you are.”
She gasps, feigning hurt, flicking me with her towel. “Take that back! He can’t be more than fifteen years younger, tops. He’s got that beard!”
“And now we see where Cullen gets his taste.”
She resumes her scrubbing with a wink from behind her thin wire frames. “Well, he certainly didn’t get it from his father, or Zachary would be out of luck.”
My brother is the hashtag pride and joy of the family. Not that I mind. Could have been utter shite. Can be, even at school and stuff. But with a beatnik former British punk rocker for a dad and liberal studies professor for a mum … let’s just say we wear our rainbows face-out in this family, and Zack’s upgrade from best friend to best friend and boyfriend of their children was welcomed with wide open arms.
It’s a tangled web we weave at the Greenly house, and all threads lead to Zack. The only one not impressed with him is our cat, and that’s because she only tolerates humans on principle.
I grab another two slices of pizza, one for each hand, and head for the door to the basement. “Everyone downstairs?”
“Yeah.”
I hesitate at the top of the basement stairs. It’s not that I don’t love hanging with Cullen and Zack … it’s fine, but … together, they can be a lot. Usually, Zack’s like me, quieter and pretty nerdy when it comes to music and the internet and the BBC Sherlock Holmes fandom. But I would be lying if I said things didn’t change after Cullen and Zack started throwing around the L-word and losing their collective virginities.
They’ve officially crossed over into something decidedly apart from me. I’m thrilled for them but also completely left behind.
Like, the two people in the world who know everything there is to know about me love each other, and I can’t be sure at any given moment they aren’t discussing me. I’ve gone from one meddling brother to two.
I’m still hovering, undecided, when my dad pops his bleached-blond head around the wall. My dad’s pushing fifty, but like Paul Rudd, you can’t really tell. He can’t either, to be honest. He still wears enough metal in his ears to set off the detector in the airport, and I come by my preference for leather jackets honestly. In the right light, you could almost imagine my dad onstage cussing out the patriarchy. You could just as easily see him carving a coffee table out of a single piece of driftwood. He’s a versatile fella in his early retirement.
“Oy! You coming down?”
“You watching The Eighties on CNN again?” I counter. Because of course he is.
“Fine, fine. I left my ale on the counter. Be a lad and toss it down?”
Mum points to the unopened bottle on the island. I exchange my slices for the beer, and, staring my dad