to you too, seeing as how you know all about the crap I have going on, and you’re right. It is hard. We both care about Shade, so that’s a common interest at the very least. I…err…I don’t know. I just can’t let it become anything more than that. Okay?”
“Yes, I agree, and you’re right. I’m sorry. Maybe it is the whisky. No, it’s definitely the whisky. I never drink. I don’t know why I did it.”
“Because you’re fucked up, it’s a fucked-up time, and everything is fucked?”
“What happened to the chicken nuggets?”
“Fuck ‘em.”
“Yeah.” Luke sighs. “Everything is fucked. It is. But while I’m still buzzed and having extreme lapses of judgment, can I convince you to—”
“No!” Why do guys never get the message? Are they just completely deaf? I just said I wasn’t going to—
“I was going to ask if you’d like to play a round of racing with me. Shade’s asleep, and I could use a good game with a lackluster competition I can easily beat.”
“Thanks. Thanks for that.”
He grins at me. This might be the first actual smile I’ve ever seen from Luke, and it’s like someone plunged a red-hot blade that simulates instant ovulation, straight into my ovaries. I feel buzzed as if I had some of that whisky. I feel…I feel like I’m riding some strange kind of high. Like an afterglow kind of high, except I didn’t have the after or the glow. Maybe I’m glowing.
“Okay.” It would be smarter to go to bed. Tonight’s already been the wildest, craziest, and most bizarre night of my life. Other than when my parents had the talk about me marrying a total stranger because that was also pretty weird. “Yeah. Alright.”
Luke sighs like he’s relieved. “Maybe Christmas isn’t so bad after all. Thank you for the gifts you picked out for Shade, for covering for me when you weren’t sure if I’d get the job done, for the tree and the decorations and the rice, and…and everything else, for picking up the groceries, chicken, and the beer for the chicken, for not letting the opossum die, for all of Shade’s smiles today, and especially for not getting weird tonight when I told you all that stuff about Brittany. Just…thank you.”
I’m pretty sure I’m as fire red as a fire-roasted tomato. “I can’t take much credit for the opossum. He was actually fine the whole time.”
“For all of the other stuff, then.”
“Okay.” I feel strangely warm, and the glow is back. It’s an inner glow, something I haven’t felt before. I’m scared Luke might be able to see it, so I powerwalk straight into the living room and grab the controller. I park hard on the far side of the couch since I know Luke hates sitting there because he’s complained many times about how he can’t see the TV properly. “You’re welcome,” I grind out. “For the rest.”
CHAPTER 14
Luke
Well, at least that’s one more Christmas done and over with. I can live with being absolutely exhausted and going through the motions of putting Shade to bed like I’m a damn robot. Lucky for me, he falls asleep after page two. I gently tuck his quilt around him and place a kiss on his forehead. I do the same thing every night, whether he’s awake or not.
I linger in Shade’s doorway for just a few seconds before I turn out the light and pull the door almost all the way closed.
Feeney’s room is just down the hall. I don’t have to pass it on the way to mine, but I do have to use the washroom. Actually, no. No, I don’t. I just want to go and stand at her door for some inexplicable reason I can’t even begin to fathom.
What the hell happened last night in the kitchen? An arrangement was the plan, the idea—what I thought could work. I wasn’t supposed to just blurt it out after no time at all had passed. No wonder she looked at me like I’d lost my mind. She was right. It was the whisky I gulped down. Or maybe it was the beer in the chicken too. Dear god, Shade ate the chicken. No, I’m pretty sure the beer just made the meat moist. I’ve cooked it before, and nothing’s happened. I learned last night that whisky is a terrible idea. I knew it was all along, but whatever happened was just further proof.
I walk slowly to Feeney’s room. I know I should tell her I’m sorry for