you reading?” Edie asked, stepping closer. Older than all of us, Edie was often the one left in charge, and consequently, she could read us almost as well as our parents.
“A playbook.” I shrugged, joining her at the door.
She rolled her eyes. “Leave it to you to have football on the brain, even on Christmas. Is there anything that ever penetrates that thick skull of yours besides that sport?”
I just smirked at her. “Wait, what? There’s something that’s supposed to matter more?”
“Family,” she said instantaneously.
Which brought to mind her very absent husband, so I tossed back at her, “And where exactly is that deadbeat husband of yours?”
She flushed, forgetting the notebook, just like I’d planned, and turned away from me. “Garrett is with his grandmother. She needed him. She’s family, too.”
I’d hurt her somehow, and it made me feel like I was even more of an asshole than normal. I put the arm without the notebook tucked under it around her shoulders. “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for. I’m sorry he isn’t here with you.”
She pushed me away and gave me a weak smile. “It’s just one holiday.”
Her voice was confident, but there was a look in her eyes that wasn’t.
“Do I need to get some people together and burn the distillery to the ground?” I asked.
She laughed. “That would really put a kibosh on your football plans.”
“Only if we got caught.”
“Caught doing what?” Ginny asked as we rounded the corner.
“Setting fire—” I started and was cut off by Edie.
“Nothing!”
Edie punched me on the shoulder and then joined Dalton in the window seat that Ginny had vacated.
“What was that all about?” Ginny asked, frowning up at me.
I shrugged. “Not sure. Think there’s trouble in Gadie-land.”
Ginny grimaced. “Do you have to continue doing the whole ‘ship thing? It’s as if you live in a different decade than the rest of us.”
“When am I going to get to rename you?” I asked, because Ginny hadn’t had a boyfriend in a really long time. Long enough for mutterings to start behind her back about whether she was eventually going to come out of the closet. Ginny and I may not have been as close as we once were, but I was pretty damn sure I’d know if she was gay.
“About the same time you decide to turn in your bachelor card,” she teased.
But I didn’t smile back. I’d already turned in my bachelor card, happily, three years ago, to Maleena. But she’d shoved it back into my hand and run. Ginny took in my quiet nonresponse with wide eyes.
“Oh my God, I feel so bad for whomever she is.” She rolled her eyes. “Is it someone we know?”
“Not anymore,” I said, turning my back on her. “I’ll be right back, just need to run out to my car.”
I left her sputtering a nonresponse in order to put the notebook under the driver’s seat of my Roardrunner. I was determined to read it through, hoping it would help me find a way to be the man Maleena and the whole damned world seemed to want me to be.
Maleena
MERRY CHRISTMAS, DARLING
“But I can dream and in my dreams
I'm Christmasing with you.”
Performed by Carpenters
Written by Pooler / Carpenter
Dad, Mom, and Bess were laughing in the living room. They were waiting for me to come back from getting the glass of water I’d said I needed. But really, I just needed time. Time to ignore the phone call, the message, and the text that had followed. Like I’d ignored the ten others that had come before those.
“Did you forget where the glasses were or something?” Dad hollered at me, and I opened a cabinet to shake myself out of my funk.
We were playing a card game Bess normally played with her friends when they came over, but Dad had said he wanted to try it in a vain effort to connect with my little sister. The game was about werewolves and vampires, because Bess, having found an old copy of Mom’s Twilight Saga books, had recently become a huge fan of all things paranormal. Like, vintage Buffy, the Vampire Slayer shows. I loved teasing her about it, but in truth, she had a way more diverse set of interests than I’d ever had at sixteen.
I’d had one interest: football. I’d followed Dad around like he was a rock star from the time I could toddle. I’d carried his notebooks, watched all the game tapes, and majored in football in college. That was the joke, anyway. I wasn’t