score.”
She giggled and the noise sounded out of place in my current state of misery. The bartender came back and set her tall glass down in front of her and two more shots in front of me.
“So, what are we drinking to?” She looked up from under her thick, dark bangs.
“To all the people I want to forget.”
Pathetic? Possibly.
Honest? Absofuckinglutely.
“That’s not very Christmassy.” Mila raised both eyebrows and pursed her lips at me.
I shrugged, trying so hard to stay glum, but the way she was looking at me pulled a smile from somewhere deep and dark and cheerless. I raised my drink to hers.
“Cheers,” I said, tapping my shot glass to her drink with a clink.
“Cheers.”
Mila smiled that seductively sad, empathetic smile that, by the end of the night, had me pouring my heart out, asking her to be my roommate, and actually believing in Christmas miracles.
Because somehow, for some reason I couldn’t put my finger on, that cool-as-shit, albeit nerdy-as-hell, girl just walked into my life and gave me hope that, deep down, I might actually be okay.
And I was. For a long ass time.
Mila and I moved in together and had this rad, platonic, easy, uncomplicated thing going. I opened the shit-hole bar with my money alone, cutting corners where I needed, and making a shoestring stretch to its last thread when I had to. And it didn’t matter how hard it all was, because I was actually doing it. I was officially not as big a fuckup as I thought I might be.
And then, tonight, I’d gone and fucked it all up.
For what?
A fucking kiss?
If I was that hard up, I could’ve just taken the redhead home. Why did I have to cross the line with Mila?
***
I’m on my third lime-soaked Mule when my phone vibrates on the other side of the bar. I slide off of the stool and stumble across the room, which slants a little too much to the left. I have to grab onto the bar top for stability. I stare at the screen of my iPhone, but everything is too hazy, and I can’t make out the name.
“Hello?” I slur.
“Landry? Oh, thank god you answered!” The female voice squeals a little too loud for my alcohol-soaked eardrums.
“Paisley?” I haven’t talked to anyone from home, not even Paisley, my favorite sibling, in over a year. Not since I left town and never took a single look back.
“What’s up, old man? I know, I know. You probably forgot you even had a sister.” She tries to come off as casual and sarcastic, but, even though I’m drunk as shit, I can hear the hurt jangling in her voice.
“Is everything okay?” I grip the phone tighter, while guilt and worry tangle low in my gut.
Paisley was always a little less stable than my brother and me. She always needed a little more attention. And I was usually the one person she’d turn to when things got rough.
I’d pulled the rug out from under her when I left. And now, even though her voice sounds cheerful enough, I have a feeling something’s not quite right.
“Sort of. I mean...I don’t know. I just...” she fumbles over her words and I don’t have the patience to sit and drag it out of her.
My guilt and shame makes my words lash out harsher than I intend them to. “Paisley, just talk. What’s going on?”
She pulls a long breath in and lets it whoosh out before she rushes her plea. “I really need you to come home. Like, now, Landry.”
“What’s going on?” The beginnings of a liquor-soaked headache are taking shape in my skull. This one’s gonna be a brain-bruiser, and I pull out the tomato juice so I can get started on a counteractive Bloody Mary before I’m completely useless.
“I just really need you here. Tonight. Please.” The last word is a tiny poisoned dagger stabbed in my ribs.
I break off a stem of celery and mix my red drink, my little sister’s voice needling at my shriveled-up heart.
“Paisley, there’s no way I can drive out there tonight.” I could barely make it across the room to answer my phone, so driving is pretty much out of the question.
“So take the train,” she suggests. I rub my hand across the scruff of my cheek and let out a loud sigh. She must sense my annoyance, because she throws in a pathetic little, “Please.”
I owe her this. It’s one tiny request. She’s my sister. I shouldn’t make her beg me