take her hand and pull her closer, she draws it back. She stays next to me, but keeps her back ramrod straight. Her eyes are closed when she asks, “You have a ride from the station?”
The train is pulling in. Our ride is over.
I’m partially relieved. I’m partially let down.
“Paisley’s picking me up.” Damn it.
“Paisley?” Toni tucks her scarf neatly into her coat, looking like the put-together New York City PhD student she is. “Of course, she drives now. In my head, she’s still fourteen and obsessed with getting her braces off.”
“She got them off. Come by and check out her teeth. They’re incredibly straight.” I grin at her, and I love the way she draws a quick, sharp breath in.
“Not a good idea. At all. I think this…” She gestures to the empty train car, suddenly bright now that we’ve stopped and all the lights are up. “This was a good way to excise what needed…” She rolls her hands. “You know…everything that needed to get out.”
“You’re sure that’s everything?”
I’m playing with fire. I’m tired, I’m hung-over, hell, and maybe I’m still drunk. I’m about to face the family I betrayed, and I have yet to text the friend whose heart I crushed. But this slice of time with Toni felt like the best visit back to my past I could have hoped for.
And I don’t want it to end yet.
She hesitates a few beats, then pulls her phone out and hands it to me. I grab it so fast, I almost drop it, type my number in, and send myself a text message.
“You still eat disco fries?” I hand her phone back and she looks at the screen for a few seconds too long.
“Um, yeah. I mean, if we can go to The Queen. Even the best diner in New York City doesn’t do disco fries like The Queen.” She scrunches her face up like the next words hurt. “But maybe no? No. Yes, no it is. This was good enough, Landry. This was what I needed.”
She steps out the open door onto the platform, and I step after her, but I catch her wrist before she can get too far away from me.
“Disco fries at The Queen. That will be everything. Full circle, right?”
Her face falls a little, and I feel like a total dick. Full circle might be a pretty hurtful journey down memory lane for Toni. I wasn’t on my best behavior the last time we were at that little diner. But she’s not that timid girl from my past anymore. She raises her big, brown eyes, sweet but brutally assessing, and nods at me.
“Full circle. Okay. Call me. I guess.”
I watch as she walks over to her car and gets in, not even giving me a backward glance as she pulls away.
The quick, sharp honk of a horn makes me jump.
“Landry! C’mon! It’s late and it’s freezing!” Paisley’s head is leaned out the rolled-down window and her hand is waving me over to her beat-up Volvo.
I jog to the car and I slide into the passenger seat, glad for the full blast of the heat blowing from the vents. She leans over and grabs me hard and tight in a hug.
“I missed you so bad, Landry.”
I turn so I can crush my kid sister in my arms. Her curls smell like strawberries, the way they have since she was a tiny thing.
“I missed you, too, kid.” My voice catches on the words.
I kissed Toni a few minutes ago, now Paisley’s in my arms. The best parts of home have crashed into me, full bore.
Now I have to go and face the downhill slide the rest of this damn holiday is sure to provide.
Chapter 5
“Jesus, Paisley, slow down.”
I push on the dash with my boot and death-grip the door handle as Paisley takes the turn on the icy road going about twenty miles faster than she really should.
“Landry, it’s fine. I drive down this road every single day,” my little sister says.
She lets out a light laugh and casually grips the steering wheel at the bottom with one hand while she twirls her hair around the other. I know she’s just stating a fact, letting me know she’s long memorized every curve and bump in this road, but it still feels like a dig about me never being around anymore.
And if Paisley’s off-the-cuff remark feels like a dig, I can only imagine how bad it’s going to be when I talk to Dad.
“How’d Mom and