“How else should I look for Christmas, Austin?” I said, returning the gesture and leaning back. “Like I’m going to a funeral?”
A throaty laugh emerged from the far corner of the room, and I looked over at where Aaron was sitting in the corner in a chair with one foot crossed over the other as he nursed a beer. He waved at me, and I had to swallow at the way that his own dark green and charcoal striped shirt seemed to accentuate every single one of his muscles.
I swallowed loudly as I struggled to maintain a normal smile, not letting on how tense I was in the presence of these four men who each fascinated me in equal measure.
“Here’s your drink, dear,” Alice said, pulling my attention back to her as she handed me my cup. “Now sit with me and tell me everything about school. It must’ve been so interesting.”
“Parts of it were, but then there were parts of it that were so torturous I wouldn’t wish them on my worst enemy,” I said, sitting down and taking a drink as I heard the rest of the Kents and my own parents chattering around me.
I began to relax as I sipped at my drink, allowing myself to laugh and feel comfortable in the atmosphere in a way that I hadn’t in years.
Every minute that passed, though, I was still heartily aware of the men around me, and how I reacted to each one in turn.
12
ADAM
In a lot of ways, having Lucy there in the house with us was just the same as it always had been. Both families were chatting amongst themselves, and I was happily eating plate after plate of my mom’s incredible turkey with the chestnut stuffing that she was practically famous for county-wide along with the garlic mashed potatoes that I could willingly spend the rest of my life eating, even if I never got anything else.
At one point, Andy pulled a deck of cards from his pocket, and he and Austin immediately began to play a game of Crazy Eights at the coffee table as Lucy caught up with my mom, filling her in about the last decade and telling her all about what she’d learned in veterinary school. Both of my parents listened attentively, and I couldn’t blame them. It was hard enough for me to look away from her, after all.
Andy and Austin finished their game, hailing me over to join them at the coffee table. It took a little bit of persuading, but eventually we were able to get Aaron over to join us for a game of Bullshit.
I hadn’t exactly been thrilled at the prospect of playing this particular game; I’d never been very good at getting anything over on my brothers, and they’d always been able to see through my efforts to hide my emotions from them with no effort whatsoever.
“Jesus, Adam,” Austin said as he called BS on me for approximately the millionth time. “You really have the worst poker face of anyone I’ve ever seen.”
I turned to look at Andy, who was trying his best not to smile. “It’s true, baby bro. You really have to work on that. It’s like everything you think is scribbled on your face.”
I rolled my eyes as I dropped the enormous pile of cards on the table.
“I could’ve told all of you that,” our mom called from the corner. “Adam’s never been able to hide anything, not since he was a little kid and he tried to pin the blame for eating the Easter cake on Austin.”
Even I had to laugh about that, and, as if on instinct, my gaze was immediately pulled to where I’d last seen Lucy sitting.
She wasn’t there anymore, though, and as my eyes drifted around the room, I realized that she wasn’t in the living room at all.
Screw it, I said to myself, getting up from my kneeling spot by the table. “I’m going to go get another drink. You guys can split my cards; I bet it’ll be more entertaining for you three bullshitters.”
They chuckled a little, and I heard the occasional request for something as I got up and went into the hallway, walking down to the kitchen with my mug.
I hurriedly refilled my cup with the hot, spiced whiskey and headed out into the hallway, taking a second outside of the hot, crowded living room and looking around at all the photos that my mom had hanging up on the wall there. I took in a few photos of the four of us learning how to ride, Aaron lassoing his first horse and the proud expression on his face as our dad looked on, and Mom holding Austin on his lap on his eighteenth birthday and him simply surrendering into her embrace.
And right there, seemingly staring me in the face, was a framed picture of Lucy and me, sitting on the old bench that still lived on our porch. The two of us couldn’t have been more than thirteen, as evidenced by the old sweatshirts with our Junior High’s mascot on the front that we both wore, and the faint glint of metal shining off Lucy’s teeth. She’d gotten her braces off when we were fourteen, and I’d remembered staring at her for a good ten minutes after as she kept running her tongue over her teeth.