This Is Falling(94)

“I’m sorry, did I miss something?” Ty asks, his eyebrows pinched as he scratches the darned-near full beard he’s been growing for two weeks. Rowe looks up at me with her eyes wide; clearly her tone surprised her as well.

“Sorry, that…that came out harsh,” she says, pushing against my hip to sit up in front of me. “I just meant you should call; she’s missing you.” Her words have a strange smile on Ty’s face, and if I didn’t know any better, I’d swear he was blushing. “You should have invited her to come too, you know. She wanted to come.”

Ty just nods at her, his lips tight and his face reverent. “Yeah, I probably should have. I’m…kind of new…at this?” Ty shrugs and we all sit still, sort of soaking in what has suddenly become a strange serious environment for the three of us, which Ty, of course, is the first to break. “Anywho…gonna go see if she wants to have phone sex. So, goodnight all.”

Ty is gone for about fifteen seconds before he’s back, gently tossing Cookie in one hand, a sinister chuckle crackling in his chest. “Well, look what we have here,” he says, looking down at the small bear in his hand before he brings it up to his nose to take in its scent. He laughs a little louder when he does, and finally looks up at me, and then to Rowe, pointing at her. “You…you just got lucky there, sister. The dryer sheet…yeah. That was a nice touch. Might have just saved you a world of hurt,” he trails off, turning around and going back in his room where he closes the door.

“Your brother’s weird,” she says, leaning into me slowly.

“Yeah,” I say, kissing her cheek lightly. “But he likes you. And that’s not easy to do.” She shoves me, kinda hard, and I realize what I said. “I mean…getting Ty to like you. No, liking you is easy. Ah, fuck…I hate grammar. It’s always screwing me over.”

Rowe giggles, then slides to my lap and kisses me, and soon her lips—and the rest of her—is all I’m thinking about, and I’m pulling her from the couch, quietly tiptoeing away from my father, and the murmur of the television, to the lavender room—that she’s supposed to stay in alone, but to hell with that.





Chapter 28





Rowe





Eggrolls for Thanksgiving are my new awesome. Seriously. Awesome. I’m usually a sick kind of stuffed on this holiday, and it’s normally from mashed potatoes. But today, it’s eggrolls. The lasagna was good, too, but I think there’s a chance I may try to marry those eggrolls.

After our early dinner, Nate took me on a tour of where he grew up—driving us by his little league field, grade school, high school, and first girlfriend’s house. He even showed me the tree where he first carved into the trunk NATE LOVES STACY, and then came back a few weeks later and scratched it out with a pocketknife. Stacy, apparently, did not love Nate. He was twelve, and bitter.

After the tour, he gave me my first driving lesson in three years. I wasn’t awful, but I wasn’t good either. I stayed a good fifteen miles per hour under the limit and stuck to the side streets. At this rate, I should be driving by age thirty-five.

We spent the rest of the night watching old Christmas movies, like White Christmas and It’s a Wonderful Life. I got excited when Home Alone came on, and when Nate admitted he had never seen it, I forced him to watch it with me. I caught him laughing a few times.

At almost midnight, we’re the only two left awake in the living room, so Nate pulls a few logs from the pile in the corner and builds us a nice fire. I snuggle in between his legs as he sits on the floor with his back against the side of the sofa, putting us right in line of the fire’s warmth.

“Thank you,” I whisper, reaching my hands around his forearms, which are wrapped around me, and dipping my head to kiss his skin.

“For what?” he whispers back.

“For letting me have this…today, this trip—this time here with you. I don’t think I would have liked the Bahamas over Thanksgiving, and being here has sort of made me forget all about how my mom and dad are selling the house.” Truthfully, I haven’t thought about it once, and even talking about it now, it doesn’t hurt as much as it did when my parents first told me.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Nate says, squeezing me tightly to his chest, and resting his cheek on the top of my head. He holds me there for several minutes while we both stare blankly at the fire.

“Hey, guess what?”

“What’s that?” he asks, his lips brushing against the side of my head in the sweetest way, I almost forget what I wanted to say.