Twelve different shades of red blotch Ryan’s cheeks. He doesn’t even look at my ass, but at my uncle. “Okay…yes, I asked her out.”
Scott does a double take. “You asked her out?”
Hey now. Why’s he surprised? I’m not a dog.
“Yes,” says Ryan.
“You wanted to take her on a date?”
Uh-oh. Scott sounds happy. No. I’m not going for happy.
“Yes.” Ryan holds out his hands. “I thought…I thought…”
“That I would be easy?” I snap, and Scott winces.
“That she was funny,” Ryan says.
Yeah. I’m sure that’s exactly what he thought. “More like you thought it would be fun to screw with me. Or just plain screw.”
“Enough,” hisses Scott. His narrowing blue eyes rage at me as I thrust my hands in the stiff pockets of the new jeans. Scott lowers his head and pinches the bridge of his nose before forcing that fake relaxed grin into place. “I apologize for my niece. She’s had a rough weekend.”
I don’t want him to apologize for me to anyone. Especially not to this arrogant ass. My mouth drops open, but the brief white-trash glance Scott gives me shuts it. Scott becomes Mr. Superficial again. “I understand if you don’t want to help Elisabeth at school.”
Ryan has this blank, way too innocent expression. “Don’t worry, Mr. Risk. I’d love to help Elisabeth. ” He turns to me and smiles.
This smile isn’t genuine or heartwarming, but cocky as hell. Bring it, jock boy. Your best won’t be good enough.
Ryan
THE WALLS OF OUR KITCHEN used to be burgundy. As kids, Mark and I would race home from the bus stop and when we’d burst into the kitchen we’d be greeted by the aroma of freshly baked cookies. Mom would ask us about our day while we dunked the hot cookies in milk. When Dad came home from work, he’d sweep Mom into his arms and kiss her.
Mom’s laughter in Dad’s arms was as natural as Mark’s and my constant banter.
With an arm still wrapped around her waist, he’d turn to us and say, “How are my boys?”
Like Mark and I didn’t exist without each other.
Thanks to the renovations Dad finished last week, the kitchen walls are gray now. And thanks to my brother’s announcement and my father’s reaction to the announcement this summer, the loudest sound in the kitchen is the clink of knives and forks against china.
“Gwen came to your game,” says Mom. It’s only the third time she’s mentioned it in the past twenty-four hours.
Yeah, with Mike. “Uh-huh.” I shove a hunk of pot roast into my mouth.
“Her mom said she still talks about you.”
I stop mid-chew and glance at Mom. Proud for earning a reaction from me, she smiles.
“Leave him alone,” Dad says. “He doesn’t need a girl distracting him.”
Mom purses her lips and we enter another five minutes of clinking forks and knives. The silence stings…like frostbite.
Unable to stomach the tension much longer, I clear my throat. “Did Dad tell you we met Scott Risk and his—” psychotic “—niece?”
“No.” My mother stabs at the cherry tomato rolling around in her salad bowl. The moment she spears the small round vegetable, Mom glares at Dad. “He has a niece?”
Dad holds her gaze with irritated indifference and follows it up with a drink from his longneck.
“I gave you a wineglass,” Mom reminds him.
Dad places the longneck, which drips with condensation, next to said glass right on the wood of the table—without a coaster. Mom shifts in her seat like a crow fluffing out its wings. The only thing she’s missing is the pissed-off caw.
For the last few months, Dad and I have been eating our dinners in the living room while watching TV. Mom gave up food after Mark left.
Mom and Dad began marriage counseling a few weeks ago, though they have yet to directly tell me. The need to project perfection won’t allow them to admit to a flaw like their marriage needing help from an outside source.
Instead I found out the same way I discover anything in this house: I overheard them fighting in the living room while I lay in bed at night.
Last week, their marriage counselor recommended that Mom and Dad try to do something as a family. They fought for two days over what that something should be until they settled on Sunday dinner.
It’s why I invited Mark. We haven’t had a dinner together since he left and if he’d showed, maybe the four of us could have found a way to reconnect.
I wonder if Mom and Dad feel the emptiness of the chair next to mine. Mark possessed this charm that kept my parents from fighting. If they were annoyed with each other, Mark would tell a story or a joke to break the chill.
The arctic winter in my house never existed when he was home.
“Yeah, he has a niece,” I say, hoping to move the conversation forward and to fill the hollowness inside me. “Her name is Elisabeth.
Beth.” And she’s making my life hell—not too different from suffering through this dinner.
I tear a biscuit apart and slather on some butter. Beth embarrassed me in front of Scott Risk and I lost a dare because of her. I drop the biscuit—the dare. A spark ignites in my brain.
Chris and I never set a time limit on it, which means I can still win.
Mom straightens the napkin on her lap, disrupting my thoughts. “You should be friendly with her, Ryan, but maintain your distance. The Risks had a reputation years ago.”