“It’s not for you.”
“Yeah, well, that’s tough turnips because I’m coming.” She whipped off the apron and tossed it on the counter they’d so fully desecrated. “Just give me a couple of minutes to get dressed.”
“Kylie—”
“I’m coming, Justin. Deal.” She walked out of the kitchen before he could argue anymore.
Fifteen minutes later, she was in the passenger seat of his Jeep and staring out at the endless white landscape whizzing past her window. She had no idea where they were headed, and she wasn’t about to ask him. He was spookily silent, his gloveless hands wrapped around the wheel, his jaw like granite. She couldn’t even tell if he was breathing. He’d gone somewhere in his head, and she wasn’t invited.
She turned on the radio, just to fill the cabin with something other than the words neither of them were saying. A cheerful Christmas classic rolled out of the speakers, somehow highlighting how fucked-up everything had become.
Their perfect afternoon had shattered two days in a row. Either they had extremely sucky luck or maybe she was just fooling herself that anything could ever be perfect between them for very long.
Maybe they were both too screwed up or their timing was off. Either way, they couldn’t keep jumping back ten paces for every two they took forward.
“You didn’t have to come,” he said, his voice in a monotone.
She shifted on the seat, trying to find a position that didn’t sting quite as much. She’d been worked over more vigorously in the past, but he’d definitely made her a little sore. Pleasantly so. “No. You didn’t have to take me in either, but you did. You didn’t have to take care of me and make me laugh and make me co—”
“Don’t.” His hands flexed around the wheel as he hissed out a breath. “What I did doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Says who?”
“Your tears said it pretty clearly.” He still wouldn’t look at her.
She rubbed her forehead. All of a sudden a nasty headache was brewing at her temples. “So you know why I was crying then?” she asked tiredly.
“I think it was pretty obvious, Kylie.”
“Apparently not, since you haven’t said one right thing in the past hour.”
“Excuse the fuck out of me.” He jabbed the button to change radio stations. “Let’s just not do this now, okay?”
“So now I’m a this. We’re a this.” She pressed her cheek against the cool window and found it didn’t do a thing to settle her temper. “Good to know.”
“Do you know where we’re going right now?” he asked, his voice brutally quiet as he made a hard right onto yet another isolated country road.
She didn’t know where they were for sure. All she could see for miles was dark and snow and more dark.
“How would I? You haven’t seen fit to tell me.”
“Every holiday I call my mom. I don’t know why, since she usually doesn’t seem like she wants to talk to me. She’s either busy or about to take a nap or a million other excuses that don’t change that I’m way down her list of who she wants to hear from on holidays or any other time.”
She waited, twisting her hands in her lap.
“I called her tonight, and she didn’t answer. I called three times.”
“Maybe they went out?”
“With my stepfather? Doubtful. Now that he’s retired, he’s a homebody through and through.” He rolled his shoulders as if he were shaking off his tension. If only it were that easy. “I need to make sure she’s okay. If I don’t and something’s happened, I won’t be able to live with myself.”
“Okay.”
He cast her a sidelong glance, his surprise evident in the quirk of his mouth. “That’s all you have to say?”
Did he honestly expect her to argue with him? “Yeah. That’s it. You have to make sure she’s all right. You’re her son, and you love her.”
“Sometimes I don’t know why I do,” he muttered.
“Because she’s your mom. No matter what.”
He let out a breath, shaking his head. “Yeah. But if she’s okay, she’s not going to be glad to see me. You don’t need to be there for all that. You shouldn’t be.”
The pang in her stomach was just hunger pains. Sure it was. She hadn’t gotten dinner after all.
It wasn’t because he thought he needed to keep her at arm’s length, except when it came to sex. Even then he didn’t believe he could be himself with her. Not for more than a few minutes at a time. Afterward he brought up his walls even thicker than before.
“I’m your friend. Friends are part of each other’s lives. Or at least they should be. If they aren’t, if you don’t want them to be, you might as well get a blow-up doll and stick it on your couch.”
His mouth curved for a moment. “Blow-up dolls are less trouble. No arguments there.”
“Is that all you want? Less trouble? An easier life?”
He glanced at her, his eyes so dark in the faint glow from passing streetlights that they might as well have been sinkholes. Resistant to light, refusing to let any back out. “You know it’s not.”
She wished she had the nerve to rip into him for always assuming the worst, both with her and apparently with his mother, but the guy was clearly hurting. She didn’t want to cause him any more grief—she wanted to alleviate it.
If he pushed her away, she’d have to prove to him she would stick around this time. Not like in college when she’d been so eager to lace up her own running shoes.
She’d changed a lot since then, and even if this didn’t turn out to be the love affair of the century, she’d be his friend. No matter what.
She reached across the console and touched his wrist just beyond the sleeve of his jacket. He whipped his gaze to hers, and she held her own steady. “Our deal was we’d spend Thanksgiving together. It’s not over yet.”
But when it was, would they be too?
Trying to ignore the bubbles of fear brewing in his gut, Justin strode up the walk to his mom’s home. The difference tonight was that he was cognizant of every step Kylie took beside him.
They hadn’t spoken for the last few miles, and he figured that was probably a good thing. His tendency for making things worse every time he opened his mouth didn’t bode well for heartfelt chats. At least not tonight.
Maybe not ever.
His mother’s house—not his parents’, since he’d never think of that bastard as his father—sprawled out like a well-lit haven in the dark. Warm. Inviting.
Fake.
He tucked his bare fingers in the pockets of his jeans as he hurried up the snow-encrusted steps to the front stoop. It seemed like every damn light in the place was on. They’d already decorated for Christmas, and old-fashioned, multicolored bulbs encircled the railings. A real fir wreath with a big velvet bow hung on the door.
Hell, it was practically the perfect scene for the Cleaver Christmas version 2.0. Which would’ve been fine, had he trusted any of it to be real.
He didn’t.
All the shrinks in the world could tell him his stepfather was “cured,” and he wouldn’t believe it. As far as Justin was concerned, the man was a ticking bomb, apt to explode at any time.