by Alyssa Cole
“All-in,” I said, trying to sound normal as I pushed my chips in to everyone’s relief. I glared at Gabriel and moved my knee away from his questing fingers before John or Maggie noticed.
“Wise decision,” he said, placing his cards facedown on the table and pushing his huge stack of chips next to my puny one. “Too bad you’re going to lose.”
He unbuttoned the cuffs of his shirt as he spoke and rolled the sleeves up, exposing the smooth skin of his wrists and forearms. I’d never noticed how incredibly sexy a man’s wrists could be until that moment. My tongue darted out to moisten my lips as I imagined licking him there, from his palm to his elbow.
My nipples tightened at the thought, and I squirmed in my chair. When I chanced a look at Gabriel, he was looking down at me with that hungry look again.
“Show what you got, people,” Maggie said impatiently. I flipped my cards over to appease her and reminded myself that this was her night. Whatever was going to happen between Gabriel and me would require a more private setting, anyway.
“Full house,” I said, hoping I had the terminology right. “So...I win?”
Gabriel flipped his cards over, revealing a measly two pair.
“You were bluffing!” I laughed, grabbing at the chips that were now mine.
“I felt sorry for you,” he said, with a shrug. “Or maybe I just wanted to see you smile. You’re probably the first person I’ve met who hates losing more than I do. You’ve been scowling for an hour straight.”
“I’ve seen Arden cheat at a game of Candy Land. Against a five-year-old,” John volunteered, refilling everyone’s glasses with the last dregs of the red wine. Maggie frowned when he skipped over her glass. “What’s next on the agenda?” he asked her.
“A concert,” she said, sounding a bit nervous.
I squeezed her hand. “You’re gonna be great.”
She nodded, but something in the way she carefully hid her face behind her bangs seemed off. She didn’t meet my eyes before she excused herself to go to the bathroom for the third time since we’d started playing, but I chalked it up to teen moodiness combined with the wine. And she probably missed her folks. I certainly missed mine.
I followed John and Gabriel to the stage area Maggie had set up. John took the La-Z-Boy, and Gabriel glanced at me.
“I have good memories of that chair,” he said in a low voice, and I flushed thinking of the massage he had given me there. We sat on the remaining love seat. I tried to leave room for the Holy Ghost between us, but Gabriel threw his arm along the back of the couch. His hand smoothed over my hair and settled across the pillow at my back, his long fingers resting on my shoulder. I knew he’d had only a small amount of wine, primarily because John was hogging the bottle, so this open affection wasn’t alcohol-fueled. I allowed myself to revel in the thrill of that for a moment.
“‘Freebird!’” John shouted in his imitation of a hippie, and I reached for one of the tea candles and waved it in the air.
“‘Stairway to Heaven!’” I shouted back.
Gabriel just looked between us and shook his head, but he settled his arm behind me more comfortably.
Maggie came rushing back into the room, visor-free and visibly less nervous about playing. She slung the guitar strap over her shoulder and struggled a bit to free her long hair, her movements a little ungainly, before she struck a rock star pose amid our hoots and applause. Her eyes were glossy and a bit unfocused as she tuned the guitar.
Unease stirred in my stomach. Maybe Gabriel had been right about the wine. She’d only had a little though, hadn’t she?
“This first song is for Mom and Dad,” she said, and I pushed my worried thoughts aside. “There was a Beatles album they would play all the time at the store while they worked, and sometimes when this song came on they would do a silly dance we’d made up, called the Octotwist.”
She launched into a serviceable rendition of “Octopus’s Garden”, which should have been jaunty and fun but had a melancholy air to it, the way she sang it. Her voice was low and smoky over the not-quite-perfect notes of the guitar, creating an original and haunting sound. I couldn’t help but feel a selfish twinge of pride. Our hours of practice had really paid off.
The room vibrated with suppressed emotion brought up by this ode to their parents, and again I found tears pressing at my eyelids. Maggie’s face was carefully hidden by her bangs, but when she played the last note she flipped them away to reveal red-rimmed eyes and a tight smile.
John, Gabriel and I broke out into a raucous applause, although no one asked her to play the song again. It would have been too much for our hearts. Luckily for us, she launched into lighter fare: a Coldplay cover followed by a Nirvana cover that showed the Unplugged album still held sway over teens everywhere.
“And my final song tonight will be ‘I’m Sticking with You’ from a band called The Velvet Underground. I don’t know anything about them, because I don’t have access to Wikipedia, but Arden taught me this song and I think it’s cute.”
Her voice rang out high and singsongy, just like we’d practiced, and my fingers followed along on air guitar as if I could will her to play the right notes. The song was short and sweet, and she played it perfectly. When she took her bow, I jumped up and hugged her, feeling like a proud stage mom.
“That was freaking awesome, Maggie!” I said with a smile matched in brilliance only by the one I received from her in return. Her cheerful side resurfaced for a moment, lured out by our ovation.
“Really?” she asked. “You don’t have to say that just to be nice.”
“Do you think I’d lie to you?” I asked in jest, but she looked at me for too long before replying with an unconvincing, “I guess not.”
Something wasn’t right. I wasn’t a paranoid person, but Maggie was acting strange. I chalked it up to the fact that she’d spent the entire day in a manic state trying to make everything perfect for us and was probably crashing. I hoped that was the reason for her subtly erratic behavior.
“Now you play something, Arden,” John called out, pointing at me with his empty glass. “Play that song I like.”
“Maybe tomorrow.” I stepped away from the makeshift stage. This was Maggie’s moment. “Is there any baked ziti left?”
“I want to hear you play,” Gabriel’s deep voice rang out from the couch. “I’m the only one who hasn’t caught a performance yet.”
That edge of command in his tone that had initially driven me crazy now made me want to jump into his lap, but even that wasn’t enough to change my mind.
“No, guys. Let’s play another card game,” I said. “Bridge, maybe? Pinochle?”
“Come now, Arden,” John said. He had pulled out his Roman orator impersonation, which meant he really was drunk. “We demand entertainment!”
Maggie moved away from me, pulling the guitar strap over her head and thrusting it at me. “Here,” she said, all laughter gone from her voice.
“I don’t think I’m up to it tonight...” I began, my feelings in a whirl. I didn’t want to steal Maggie’s thunder, but I didn’t want to make such a big deal out of not playing that she felt condescended to. “Why don’t we do a duet?” I asked, placing my hand gently on her shoulder.
“If they wanted a duet, they would have asked for one,” she said tightly as she shrugged my hand off and went to sit on the sofa. She looked up at me with a petulant expression on her face and I sighed at the unfairness of it all.
“Well, go on,” she said, and John and Gabriel nodded, completely unaware that a sixteen-year-old girl was having her thunder stolen at their bidding. My buzz had been completely killed by the strange vibe coming from Maggie, but at this point the longer I put off playing, the more she would resent me. Best to just get it over with.
“One song,” I said. “A short one.”
“The one I like!” John repeated his demand. “It’s like a lullaby.”
I began strumming the simple notes to “Sea of Love,” high and then low
, glad that he hadn’t asked for something more complicated than the songs Maggie had played. The words came then, and I was caught up in the thrill of hitting the right note, of harmonizing with the guitar. As good as it felt to perform, I kept the vocal theatrics to a minimum.
I glanced out at my audience. John swayed along to the music, Maggie sat stiffly on the edge of the sofa and Gabriel stared at me so intensely that I nearly lost my place. It was a simple song, but I couldn’t help but feel that Gabriel’s gaze added an additional weight to my words. I looked away from him, staring at the floor as I sang, but it was too late. John had requested the song because it comforted him, but I was singing for Gabriel now, whether I wanted to or not. Worse, everyone else knew it too.
As the last note of the song vibrated in my throat, my gaze met his and I was consumed by the unhidden desire blazing in their amber depths. Something between us shifted and reformed as we stared, like paper folded into origami. There was lust in his eyes, that was for damn sure, but there was a tenderness underlying it that filled me with a simultaneous hope and fear I’d never experienced before. In that moment I wanted everything from him, and he looked as if he was prepared to give it to me.
Maggie stood and stomped out of the room, swaying on her heels. Her abrupt exit broke our reverie, making me realize that there had been no applause when my song ended, just a loaded silence.
“Should I go see what’s wrong with her?” John asked boozily from his seat. “And maybe give you two a moment alone?” He didn’t move though, simply took another sip of wine before realizing that his glass was still empty.
“I’ll go,” I said, hurrying up the stairs after her. I wasn’t exactly thrilled to be walking willingly into teenage drama queen central, but perhaps the night still be could be salvaged. More selfishly, a powwow with Maggie would give me a moment to collect myself away from Gabriel’s knowing gaze.
“Maggie?”
Her door was cracked open, but I knocked before pushing it open. Either she didn’t hear me or she didn’t care because I found her sitting on the edge of her bed with a small minibar bottle of vodka in her hand. She gulped it down, grimaced and threw it to the floor, like someone who’d learned how drunk people acted by watching old sitcoms.
Well. That explained a lot.
“Why don’t you go back down to your boyfriend?” she said when she finally acknowledged my presence, her tone jeering. “It must be nice having a boyfriend who isn’t dead.”
She was a mean drunk. Awesome. I was used to Maggie being cool with me, if not showing outright adoration, and her angry words stung. I scrambled to find the right thing to say to her, the thing that would counteract her vodka-fueled anger. She had only mentioned Devon a few times, and though it was plain that she’d been smitten, I hadn’t given much thought to how his loss on top of that of her parents would affect her. I obviously should have.
“No, I think I’ll hang out with you for a bit,” I said, closing the door behind me. “It sucks that you can’t contact Devon, but there’s no reason to think he’s dead. We’re still alive. Why wouldn’t he be?”
“Because his family was poor and didn’t have a stockpile of food sitting around like we do,” she snapped before sniffling and sinking down onto her bed. “I just miss him so much. I feel so alone here, and I never felt alone when I could talk to him. Or my parents. I could talk to them about almost anything.”
I’d dealt with many a drunk during my stint at the pub, and her abrupt switch from mad to maudlin was textbook. “You have your brothers,” I reminded her.
“Whatever.” Her vulnerability disappeared with a curl of her lip. “It’s not like they’d want to spend time with me if this disaster hadn’t happened. They probably wouldn’t even care if I left now. Why would they when they’ve got Arden the magnificent?”
I heaved a breath, remembering why I usually steered clear of teenagers and drunks, who had similar anger management skills. I tried to think of what my mom would say in this situation. She was good at comforting people, and even a good-for-nothing daughter like me had learned something from her over the years. She would always manage to respect your feelings but also point out the bullshit in your argument.
“Come on, Maggie. You might be mad right now, but whether your brothers care about you isn’t something that’s up for debate, and you know it,” I said as I carefully picked my way across her room. The room was messy, like any teenager’s, and it wasn’t until I stepped over a pile of clothes that I noticed it peeking out from under the bed. The smooth wood grain of a baseball bat. The familiar notches in the grip, the burn mark from an unfortunate incident at a barbecue.
My Louisville Slugger.
“Where did you get this?” I reached for it slowly, hoping it was some kind of hallucination and my fingers would pass right through it. Unfortunately, they closed around maple wood, solid and familiar.
She jumped up unsteadily. For a second, her face was blank with shock, but then her brows drew together in anger. “Ugh, of course you would find it. What are you going to do, rat on me to John and Gabriel?”
“No, I’m going to keep talking to you until we figure this out. And I’m going to ask again—where did you get this?” Dread writhed in my stomach. Any answer she gave was going to be the wrong one. “I left this behind when I came here. I left it in the clearing where we were attacked.”
I was startled by the way her eyes narrowed at me. I knew she was drunk and upset, but it hurt how she looked at me as if I was a stranger, as if we hadn’t shared hours of laughter and kinship.
“Those were my footprints by the bodies, okay? I heard you and Gabriel talking that night, when you told him not to go, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it...that those guys might have attacked my parents too. I knew Gabriel wouldn’t let me go, or do anything helpful ever, so I snuck out that night.”
My stomach twisted viciously at the thought of her outside in the darkness alone, where men like Blue Hat and his friend were eager to hurt someone. Of her rummaging among corpses for clues that would lead her to her parents’ whereabouts.
“Maggie, something awful could have happened to you,” I said, my voice so thick with emotion that it barely eked out above a whisper.
“Something awful already happened to me. In case you missed it, the world is ending and my parents are gone,” she said. Her words were a little slurred, but her tone was as sharp as a shard of ice. “You know, I planned this entire night to show Gabriel I could be responsible, but he didn’t even notice because he was too busy looking at you. When I heard you tell Gabriel not to leave the other night, I thought you did it because you cared about us. But now I think you just wanted him here because you’re selfish.”
Selfish? My body tensed as if trying to ward off a physical blow. I reminded myself that she was just a drunk kid, but her words were too close to what I actually thought of myself. “Maggie, that’s not true,” I said, trying to modulate both my voice and my emotions as tears stung my eyes. Did she really feel this way about me? “I care about all of you—”
“No, you don’t care about us,” she said, her voice rising and her insults gaining momentum. She wasn’t listening to a word I said. Her inhibitions were gone and she was reveling in her drunken fury, directing her anger at the most convenient target. I knew how delectable that feeling could be; I’d been a champion spleen-venter myself back in my boozehound days. “You didn’t want him to go because you didn’t want him to find anything. I bet you hope our parents don’t come back. You hope they’re dead because your parents are probably dead, and you want us to be just as miserable as you are!”
I gasped and grabbed my chest. There was an opening in even the most well-crafted armor, and she had just landed a direct hit on a vital organ. Her words unlocked the thoughts about my parents I’d been hiding from since I’d arrived here. That they were dead, and they’d died knowing what a terrible daughter I’d been to them.
Something about my reaction had a sobering
effect on her. Her eyes opened wide and she began shaking her head, her imbiber’s remorse already setting in. “No, no, I didn’t mean that. Arden, I’m sorry, please...”
Her words of regret poured out quickly, as did the tears now wetting her reddened face. She stumbled toward me, seeking the comforting forgiveness of my touch, but I turned from her and ran.
My face felt too hot, and the pressure that welled up in my sinuses and throat made swallowing painful. The kimono swirled around my feet, threatening to trip me, but I made it down the stairs and through the kitchen to the back door. I wrenched it open and slammed it behind me before falling to my knees in the snow.
Only then, in the darkness of the winter night, did I let the tears come. Huge, hiccuping sobs racked my body. I had fought the emotions for so long, fought my fear for my parents and my anger with myself, and it all came gushing out now, leaving me empty.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I’d allowed myself the comforting thought that even if my parents were gone, at least I had this new family unit, this new possibility at happiness. This time, I wouldn’t let anyone down. But the truth hurt; I’d never be part of this family.
I was alone.
Chapter Fifteen
I didn’t know how long I knelt there. Frigid gusts of wind whipped at my tear-streaked face. My skin was all gooseflesh, and shivers shook me so hard that my teeth chattered uncontrollably. My fingers and toes burned from the cold, and still I didn’t return to the house. Instead, I sat and thought of my parents, as if the penance of my pain could somehow give them comfort wherever they were, alive or dead.
The door opened behind me, and I was framed in a rectangle of dim light before a long shadow stepped through and the door closed again.
