Better Watch Out

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

“ Y ou’re joking.”

The door creaks open, reminding me that my dear father has never been good at home maintenance. Hell, I wonder if he doesn’t like the creaking that brings down the appeal of the otherwise nice house.

Well, pretty nice, anyway. I’m sure if I look around even a little, I’ll find random things needing repair. Not to mention that even with my step-mother’s sister coming to clean once a week, I know I’ll find dust on the higher places and things put away haphazardly.

She’s certainly not the best at her job, but with my step-mom paying her bills, she doesn’t have to be.

“ I’m so sorry, Conor .” My dad’s voice is rough and tired over the phone, and I barely pay attention as I watch my copper and white husky trot into the house with her tail curled and wiggling. “ We’ve been trying all day, but all the flights got canceled. We can’t get anything at all until ? —”

“If you say after Christmas, I’m going to lose it.” I step inside and slam the door closed behind me a bit harder than was strictly necessary. “Seriously, if you’re not coming, then I’ll just get a flight…home.” My words die off lamely, and my heart sinks. If they can’t get a flight up to Lake George, what makes me think I’ll be able to get a flight back down to Illinois?

“ Conor…. ” There it is. The voice I’ve grown to hate ever since my mother died. I know this game, and the windup that will inevitably follow. First will come the apology.

“ Seriously, you don’t know how sorry I am.”

Then the heartfelt sympathy plea.

“ I wanted this so badly. I haven’t seen you in years, and you know how much I’ve been looking forward to getting together for the holidays. Your step-mom, too. She’s been planning this for months now. Hell, the lake house is even decorated already. ”

He’s right, I notice, as I stride into the open kitchen and dining room. Garland is hung in festive loops from the windows and counters, and there’s a miniature Christmas tree planted firmly on the dining room table, complete with itty-bitty ornaments and fiber optic lights. But we’re not done yet. I know next I’m in for?—

“ Look, I’ll pay for everything okay? We’ll find the soonest flight back for you, and anything you need up there is on us. There’s a store in town and they’ll deliver to the house, plus that little coffee shop you used to love. ” He sounds plaintive now, and I know we’re reaching the end of this performance.

“Yeah, okay. Just…I want to leave as soon as possible, okay?” I mutter, stopping to look at the large living room that connects to the deck outside. In the distance I can see Lake George, and I know if I stroll around the deck to look back the way I drove in from, I’ll see the Cat and Thomas Mountain Preserve.

Memories flicker through my brain, each one trying to push to the forefront. While this had never been our permanent home, we spent enough time here during summers and holidays for me to grow to love it. I remember as a kid begging for us to sell our house near Buffalo so we could just live here full time, instead. I’d created a powerpoint and everything, complete with information about the local schools.

Obviously that never happened, and maybe it’s a good thing for me it didn’t.

After all, Bolton’s Landing, in upstate New York, would’ve been a lot harder to escape than Buffalo.

“Whatever dad,” I mumble, cutting him off in the middle of another rambling promise. “I’m just going to look for the next flight out.” I suppose there are worse places to spend Christmas alone, and some part of me that hadn’t been snuffed out as a teenager is a little bit excited about the idea of spending another holiday here for the first time in seven-ish years.

Especially without the problem of my family here that chased me away in the first place.

“And hey, uh…” Dropping my bag to the floor, I sink into one of the couches I’m sure were my step-mom’s choice. They’re comfortable, and beige , but I can move past the color when the seats are as plush and nice as they are. “Dad?”

“ Yeah?” He sounds distracted, like he’s already moved onto his next event for the day, or at least something that’s a lot more palatable than breaking bad news to me. Not that he hasn’t had a ton of practice.

“It’s just going to be me, right? Since you and Cheryl aren’t coming?” No matter how much my step-mom wanted to be Mom to me, that had never been on the table. Which she’d surprisingly taken pretty well, all things considered. But then again she had enough work parenting her two kids to last a lifetime, so I can’t help but wonder if my distance from her was a relief.

Dad’s quiet for a few moments, and worry starts to prickle at my chest. Whenever he’s quiet, it’s normally because I won’t like the answer.

“ Hmm? Sorry, hon. I was flipping the pancakes. You know it takes all of my concentration. ” He laughs at his own joke, but I just wait for the answer that better be the one I expect. “ Yeah, you’re alone up there. It was just going to be the three of us for Christmas, and since two of us don’t have flights up… ” He sighs loudly. “ Which I’m so sorry about. The weather wasn’t supposed to take a turn until after the holidays. But you know how the mountains are.”

Well, I really don’t. Not anymore. “Okay, sure.” It’s hard not to add whatever onto it like a sulking teenager, but somehow I manage. “I’ll…figure something out aided by a lot of coffee in my veins.” It’s difficult to sound casual and not disappointed, but I give it my best effort. It’s not so much that I’m sad at missing spending Christmas with my estranged father and step-mother.

It’s more about having to spend Christmas here alone in a place holding a mixed bag of memories.

After another round of apologies and promises to make it up for me, I’m finally able to hang up and settle back on the comfortable couch. “There are worse places to spend Christmas,” I mutter with a sigh, mentally mourning the baked macaroni I’ll be missing out on at my best friend’s house this year. Her family had taken me in one time for Christmas and now I feel like they’re my surrogate family.

It’s… nice.

Nicer than a lot of things with my real family.

Nails clicking on the hardwood alert me to Sitka’s reappearance, and I open my eyes to see her standing in front of me, tongue lolling as she pants excitedly. “This is your first time up here, huh?” I murmur, reaching out to rub her ears. “God, you’re gonna love it when we’re snowed in up to our ears.” In response, her tail wags harder, though I rationally know it’s just because I’m paying attention to her and not because she’s looking forward to a brutal snowstorm.

“Want to see the yard?” I get to my feet, stretching and arching my back until it pops. Sitka dances beside me and I stride to the patio door in the dining room. A glance at the table shows me it’s already been decorated, with a white tablecloth covering the dark wood and a crystal sleigh filled with candy.

My step-mom really was prepared to go all out. It makes me wonder what we were supposed to have for dinner.

And just who that dinner would’ve been for.

Without hesitating, I yank open the sliding door, rolling my eyes when it sticks in the exact same place it was sticking before I cut contact. My dad really does have a problem with change. Even change that’s simply household repairs.

Sitka blows through the patio door, launching herself out onto the back deck with her nose to the ground. I close the door behind me, glad I’m still in my winter coat and extra pair of pants, and lean back against the glass to watch her enjoy a place she’s never seen.

Within minutes the patio has bored her and she hops off the stairs, investigating the yard just as thoroughly but stopping at the tree line. For a husky, she’s surprisingly good at not running off, as long as I give her enough exercise during the day to sate her wanderlust.

Which usually leaves me crawling, panting, and unable to do more than curl up in the fetal position after with my legs burning like nobody’s business.

“If you go into the woods, I’m not going to come find you,” I call lazily, realizing that a nap sounds really great after a day of travel. The sun is starting to set, and out of the corner of my eye I can see it cresting the mountains, threatening to throw the house into shadow. “Seriously. You’ll have to win over a family of bears or something. Maybe they’ll take pity on you and feed you instead of eat you.”

Sitka takes her time, but at least she doesn’t try to dart into the woods. When I get restless I move to the rail of the deck, leaning my arms on the cold wood. It’s nostalgic to be standing here in late December in the mountains, and I smile as I look at the yard I spent so many holidays playing in.

Though when my eyes land on the shed near the trees, the smile fades instantly. It’s still the exact same as it had been, with light grey vinyl siding and a black shingle roof. I know Dad most likely still keeps his lawn equipment in there, along with a few shelves lined with odds and ends he swears have a use.

I’d never really had a reason to go into it when I was a kid.

At least, until my stepbrothers dared me to, then locked me in during a snowstorm. Bitter resentment twists my stomach, and it’s hard not to remember how I screamed and slammed my small fists against the inside of the door. By the time Dad got me out, I had frostbite on my fingers from not having any gloves when they locked me in, and we had to take an emergency hospital trip. In the snow.

To this day, I’m sure the horrified and guilty expressions on my stepbrothers’ faces were just an act to get out of being in trouble. So was the kindness from them over the next few days while my dad and step-mom kept an eye on them.

After all, if they’d really felt bad, they wouldn’t have done it in the first place.

“Sitka!” I call, suddenly colder than I want to be and unable to pull my eyes off of the shed. The copper and white husky bounds toward me, hopping almost like a rabbit across the frosted-over grass. It helps push away the negative feelings trying to bubble up my throat, and I grin at her antics, thankful all over again my friend had convinced me to get a dog.

Though when I brought the husky pup home from the shelter, she’d looked at me in horror and asked what the hell I’d been thinking.

Even with all the horrors of having a yodeling, walkings siren that blows her fur whenever the weather changes, Sitka really is the best thing that’s happened to me in a while. “It’s freezing,” I tell her, yanking the patio door open once more and walking inside with her.

I start back into the living room, considering collapsing on the comfy couch, buying movies on my dad’s Prime account, and Door-Dashing an obscene amount of food just to get some kind of petty revenge he won’t notice. Instead, I stop at the foot of the stairs, gazing up toward the second floor of the house where all the bedrooms other than my old room are. Like any petulant young teen, I’d wanted to be alone on the first floor, in the bedroom with the deep closet and unfortunately no ensuite.

“I should let it be.” I sigh, shifting my weight from one foot to the other. Belatedly, I remember my step-mom’s credo, and I hear her screeching in my head about not wearing my shoes in the house. But it’s a true act of saintly kindness to toe off my fur-lined Crocs at the foot of the stairs before padding up them in my Rudolph socks. “I should really let it be,” I tell Sitka as she hops up the stairs beside me. She proceeds to sniff around the landing as I finish my ascent, tail wagging in interest as she inhales the carpet like she’s looking for micro-traces of cocaine.

The second floor isn’t really that special or complicated. It, too, is just like I remember it, with blue-grey carpet and two large bedrooms, one on either side of this level. Both have attached bathrooms, and are about twice as large as a typical bedroom. I suppose if they were a normal size, the second floor would look a bit more like other family houses I’ve been in.

My dad’s room is a bit different from how I remember. Though I suppose with my step-mom’s influence, that’s a given. She’d just started convincing him to change things when I finally left, and now the walls are white, with one dark grey accent wall across from me. The decor is definitely more her than Dad, and I have very little interest in exploring their personal life.

I should go back downstairs. There’s nothing for me up here, in the office or the other bedroom. It was never my bedroom, after all. My room is downstairs, with a nice hardwood floor and tidy queen-size bed. Though I suppose there’s no telling what color the walls or blankets are, given my step-mom’s influence and decor around here. Not that I’m complaining about her taste, exactly.

Maybe I just inherited my dad’s dislike for change.

The office off of their bedroom is very much my dad’s, and free of any other influence. I spent some time in here as a kid, and I stand in the doorway, giving my brain a few moments to reminisce while trying to convince myself to just go back downstairs.

Naturally, though, I don’t. Because that would be much too easy. Instead, my steps take me to the last bedroom. Even though the door’s closed, I twist the handle until it opens and use two fingers to push it open.

The door swings back smoothly on its hinges, revealing the hardwood floor of the large room and the two full size beds on either side.

Not that I haven’t seen those beds pushed together before. Their room has changed a little since the last time was here, and I take my time looking over the moody, dark space. The dark blue rug is new, and the plush navy comforters look nicer than the last ones.

Boone’s bed in the far corner still seems messy, even though I’m sure they haven’t been here in a few months. Pillows lay tumbled all over his bed, and the whole thing is shoved into the corner and piled high with blankets. On the other side of the room, Fletcher’s bed is pushed against the room’s bay window, and his blankets are covering enough of the seat to make it look like it’s a part of it. Which is intentional, I know.

Fuck , I really know.

“Oh, this was a bad idea,” I mumble, closing my eyes hard. But that just makes it worse. An image of the bedroom is seared into the blackness behind my eyes, but instead of it being empty and smelling of wood cleaner with the sun blazing in through the bay window, it’s dark.

And the room isn’t empty when I remember it. Instead, the two of them are on Fletcher’s bed, with Fletcher on the bench with his back pressed to the glass and Boone in his lap, lips wrapped around Fletcher’s cock.

All I’d been able to do was stand in this exact place, unable to move or deliver the message from our parents who’d been in town.

But fuck, that hadn’t even been the worst part. I groan and cover my eyes as I remember, feeling my embarrassment staining my cheeks as I remember the exact way Fletcher looked up at me, a slow, lazy smile curling over his full lips.

“ Are you just going to stand there, Conor ?” he’d purred. “ Because this isn’t a free show, babe.” I remember stumbling over an answer, trying to tell them what their mom wanted me to relay to them. And I remember the way Boone sat up and looked at me, dark eyes wolfish as he’d wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and bared his teeth in a feral grin.

I open my eyes and step back, nearly tripping over Sitka with a yelp, and it’s enough to drag me out of my head and back into the present. She barks at me, wagging her fluffy tail, and I groan as I head back to the stairs. “You’re right,” I agree. “It’s not worth it to live in the past. Especially since I never intend to see them again. Well…” I glance at her as we walk down the stairs, thoughtful.

“That’s not true. I’ll be sitting in the front row at their funerals.”