Chapter 3
It was still the day before Thanksgiving, and somehow—against all odds—I had survived being beheaded approximately fifty times as we did our part in Hastings Rock’s annual parade.
And, to Fox’s credit, everyone seemed to love our float.
It probably helped that nobody made the symbolic connection between Millie’s canned cranberry sauce and what I suppose ought to have been gouts and gouts of blood from my severed turkey body.
And since Keme couldn’t swing the axe effectively (those turkey costumes seriously limited our range of movement), everybody seemed to think he was using it as a can opener.
Since I got to lie down, my head on the chopping block and all that, and the rocking motion of the truck was surprisingly soothing, I even drifted off for part of it.
I woke to hear one little girl saying, “That turkey is sleeping like grandma does after she takes her medicine.”
Now, as Millie and I drove toward her home for what was apparently a local tradition—the Naught Family Dessert and Game Night—I found myself longing for simpler times, like when I’d fallen asleep in public, dressed in a giant turkey costume, while Keme tried to take my head off.
“And then we’ll play TWISTER!” Millie announced.
“Have you ever played Twister? I bet you’re good at it because Keme says your arms look like noodles.
Do you like noodles? What’s your favorite food?
Oh wait! You told me it was anything but soup!
My favorite food is my grandma’s chicken and dumplings.
Is that a soup? OH! Or my mom’s potato salad.
I told Keme that once, and he said potato salad can’t be your favorite food, but it can, can’t it, Dash? ”
“Well—”
“Would you say Keme is your best friend? Or Bobby? Or BOTH?” That thought seemed to delight her so much that, for an instant, she was transported: her eyes shone with the potential of my having two besties, and the car began to drift toward the center line.
As I reached for the wheel, though, she snapped back to reality with “It’s so CUTE that Bobby is staying at Hemlock House with you!
Remember how I wanted Keme to be your roommate?
But now Bobby’s your roommate! Isn’t he the most handsomest?
Except you, Dash. And Keme. And my brothers.
” Although this last part was offered with a dubious tone that suggested family obligation and a certain degree of strained loyalty.
“And wasn’t it SAD how he and West broke up?
I mean, weren’t they PERFECT? And now he’s single, and you’re single, and it’s just so SAD! ”
I’d ordered industrial-grade ear protection, by the way. Stupid shipping delays always happen around the holidays.
Millie continued with “I just wish there was a way for both of you to find someone perfect and be HAPPY!”
That line of thinking seemed incredibly fraught—I had a vision of Millie maneuvering me and Bobby like dolls and insisting “NOW KISS!”, which would officially pull the plug on any chance of me ever having a healthy romantic relationship for the rest of my life—so I felt a rush of relief when Millie turned into the next driveway.
The Naught Home was a ranch with vertical siding painted—in the glow of the headlights—a shade between white and blue.
It had a large deck built onto the front of the house and no fewer than six cars (three trucks and three sedans) parked in front of it.
The garage door was up, and inside, the garage was stacked wall to wall with boxes, furniture, tools, and what appeared to be several generations’ worth of large, plastic toys (I recognized a pristine Crystal Castle).
“Oh my God,” Millie said as the car rolled to a stop. “Do you know what I JUST THOUGHT OF?”
I threw open the door and all but ran toward the house.
It wasn’t that I didn’t like spending time with Millie.
She was such a lovely person, so kind and sweet and, in a beautiful way, innocent without being na?ve.
I didn’t even mind the volume. (I’d mind it even less when I got the same earmuffs they used for airport ground crews—you know, the ones who stood right under jet engines.) But there were some things I didn’t want to talk about.
For that matter, there were some things I didn’t even want to think about.
The door swung open as I approached, and a woman who had to be Millie’s mother waved at me—with both hands. “Oh my goodness,” she said as I got closer, and then she swallowed me in a crushing hug. “You must be Dashiell!”
“Just Dash,” I wheezed.
“We are so happy to have you! I’m Christine, Millie’s mom.
Millie has told us everything about you.
Now look at those glasses—aren’t they cute?
Millie says you moved here from the East Coast. Did you get those glasses on the East Coast?
” A note of wonder entered her voice. “Did you get them in New York City?”
“Uh, I got them at Walmart—”
That was when she shouted, “MATTHEW!”
There it was, I decided through the ringing in my ears. The final piece to the puzzle.
Christine grabbed the arm of the man who appeared—thinning hair, sweater vest, and a stone-faced reserve that suggested he wanted a room of his own and, possibly, a pipe. “Matthew, this is Dashiell, Millie’s best friend!”
“Uh—” I recovered in time to say, as I shook his hand, “Dash.”
Matthew Naught grunted, released my hand, and left.
Well, who could blame him after all these years?
“Dash, I want you to explain something to me,” Christine said as she took my arm and led me into the house.
My first impression was that it seemed comfortably lived in—clean, and relatively neat, but clearly home to a lot of people, and maybe the tiniest bit outdated.
“I was watching Blue Bloods last night, and do you know, Donnie Wahlberg was so rude to his father? I didn’t like that, and I think you should say something to them. ”
Aside from the fact that this didn’t seem to be a question, it took me a moment to realize she meant me. “To Donnie Wahlberg?”
“Mom,” Millie said, trying—unsuccessfully—to squeeze between me and her mother. “Mom, Dash isn’t a TV writer. He’s a MYSTERY writer.”
“Well, it’s all writing,” Christine Naught said with staggering surety. “I’m sure he knows somebody who can tell Donnie.”
Fortunately, before I had to respond, Millie’s brothers jumped into the hallway.
Literally. I’d run into them a few times around town, and they shared a look: twentysomething guys who were blond, wiry, and had painfully bad attempts at facial hair.
Paul was the taller of the two, although only by a few inches, and right then, he was wearing enormous toy boxing gloves.
Ryan, the younger and shorter brother, was trying to strap on his headgear.
“Dash!” Paul’s volume didn’t quite reach Millie levels. “Do you want to see how strong we are?”
Ryan was already speaking over him. “Do you want to wrestle?”
“With boxing gloves?” I asked.
“Leave him ALONE,” Millie ordered. “He doesn’t want to wrestle!”
“Be quiet, Millie,” Paul said in the tone of the truly aggrieved. “God.”
“We’re asking Dash,” Ryan said. “Butt out.”
“Watch this,” Paul told me. And then he turned and punched Ryan in the face.
Ryan’s head snapped back, and then he let out a howl. He launched himself at Paul, and both brothers went down and began scrapping in the middle of the hallway.
“Boys!” Christine shouted. “Boys, knock it off! It’s game night!” She even tried clapping her hands, but that didn’t work either.
Somehow, Paul got to his feet and sprinted off into the house, and Ryan chased after him. Both men, it appeared were giggling.
“Sorry,” Millie said, “they’re SO DUMB—”
“Oh my God, is this Dash?”
The voice came from a girl I hadn’t met before.
She shared Millie’s build and look, although where Millie tended toward a casual, almost athletic look—with manic caffeinated energy, of course—this girl appeared to have spent an inordinate amount of time in the press-on nail section of the closest Ulta.
Another girl joined her, and she had the same vibe.
The second girl said, “We’ve been waiting forever to meet you.”
Christine was practically glowing as she said, “Millie, introduce your sisters.”
Something like a thundercloud moved across Millie’s face. “Dash, this is Kassandra.” (The first one.) “And this is Angeline.” (The second one.) “And they know they’re not supposed to hog you tonight—”
“Don’t you just hate it here?” Kassandra said over her. “I mean, isn’t Hastings Rock so boring?”
I managed to make a noise that, I hoped, was thoroughly noncommittal.
“And there are no cute guys,” Angeline said.
“Or they’re cute,” Kassandra said with a giggle, “but they’re gay.”
“Have you met anyone since you moved here?” Angeline asked.
Kassandra nodded eagerly. “Have you met any hot guys since you moved here?”
“Dash just broke up with his boyfriend,” Millie said. “He’s not trying to meet people right now.”
Angeline shot her a flat look. “Don’t you have something else to do?”
“Is it true Bobby’s living with you?” Kassandra asked. “Everybody’s talking about it.”
From the way Millie’s face turned bright red, I thought I had an idea of who everybody was. “Kassie,” Millie said, and she sounded like she was about to cry. “I told you not to bring that up.”
“God, Millie,” Angeline said like someone who’d reached their limit, “go away!”
Blinking rapidly, Millie ducked her head and retreated a step.
“You have to tell us everybody you think is cute,” Angeline said, reaching for me.
Kassandra took my other arm. “Starting with Bobby, of course.”
Slipping away from them, I caught Millie’s eye. Her face was still bright red, and she was blinking furiously, clearly trying to fight a wave of tears. She looked away almost immediately.
“Actually,” I said, “you’re going to have to excuse me because I made Millie promise that she’d show me her room. And then Millie has to tell you about this guy I went out with. It was possibly the most epic date fail in history. Spoiler alert: he ended up being a murder suspect.”
The sisters stared at me. Christine stared at me. Deeper in the house, Paul was shouting, “It was an accident!” and it sounded like Ryan was crying.
“Millie tells it so much better than I do,” I added. And then, turning to Millie, I said, “Show me your room?”
We’d barely turned the corner when Millie crushed me in a hug, her face wet and hot against my shirt as she mumbled, “Thank you.”
In spite of my splintered ribs and punctured lungs, I managed to say, “Happy Thanksgiving.”