Chapter 5
“Just a few more steps,” Bobby said.
I huffed a few choice words at that—words you’re not allowed to say at Christmas—and let him help me into the billiard room.
Behind us trailed a miserable-looking Keme.
He, of course, had come through the debacle unscathed.
He’d been back on his feet, skating over to help me, while I was still trying to figure out which way was up.
I imagined he’d have some spectacular bruises in the morning—but he was young and healthy, and they’d give him a great chance to solicit Millie’s sympathy.
Looking at him now, though, hangdog expression, dark hair falling across his face, eyes turned down, you’d have been hard-pressed to tell.
“There you go,” Bobby said, easing me down onto the chesterfield. He grabbed a cushion and elevated my foot. Then he brushed back my hair. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m dying,” I said.
“Well, you’re not dying.”
“I am. All my organs got turned to mush. And my bones. I’m ninety percent black bile.”
“No more medical advice from Fox.”
Keme stood by the fireplace, hands buried in his pockets, shifting his weight.
“The only thing that will make me better,” I said, “is if Keme signs over his Xbox account to me and lets me play under his username for the rest of my life. And he can never play Xbox again. Oh, and if he does play, he has to let me beat him.”
But that didn’t get me anything. Not even a flicker of a scowl. If anything, Keme just hunched his shoulders.
“Keme,” I said, “It’s okay. Will you stop beating yourself up about it? It was an accident, and it could have happened to anyone. I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine,” Bobby said with unexpected sternness, and even though he was talking to me, he twisted to direct the words at Keme. “You have a twisted ankle. You’re going to be black and blue with bruises. And what if you’d hit your head?”
Keme didn’t pale easily, but right then, he looked like he might be sick.
I gave Bobby a warning look that he didn’t see. So, I squeezed his hand. And when Bobby finally did glance back at me, I gave him Cut it out with my eyes.
Bobby stared back at me with a not-so-polite version of No in his expression.
I doubled-down.
Bobby set his jaw.
“I’m fine,” I said again. Loudly. “Dr. Xu looked me over. She told me I was fine. If I have any lasting injuries, it’ll be because I was forced to walk on my broken ankle.”
“Twisted ankle,” Bobby said.
“I’m just saying, you could have carried me.”
The look on Bobby’s face said he’d considered that possibility. And that he’d done the math.
“Bobby!” But before I could press my attack on this—on this treachery!—Keme squirmed around in his coat some more with that familiar teenage mixture of discomfort and guilt and an all-around not-knowing-what-to-do-with-himself. I drew a deep breath and said, “Keme?”
His eyes came up to mine, but only briefly.
“It’s not your fault. You were trying not to hit Mr. Cheek. Are we good?”
He gave a one-shouldered shrug.
“Could you do something for me?”
A nod that on anybody else I would have called eager.
“Could you get me some water?”
Keme beat a retreat toward the doors.
“Oh, wait, Keme?”
He stopped.
“Could you get me some of those peppermint patties Indira made?”
He slipped toward the door.
“And my laptop?” I let him take a step. “And my favorite blankie.” The newborn zeal in his face was starting to dim as a more familiar expression—entrenched annoyance—struggled to make its way to the surface. “And those fuzzy socks I love.”
He waited.
I waited.
When he took another step, I said, “And then I need an ice pack for my ankle. And a hot compress. And how are you at pedicures, because my toenails keep cutting holes in my socks—”
Entrenched annoyance gave way to pure, untroubled teen outrage.
“Okay,” Bobby said, “that’s enough.” To Keme, he said, “I’ll take care of him.”
But Keme hesitated in the doorway. And finally he said, “Do you still want a glass of water?”
The warning look on Bobby’s face kept me from laughing, and instead, I managed to say, “No, thanks. Go find Millie and let her baby you.”
For a single moment, happiness shone out from Keme in a dumb grin. And then he was gone.
“How about that?” I said.
“I’m thrilled you managed to find a way to torture him in spite of your injuries,” Bobby said.
“He loves it! And anyway, he was going to beat himself up about it all night if I let him.”
“He should beat himself up. That was reckless, it was stupid, and it got you hurt.”
I studied him for a few seconds. And then I said, “Bobby, you were having fun. I want you to have fun. And I don’t want you feeling guilty to turn into you lecturing Keme.”
The quiet deepened. Bobby put his hands on his hips. He looked away. “I shouldn’t have egged him on.”
“Well, the only thing that will ever make me possibly forgive you is a lifetime of servitude.”
Bobby doesn’t go in for sarcasm or name-calling—not on his part, anyway. But he did pull my hair when he passed me on his way to the kitchen. Just a little. To let me know I was being a brat.
Before long, Bobby came back. He had the peppermint patties.
He had the sugar cookies we’d decorated (I noticed a lot of his snowflakes, and a scarcity of my misshapen reindeer).
He brought a bowl of Chex Mix, and a bowl of mixed nuts, and a bowl of potato chips.
(No, none of those is holiday food—well, maybe Chex Mix—but I was wounded, and I needed to recover my strength.) He brought me a glass of water.
And a Coke. And, because he was literally the perfect man (and still sublimating his guilt), he brought me hot chocolate.
“Boozy hot chocolate,” I said after my first sip.
Bobby threw me a lopsided smile as he draped a blanket over me. Then he built a fire.
After, with the warmth and the light flickering over us, he sat with me.
He held an ice pack on my ankle. He rubbed my tailbone where I’d taken the brunt of the fall.
He sipped his own boozy hot chocolate. The crackle of the flames filled the silence between us.
Before long, my ankle wasn’t bothering me anymore.
I was warm. I was comfortable. I was definitely tipsy—bartender Bobby apparently had a heavy pour.
It took some cajoling, but I got Bobby to lie down with me, arms wrapped around me, my back pressed to his chest. His breath tickled my neck.
He ran his fingers along the inside of my arm—up to my elbow, back down again, and then his fingers would trace mine, like they might, at any moment, slot into place, before he trailed them up that line of sensitive skin again.
Look, I was relaxed. I was cuddling with a prime slab of beef. I was literally full of chocolate. I was having some adult feelings, and Bobby must have known it, because he kissed the back of my neck.
I made a sound that nobody, ever, has tried to transcribe onto a Christmas card.
“I love you,” Bobby whispered. “I’m so glad I get to be here with you.”
My voice was a bit slurred, but I tried for teasing. “Better than going home for the holidays?”
He kissed my neck again. “I am home.”