Chapter 4
Four
Pen
Since the whole family isn’t here, Margo sets up dinner at the big round table in the kitchen nook rather than their large dining room.
I’ve often wondered how long it took her to figure out how much to make to satisfy her very hungry brood.
Not that the kids live at home anymore. A car accident last winter left January unable to properly throw and forced him into early retirement.
He lives in Austin’s Lake District now, near the University of Texas where March goes to school.
With May and June in school at Boston University, and August in LA, it’s just her and Neil.
Tonight, however, Neil is visiting an old teammate in Denver.
Even so, she sets down a platter of roasted potatoes large enough to feed a dance hall.
May follows, carrying a bowl piled high with pillowy biscuits.
There’s three roast chickens and a bowl of caramelized Brussels sprouts already on the table.
At Margo’s urging, I take a seat just as August enters bringing yet another bowl—buttered carrots, by the look of it.
I fuss with my water glass so that our gazes don’t inadvertently collide.
The teeth thing still looms in my mind. It’s all I can do not to cover my mouth with my hand.
Or grin at him like the Joker just to see him sweat. It’s a toss-up at the moment.
Unfortunately, he decides to take the seat across from me, which means I’ll have to look at him at least a little or make it obvious that I’m avoiding him. Damn it.
I’ve managed not to be in a room with August since my high school graduation. Yet, in a little less than an hour, it’s like he’s suddenly become unavoidable. Glancing at the windows where the rainstorm still rages on, I wonder again if I’ve entered an alternate universe.
When I move to set a napkin on my lap, I find him watching me, a moue of discontent marring his perfect lips. Yeah, well, too bad. I’m more uncomfortable, buddy.
As if he hears my inner monologue, those pretty lips quirk and the corners of his eyes crinkle.
He gives me a look that’s not quite apologetic but definitely self-deprecating.
The longer I stare, the more his smile grows.
A flush works its way under my knit top and up my thighs.
Despite my current anti-smile stance, I want to grin and laugh with him.
It’s weird. Aside from when we were little kids, we’ve never held meaningful eye contact this long before.
He’s never smiled at me like this before.
I would remember that. Mainly because that would have been the day I melted into a puddle of incoherent goo. Events like that tend to get marked in my mental calendar.
“Wine, Penny?”
Margo’s question jerks me back into present company. I blink for a second before accepting a glass of Chardonnay. This time, I do not look August’s way.
Soon, I forget to be flustered. It’s impossible when eating with the Lucks; they’re too boisterous, happily chatting about anything and everything.
While Margo’s kids love and respect her, they talk to her in the same way I do with my mom: like a good friend.
I wonder if it’s because Margo and Mom are best friends and raised all of us similarly.
March tells us stories about his teammates and how they covered some linebacker named George in red body paint when he was foolish enough to pass out during a party. George had retaliated by slowly replacing all their underwear with a size too small.
“I’m going to miss those guys next year,” he finishes with a sigh.
June and I exchange a look and suppress our snickers.
“I don’t know how you stand it,” May says, spearing a potato with her fork. “Not knowing where you’ll end up after the draft. What if you hate your city?”
March shrugs. “The fuck-load of money they pay me will ease my pain.”
“Language,” Margo murmurs half-heartedly. That’s one difference between her and my mother. Mom is theater folk. Cussing is an art form as far as she’s concerned.
March gives his mother an innocent smile.
June shakes her head. “I swear, I should have been born a boy. These twaddle heads are all going to be loaded just for tossing balls around all day.”
August makes a noise of amusement. Up until now, he’s been fairly quiet; something I’m far more used to from him. “But we’ll be limping around like old men by the time we’re forty.”
“Yeah, yeah,” she grumps, waving an idle hand. “And you can cry yourself to sleep on a two-thousand-dollar eiderdown pillow.”
“There’s pillows that cost that much?” March asks, intrigued. “Why? And what must that feel like?”
“It better make me weep with joy.” August reaches for his wine. “Or sleep like the dead.”
“You do that anyway.”
“Tell you what,” May says. “You crack open that fat wallet, Augie, and buy me one. I’ll give a full report.”
“Or I could buy myself one and make my own report.”
“That’s no good. You fall asleep anywhere. Which means your pillow choice won’t factor. No, no, what you need is a fussy sleeper. I’ll be your huckleberry.”
August gives her a dry side-eye.
“You know,” Margo says, leaning back to survey us. “It just occurred to me that you and August live in the same city now, Penny.”
I jolt, glancing at August then away. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
Liar, liar.
I remember the exact moment I learned he’d been drafted to LA. And exactly how I felt.
I feel his gaze. Heat prickles come back to torment my skin.
“You should have looked her up by now, August,” Margo goes on, in that motherly way, which is apparently oblivious to any embarrassment she might be bestowing on others.
August clears his throat. “I’ve only been in town for a little while.”
Translation: Get off my case, Mom.
“Well, you’re settled in now.” She helps herself to more carrots. “You two should go out some time when you get back.”
Kill me now.
Unfortunately, in my attempt to look anywhere other than at August, I catch March’s eyes. His glint with quiet humor, fully aware of how awkward his mother is making things and even a bit sympathetic to my plight.
“Ma,” he says, grabbing her attention. “I’ve been meaning to ask. What the hell is up with that sweater you sent me?”
Margo’s expression becomes all innocence. “What’s wrong with it?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe it’s the knitted toy soldiers draped around the shoulders?”
May perks up. “You got one of those too? Mine has teddy bears!”
June and August join in. Apparently, they’ve all received “absolutely darling”—Margo’s words—sweaters.
She scowls at their outbreak of outrage. “Come on now, you all know perfectly well they’re for our holiday calendar photoshoot.”
“No!”
“No way!”
“Over my dead body, lady!”
“That can be arranged, March.” She cuts him a look.
August leans in, giving her what I’m going to assume is his version of puppy eyes. “Mom, we stopped looking cute a decade ago. Now it’s just creepy. Like those photos you see on true crime shows. Where the family ends up having a human meat farm in their basement.”
“Seriously,” June grumps.
Margo colors, then taps a manicured red nail on the table. “I don’t care. I want a family photo. You’re all getting older and these times are precious.”
May makes a face. Discreetly, of course.
“But why does it have to be a staged one?” March demands. “We look like total boobs. Just get us all together and do a candid.”
“Oh, yes, a candid,” Margo huffs. “You try and corral this family into getting close enough to take one.”
June toys with the stem of her glass. “Doesn’t matter. Either way, I’ll look like an angry chipmunk.”
“August is the worst,” May says. “His eyes are always closed.”
“That’s me trying to will away the pain of picture taking.”
Margo shakes her head. “I don’t know what you all are complaining about. I look terrible in every picture. But I still want them.”
Until now, I’d been quietly watching them, enjoying the show. But the way they all start to complain about bad photo angles has me speaking without thought. “Oh, come on. You all are ridiculously attractive.”
A pause thumps into the room, and they all stare at me with varying levels of amused surprise.
My fork stops midway to my mouth as I look around at them. “Don’t tell me you didn’t know because I won’t believe it.”
August frowns at me like he can’t tell if he’s been somehow insulted. That wasn’t my intention. If I’m honest, it kind of slipped out. But it is the total truth: they’re the most attractive family I’ve ever come across.
Margo purses her lips as if she’s trying to figure out how to answer that and still appear humble, which makes me want to laugh just a little.
March, however, has no such humbleness and grins wide. “Well, of course we know. We got mirrors and everything.”
“Yeah,” May adds with a snort, “and we all know who preens in front of them.”
“You?”
“Not as much as you.” She waves her empty fork in his direction. “I’m surprised you don’t put gilded frames around your mirrors and ask them the eternal question—”
“How to successfully toss my little sister out the window without actually hurting her?”
“Ha. No, but you’re hilarious.”
March winks at her, grinning and unrepentant.
“March won’t ask who’s the fairest of them all,” June deadpans. “He already thinks he is.”
He shrugs. “Facts don’t lie.”
“Taste is subjective, brother.”
Margo watches them much as I do, slightly smiling and enjoying it. Then she shakes her head. “June is right. Attractiveness is in the eye of the beholder.”
“All right, then,” March says, turning his gaze on me. A sinking feeling opens in the pit of my stomach. There’s a gleam in his eye that I don’t like. “Since our dear Penny is the one who said we were all so hot—”
“Attractive.” It comes out gravelly. As for hot? That would be my cheeks.
“Attractive,” he amends. “She can tell us who’s the most attractive of us all.”
August grips his glass with a muttered, “Jesus.”