Chapter 23
MIKE
Considering my life had gone down the toilet yesterday, today was going surprisingly great. Morning sex, a lie in, and now dinner with people I loved.
Lyssa was carefully setting the table with my gran’s china, handling the pieces like they were family heirlooms. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that most of it was stolen.
Dad had closed Levitate early to prepare. He was giving tonight the same fanfare he usually gave Christmas dinner—and to be fair, Caroline hadn’t been home for a Holliday holiday in forever, and now she and her moneybags boyfriend were here.
“What’ll you have to drink, Spoons?” I asked the wallet in question.
Chase hesitated. “Just water, thanks, Mike. Bottled, if you have it.”
I made a face. “No, sorry. We’re not environmental terrorists.”
Caroline smacked my chest with the back of her hand. “Don’t be a dick.” To Chase, “It’s safe to drink the tap water here. It’ll taste the same, I promise. Better, even.”
“I know a fact about Woodville’s water supply,” Lyssa offered suddenly.
Caroline and Chase swapped a look that had my teeth grinding.
Lyssa shared her fact (something complicated about rainwater and clean energy—it was too smart for me to follow), and I forced myself to unclench and focus on getting everyone drinks.
This was my usual task at family dinner.
Hannah wanted a cherry margarita tonight though, which really put my bartending skills to the test.
Once everyone was fisting their liquid of choice, we moved into the main dining area of Levitate, where Dad and the staff had set up one long table. We were at the café rather than Dad’s house because Levitate was bigger, and basically home anyway.
Tessa had been flattening cardboard beer boxes when Lyssa swooped on her like a seagull on a chip, taking the cardboard and turning it into place cards with her big, looping writing.
The sight of her, leaning over the front counter with her marker in hand, had given me a kind of cute aggression feeling—like when you saw an especially fluffy duckling or a really curly cow.
We were all milling around the table, looking for the place card with our names, when Dad lit the candle on the sill between the kitchen and counter and whispered, “There you go, Wan,” to it.
Dad lit a candle for Mum at every family dinner.
At the end of the night when he blew it out, he’d talk to her, telling her about the evening.
He’d done this for as long as I could remember.
At first, it made me sad. Then, for a few of my teenage years, angry—it wasn’t fair that I didn’t have a mum when everyone else did.
Now I found it comforting—not the candle itself, I had no strong feeling about that, but I liked how much it meant to my dad.
Lyssa cocked her head when she noticed my dad run the backs of his knuckles down the glass vessel, then quickly sucked in a breath as she realized what it meant.
Mouthing like she wanted to say something, she first looked to Caroline, who smiled tightly, then purposely busied herself rearranging dishes in the center of the table. Trembling, Lyssa then looked to me, her wide eyes searching for an outlet for her sympathy.
Without thinking, I wrapped an arm around her shoulders and kissed her head. “S’all right, girl,” I murmured.
When I looked up, Caroline was staring at me. At us.
Uh-oh.
I made a kind of what-can-you-do? face at my sister.
In response, her nostrils flared, a gesture I immediately recognized from our childhood as a sign that someone was about to be very sorry they’d ticked her off.
But I couldn’t deal with my sister right now, not when Lyssa was gripping the front of my shirt and kneading it like a kitten seeking comfort.
I tugged Lyssa into the corner, where Caroline couldn’t hear us.
“What was her name?”
“Wanda,” I replied, rubbing her back. “I was five when she died.”
Lyssa’s big eyes hadn’t lost the shine of unshed tears, so I kept talking.
“Caroline doesn’t like to discuss her, but I don’t mind.
I talk to her sometimes when I feed the animals in the morning.
Dad talks to that candle. You’ll probably see him start yapping at it later, so don’t panic and think he’s lost his marbles.
My mum had a big smile and a cloud of curly hair that smelled nice.
I don’t remember much more about her than that. ”
“I’m so sorry,” Lyssa whispered.
People always whispered when they learned you had a dead mum.
“Thank you,” I replied, because you were supposed to.
“Are you okay?”
I made a noncommittal motion with my head.
“I don’t know any different. It’s harder some days than others—like when people ask What do your parents do?
or something casual like that. Everyone always assumes you have a mum.
That’s the default. But you couldn’t ask for a better parent than Kev Holliday.
Sometimes people are surprised to learn he raised us without a woman in the house, but honestly, it’s more surprising to me that people grow up without a Kev in their house. ”
“He’s the best,” Lyssa said fervently.
“He is.”
“My stepdad isn’t like Kev.” She added quickly, “He’s not a bad person, he’s just always preoccupied. Your dad cares about all of you so much.”
I knew a bit about Lyssa’s family from watching her videos, but I liked that she was telling me this herself. She never said a lot about her mum— mom —but I knew they weren’t on the best terms. It was obvious to anyone who’d watched as many of her videos as I had.
She dropped her eyes and fidgeted with the hem of her skirt.
I understood now why a family dinner like this was important to Lyssa, why she was being so fucking intense about her water facts and about her job setting the table, and why she was beaming a little intensely at everyone.
She was nervous because it was important to her.
My heart gave a little thud.
“We should take our seats,” I said but I didn’t move. I just looked at her, my fucking heart in my eyeballs, probably. It felt like it was launching toward her with each beat, like a horny cartoon character.
Lyssa wiped at her chin, inspecting it for lipstick. “What? Do I have something on my face?”
“Yeah.” I couldn’t help dropping a quick kiss on her lips. “Me.”
Her cheeks flamed and she pushed at my chest, but she couldn’t stop her wide grin, which made me grin more.
“Mike, stop it,” she hissed. “We’re supposed to be a secret, remember? You wanted to keep us a secret.”
“Fuck secrets,” I said, even as I felt Caroline’s eyes burning a hole in the back of my head. “Make videos about me if you want. Use me to make that fashion prick jealous. Have at it, Princess.”
A grin spread across her face. Seeing it, being responsible for it, I felt a million feet tall, like I could leap buildings and lift trees off babies or whatever.
When I was the reason Lyssa Luxe was smiling like that, I was invincible.
And I didn’t care if the world knew it. In fact, I wanted them to.
So what if I was a brainless lug whose only real talent was pulling women?
I’d pulled a damn good one here, and if that’s all people knew me for: whatever.
I had this girl. I had my animals. I didn’t actually need anything else.
Maybe if I’d been more of a realist, I would have figured that out sooner.
Dad called us to take our seats, and we did. Across from me, I avoided my sister’s eyes like she was a plague rat and it was the year—whatever year the plague was bad in. I’d have to ask Lyssa, that was something she would know.
Caroline and Chase were next to Dad, where he could beam at Caroline to his heart’s content. He was thrilled she was home. My cousin Tessa took her place card from where Lyssa had put it, and moved it to the seat closest to the kitchen, so she could easily fetch more wine.
Tessa said something nice about the calligraphy on the cardboard, and Lyssa beamed, which made me beam, and had the result of making my usually scowly-faced cousin look alarmed.
Still avoiding my sister’s death glare, I carved the roast and we passed plates around the table so Dad could heap vegetables on them.
We had fresh garden potatoes with mint, scoops of peas, and some carrots that were all misshapen—everything except the peas had come from Dad’s garden, and he was pleased as punch to be plating it up for his family tonight.
At the head of the table, Dad cleared his throat and got to his feet, his habitual tea towel slung over his shoulder.
Unexpectedly, it made me a little emotional to see him standing so steadily.
His knee replacement surgery wasn’t so long ago, and it warmed my heart to see him moving more easily now than he had in years.
Dad rambled his way through a long toast, the broad theme of it being how nice it was to see us all here together.
He was no toastmaster, Kevin, and it took him a while to get all the words out because he kept choking up when he looked at Caroline and Chase.
I still wasn’t sure if I approved of Chase yet, but Dad’s words were softening me toward the rich New Yorker. Plus, Caroline might go slightly easier on me over the Lyssa thing if I promised to be nicer to Moneybags. Slightly. So maybe only partial dismemberment.
We tucked into the meal, complimenting Dad on the homegrown veggies and tender meat.
And if Caroline stabbed her potatoes with a little more force than was required, I sure wasn’t going to mention it.
We ate in silence for a while, the way you do when the food is good.
It was nothing fancy, not like what Lyssa would have had down in Queenstown, but it was a rural staple.
I’d had a variation of a roast like this at every family dinner for most of my life.
“Good?” I nudged Lyssa.
She nodded, beaming.
Everything was great. Better than great, actually. Perfect.