Page 121 of Such Sharp Teeth

“My turn, my turn,” she says, reaching for the cigarette. “We should get out of here. Go do something fun. Is there a karaoke bar? I could get into some sloppy Christmas karaoke.”

“No idea. Look it up.”

She takes out her phone and starts Googling. “I’m so relieved you’re not mad at me. Let’s see . . . karaoke. Hmm. Doesn’t look like it.”

“Oh, well,” I say, staring at a wonky-eyed gingerbread man in the neighbor’s yard. He looks drunk and frankly a little menacing.

“God. This town,” she says, putting the cigarette out on the rock wall. “I sort of did you a favor.”

“What do you mean?”

“If I told high school you that you moved back here and started dating Ian Pedretti . . .” She doesn’t finish the sentence. She laughs instead. “Hand me my shoes?”

“I’m not high school me,” I tell her, not bothering to conceal my annoyance.

“Oh, come on,” she says, smirking. “I’m sure Ash and Scarlett are trying to sell you on some domestic fantasy. But you and me, we’re not house pets.”

I snort.

“Rory?” Scarlett walks toward us. “What are you doing out here? Were you smoking?”

“No,” Mia says, lying for me. “She was keeping me company. We were just coming in.”

We go back inside, and I choke down a piece of pie. We play a game of Pictionary that Ash and Seth get way too invested in. Scarlett falls asleep on the couch around ten, and Matty carries her out to the car.

When we get home, I stay up and play fetch with Reaper. Give him treats. At the end of our play session, to my great surprise, he curls up in my lap and allows me to pet him.

“Good boy.”

Doesn’t seem so bad, being a house pet.

Mia’s wrong. People change. Some of us once a month.

Maybe high school me would balk at the idea, but I’ve never been happier than when I was with Ian. I think of Matty and Scarlett and wonder if I’m capable of forgiveness. I wonder if he’d ask for it. I wonder if he’s somewhere missing me the way I’m missing him.

“ ‘Last Christmas, I gave you my heart . . . ’ ” I sing to Reaper. He looks back at me, scowling.

XII

I crawl out of bed late the next morning and drag myself to the Apple Store to, once again, get a new phone. I anticipate having missed messages from Ian, but there’s only one from two weeks ago, from the day of the ill-fated girls’ night out.

“He must know he was caught,” I tell Scarlett when I get home. She takes up the whole couch, her feet up on a tower of pillows. I sit on the floor with my chin resting on a cushion.

“Or he knows about Kevin.”

“How?”

“Small town. People talk.”

“He would have no right to be mad at me for that, considering the whole Mia situation. He’s avoiding me because he feels guilty. It’s cowardice.”

“Or he’s upset you hooked up with someone else, which suggests nothing happened with Mia.”

“Well, whatever. Doesn’t matter.”

She pats me on the head. “You look like a sad puppy.”

“I’m not a sad puppy. I’m a fearsome wolf.”