Page 55 of Thin Ice

I crossed the small room in two steps and put my hands on his face. Palms against his jaw. His skin was warm.

"This is the best Christmas Eve I've ever had," I said. "Don't apologize for it."

"You're not lying, right?" he said. "Because you feel bad for me?"

"No, Liam. You're lucky to have this."

He shrugged, his shoulders moving under my hands. "I'm lucky to have you."

He kissed me. Quick, hard, the kind that comes from relief more than want. His hands grabbed the front of my shirt and pulled, and I let him hold on, my back against the dresser now, his weight against me.

"We should go back," he said against my mouth.

"We should."

Neither of us moved for ten seconds. Then he let go and straightened my shirt where he'd wrinkled it, and opened the door.

Liam's grandmother was in the hallway, standing there with a dish towel in her hands, like she had business being exactly in this spot at exactly this moment. The bathroom light behind her lit up her silver hair.

"Alex," she said.

"Yes, ma'am?"

"You play rummy?"

"I don't, actually," I said.

"You're going to learn. Come sit down."

She turned and walked back toward the dining table, which had been half-cleared. The casserole dishes were gone, the plates stacked in the kitchen, but the tablecloth was still on, and the lamp from the counter threw warm light across the surface. She pulled out a chair at the far end and sat down. Maddie materialized from somewhere behind the couch and dragged a chair up next to mine before I'd even sat down.

Liam's grandmother pulled a deck of cards from somewhere. I didn't see where. She dealt with the speed and precision of someone who'd been doing this for fifty years, the cards snapping off her thumb, explaining the rules in a voice that didn't tolerate questions.

I asked questions anyway.

"So I can pick up the whole discard pile?" I said, looking at the spread of cards fanned across the table.

"If you can use the bottom card," Grandma said, arranging her hand without looking up.

"What counts as using it?"

"Laying it down in a set. Three of a kind or a run."

"What's a run?" I said.

"Lord." She looked at Maddie over her glasses. "Maddie, explain a run to this boy."

"It's like four, five, six," Maddie said, leaning over to look at my cards. "Same suit. It's not hard."

"I went to prep school and nobody taught me this," I said.

"That's sad," Maddie said. She meant it.

"It is sad."

I laid down a set of three and looked up at Grandma Jean for approval. She looked at the cards on the table. Looked at me over her glasses.

"That's a start," she said.