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Double fuck.
I give the front door a final, longing glance, then stop and look across the yard. Mrs. Adler is in the process of finding her house keys in her enormous purse, while Lucas stands nearby holding grocery bags and pretending he doesn’t see us. But I know his tells. His fingers twitch against the surface of the bags as he stares pointedly at the sky. Any second, he’ll start whistling, which he only does when he’s exceedingly uncomfortable.
His lips purse, and the beginning notes of “Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay” float to my ears. In spite of myself—in spite of it all—I laugh.
Lucas’s head whips down, gaze clashing with mine. He glances uncertainly at Damien, then back at me. His tension radiates across twenty feet.
I take pity on him. “Hey, Lucas, Mrs. Adler. How are you this evening?”
Mrs. Adler ignores us—it’s kind of her thing—but Lucas strolls across the driveway. He stops on the other side of the low fence. His throat bobs as he swallows.
“We’re good,” he says in a strangled tone. “Just picked up some stuff for dinner.”
“What are you eating?” asks Damien because food is in his top three Most Important Pastimes alongside sleeping and Xbox.
The look Lucas gives Damien makes my chest hurt. He clears his throat. “I’m grilling steaks and some corn on the cob.”
“Cool. Gramps is grilling, too. I usually help.”
I cock an eyebrow at my kid, who’s never helped my dad grill. He ignores me. They both do.
“Nice. I’m Lucas. Damien, right?”
“Yeah. Nice to meet you.”
“You, too.” His voice wavers, and I close my eyes against a thump of pain in my heart.
“You were my dad’s best friend, right?”
He nods and glances at me. “Your mom’s, too.”
“But then you moved away.”
A short pause. “Yeah, I did.”
From behind me, my mom says, “Oh, there you are, Celeste! I was about to call you.”
She’s instantly forgiven for yesterday’s mess. Taking the pie from Damien, she gives him a noisy kiss on the head.
He makes a face. “Grams!”
She chuckles. “Hello, Lucas. How are you?”
“Just fine, Mrs. M., and you?”
“Doing great.”
“All right,” I cut in before my brain explodes. “Nice seeing you, Lucas. Let’s go, Damien.”
“See ya,” he says to Lucas as I usher him up the walkway.
Lucas watches us go. When everyone’s inside, I turn to close the door and he’s still standing on the other side of the fence. Arms full of groceries. An indecipherable expression on his face. His eyes on mine.
He mouths, “Thank you.”
I nod and close the door.
When dessert is done, my mom and Damien settle on the couch to watch TV. They’re forever bonded by their love of outlandish game shows, the higher the stakes the better. My dad brews a half-pot of decaf coffee—an evening habit of his I’ll never understand—and then joins me at the sink.
