6
LUKA USES THE hand on my neck to tug me backward, positioning his body half in front of me. I peek over his shoulder to see Sheriff Jones sitting on the front porch of the old police station, a shotgun resting casually over his knees.
“Those are good instincts, son.” He tips his hat at Luka but keeps one hand firmly on his gun. “That’ll be a point in your favor.”
Luka laughs, his shoulders relaxing with a heavy exhale. His hand slips from my neck, relieved. “Oh, is this an evaluation?”
Sheriff Jones does not laugh. “It sure is.”
Dane Jones, town sheriff, was the first person my mom and I met when we moved into Inglewild. He saw us unpacking our overcrowded hatchback and offered to help, shouldering one of my mom’s mismatched duffle bags over his broad shoulder and balancing a box of my books in his other arm. He ordered us two pizzas, gave my mom his card, and told her to call if she ever needed anything.
I tuck a smile into the wool of Luka’s coat and then press up on my
tiptoes, waving at the good sheriff.
“What’s going on, Dane?”
Dane blinks away from his stare down at Luka to smile at me. It’s hardly a smile by the standard definition, but after nearly twenty years, I know what that tilt of his lips means. “Heard you two were dating.”
“Oh?”
“Thought I’d congratulate you both.” Luka makes a muffled sound of protest, no doubt curious as to how the shotgun translates into a
congratulations. Dane’s eyes slide back to him and hold. “And give the boy
here a warning.”
Ah, okay.
My smile widens, a warmth settling in my chest. Strangely enough, I feel Luka relax in front of me.
“That’s all you’ve got?” He nods at the gun. “An unloaded gun and an ambiguous warning?”
“There’s nothing ambiguous about me telling you I will break every bone in your finely structured body if I see even the hint of a tear on that girl’s face. And I will take great pleasure in grinding you down physically, mentally, and emotionally.” He rocks back on his chair and kicks his feet up onto the railing. He pats the gun. “And who’s to say this gun isn’t loaded?”
“Ah.” Luka swallows. “Noted.”
There’s silence as the three of us consider one another. I look at Dane.
Dane looks at Luka. Luka, for his credit, doesn’t break his stare with Dane.
“You know,” I offer, voice carefully even, “I dated Wyatt, and you never once showed up with a shotgun.”
Dane’s eyes trip lazily back to me and he gives me a look. “I think we both knew that was going nowhere, Cinnamon Stick.”
I roll my eyes at the nickname he gave me when I was thirteen years old, tearfully confessing my great crime of forgetting to pay for a cinnamon stick sucker at the Save More on Third and Monroe. I sat myself down in front of his desk and cried myself silly, holding up my wrists for the cuffs I was so sure he would be forced to use.
Shockingly, he did not feel the need to put me into custody.
“Are you going to your dad’s next weekend?”
I grimace. I had almost forgotten. “Yeah, the usual.”
Luka turns and frowns down at me. “He’s still doing that? The early Thanksgiving thing?”
Yes, my father is still making me come to an early Thanksgiving at his house to avoid the horror of entertaining his illegitimate child on an actual holiday. And yes, my father is still the worst combination of self-centered and egotistical, his false humility a sour cherry on top.
But he’s the only parent I have left. And that should count for something.
Even if he doesn’t want it to.
“Yes,” I say simply. “I’m bringing the pie.”
I can feel the dead-eyed stares of both men on me. Luka looks like he has some thoughts on the matter. I think I’ve seen him frown more in the last two days than I have in the entire duration of our relationship. Dane has gone back to running his fingers over his shotgun, looking contemplative.
“Let him know I say hello,” Dane offers. “And that I still think he’s not fit to lick the tar off Satan’s ass.”
I bust out laughing. I’d love to see the look on Brian Milford’s face if I delivered that message. I’ll have to text it to Charlie later.
“All right.” I hook my arm through Luka’s and begin towing us back toward town. If we’re lucky, Matty might still have some deep-dish pepperoni left, and we can get a pie to go. “Always a pleasure, Sheriff.”
“Right back at you, Cinnamon Stick. I’m watching you, Peters.”
I half expect him to point at his eyes and then point at Luka before dragging his finger across his throat. But apparently, that is a step too far for the man currently sitting in front of the police station with a gun in his lap.
Luka is quiet as we walk back. I glance up at him, noticing his frown hasn’t budged an inch. I clear my throat. What I wouldn’t give to go back to the levity of his fingers twisted through my belt loop.
“Did it bother you?” I say.
“Hm?”
“The sheriff? I think he was mainly joking. You know he’s protective.”
Luka goes to run his fingers through his hair but remembers at the last second he’s still wearing his hat with the poof ball. He coasts his hand over it instead, nudging the cap up until a thick riot of hair pokes free in the front.
With his rosy cheeks and dark messy hair, he looks like something that should be in a snow globe. I sigh.
“No, that was fine,” he says. A grin cracks through, some of his melancholy fading. “Actually, that was fantastic. I like that you have people looking out for you.”
“He checks in on the farm every couple of weeks. I think he even has some of the deputies do roadside cleanup on the stretch of road that leads down to us.”
And he always buys three trees. Every year. He grabs enough pumpkins to place on every banister of his front porch. He makes sure to grab a hot chocolate from Layla and fresh produce from Beckett. He’s a good man.
“Why are you still going to your dad’s house though? You’re always so —” He considers his words carefully, assessing me from the corner of his eye. “You’re not yourself. Seeing your dad makes you sad.”
I shrug and focus on the way our feet march out the same beat on the pavement. Luka’s legs are so much longer, but he slows to meet my pace, two sets of boots in perfect harmony.
“I’m not sad, I’m just . . . tired, I think. It’s always exhausting.”
“Then why do you still go?”
“I like to see Charlie. And Elle is nice.”
“So? You can see either of them whenever you want. You don’t have to entertain this weird nonholiday your dad insists on doing year after year.”
I’m not so sure it’s my dad’s idea. I think he plays along with it, of course. And it is certainly more convenient for him if I attend this version of Thanksgiving and not the large bash he throws on the actual holiday for the board of directors that oversees his financial management firm. But in the beginning, the invitation had come directly from Elle.
I sigh and decide to opt for honesty. “It’s nice to have somewhere to be,” I say quietly. “It’s nice to have a family to visit.”
Even if the entire dinner is an awkward ninety minutes of small talk, it’s a tradition in its own right.
“What’s that supposed to mean? Are you telling me—” I’m surprised to hear that Luka sounds angry. Furious even. “Stella, I have invited you to every single Thanksgiving.”
I know that. And I’ve declined every time. Instead, I spend my day at a shelter on the outskirts of Baltimore serving mashed potatoes and turkey sandwiches until it feels like my arms might fall off. And on the way home, I stop at Sheetz and eat my body weight in tater tots and fried mac and cheese.
And that’s okay. Perfect even. It’s exactly how I want to spend my holiday. My mom used to piece together a similar feast for us every Thanksgiving. We could never afford the turkey and sweet potatoes and green bean casseroles, so she improvised. We got TV dinners and set the table with our fanciest plasticware and laughed ourselves silly toasting each
other with Dr Pepper.
It’s my own little tradition.
“I see you the day after,” I hedge. “You know I don’t like to miss the bookstore Black Friday sale.”
He stops walking and curls both of his hands over my shoulders. I look up at him and catch sight of that poof ball again. It really is infuriating. I frown back at him.
“Why haven’t you been spending Thanksgiving with me and my mom?”
Because Luka’s mom still pinches his cheeks when he walks in the door.
Because his grandma and all his aunts make dinner while yelling over one another in Italian, slapping wrists with wooden spoons when you get too close to the pot. Because it’s warm and loud and chaotic and perfect. Because it feels too much like all the things I’m missing out on.
I shrug.
He mutters under his breath. “Well if I can’t stop you from willingly spending your day with that asshole, I’m not going to let you do it alone.” He stares down at me, and I can see that he means business. He looks like he should be delivering this proclamation from atop a hill before a wide green field. A sword or something in hand. Maybe a kilt. “I’m coming with you.”
I struggle to shake the mental image of Luka in a kilt out of my mind.
“What?”
“I’m coming with you to forced fake Thanksgiving.”
“Uh, no you’re not.”
“Why?”
“Well, you’re not invited, for one.”
“All right, well. Charlie loves me. I’ll just text Charlie.”
It’s true. Charlie does love him. Charlie would invite him in a nanosecond.
“What’s for two?”
“What?” I startle and stare longingly at the neon pizza sign two blocks away. If they’ve run out of deep-dish pizza in the time we’ve been having this discussion, I might never forgive Luka.
“You said ‘for one.’ What’s for two?”
“For two . . .” I search for an appropriate response.
“See.” He’s smug. I roll my eyes and begin speed-walking down to the pizza place. I’ll get a deep dish for myself, and Luka will be left with only the gluten-free thin-crust vegetable special. “There is no two.”
“There is a two,” I snap. I don’t want him to hear the way my dad talks to me. How sometimes he doesn’t even acknowledge my existence at all. Like I’m an inconvenient shadow at the table. I don’t want Luka to see what my Thanksgiving looks like when his is so wonderful. “I don’t want you to come.”
That gives Luka pause, and I feel his steps falter next to mine. I fight the immediate instinct to take it back.
“That’s not true,” he says quietly, and my chest pulls tight when I hear the hurt in his voice. “You don’t mean that, Stella.”
Shit. I stop on the sidewalk with one last longing glance at Matty’s Pizza and then turn to face Luka, gripping my hands just above his elbows like he often does to me. I shake him once.
“Luka.” His face is almost comically sad. I have no idea how his mother ever managed to discipline him as a child. “Luka, you are already doing so much for me. I do not want you to come to . . .” I search for what he called it.
“I don’t want you to come to forced fake Thanksgiving.”
He perks up a bit. “Is that why? Because you think I’m already doing so much?”
I nod, hesitant. He blows out a puff of air and rocks back on his heels.
“Okay, well, that’s easy.”
“That’s easy?”
“Yeah, I’m coming with you. We’ve been friends for almost ten years, Stella. Stop keeping score.”
Luckily for Luka, there is still deep-dish pepperoni pizza when we finally arrive at Matty’s. As per usual, Luka waits at the curb while I run in and grab our food. Matty gives me a wink and a smile from the back kitchen and lets me know it’s on the house for the lovebirds. He even arranges the pepperonis in a heart. It goes a long way to soothe my Luka-related frustrations.
He says not to keep score, but I can’t help it. I’ve always had trouble accepting help, and that seems like all I’ve been asking for lately. I don’t know how I’ll ever repay him for all of this.
WE’RE QUIET ON the way back to the farm, the murmur of the radio filling the silence between us. Every so often, there’s the creak of the cardboard box as I sneak my hand in for a pepperoni or two. I try to be stealthy about it, but by my third one, Luka reaches over and curls his hand around my wrist, guiding one perfect, greasy pepperoni to his mouth.
The edges of his teeth bite against my fingers, his bottom lip catching and dragging on the pad of my thumb. There’s a hint of tongue, and my stomach drops down to my toes.
He makes an exaggerated groaning sound as he chews, and I have to roll
down the window half an inch.
I keep the pizza box shut after that.
As we turn onto the narrow road that leads down to the farm, I see Beckett waving us down, elbows resting on the fence post that circles the land we use for produce. Luka slows the car to a stop, and I roll down the window. I snap a quick picture with my phone to upload to the farm Instagram, and Beckett grimaces. It’s his own stupid fault for standing like that. Luka snickers somewhere behind me.
“Why have I gotten four calls about you two?”
“Four calls?”
“My sisters and then the phone tree.”
My eyebrows shoot up my forehead. “You’re on the phone tree?”
Beckett frowns. “Everyone is on the phone tree.”
“I’m not,” Luka supplies from over my shoulder. “Neither is Stella.”
“Oh well.” Beckett shrugs, wholly unconcerned. Honestly, I didn’t even know the man owns a cell phone. When I need him, I just step outside my office and bellow his name into the fields. “You got the word out, if that’s what you were looking to do.”
I frown, something about that twisting in the back of my mind. In all the excitement, I feel like we’ve forgotten something important. Beckett waves us off and goes back to doing whatever it is he does when alone with the potatoes, and Luka guides us down the back roads.
I remember my earlier hesitation in the day, how we’re jumping into this without a plan. It had worked out this time, but what comes next? I’m stuck on that as I climb out of Luka’s car and dig around in my bag for my keys, shouldering open the door and letting us into the cluttered hallway. I kick off my boots and ignore the way Luka almost immediately straightens them, discarding my scarf on a table. I mindlessly wander into the kitchen and find the gnome-shaped plates that match the dish towel left by the previous owner and are frankly too hilariously weird to get rid of. I grab a slice of pepperoni and stare out the little window above the sink.
I’m two bites in when I realize the problem.
“Luka.”
He’s ignored my introspective mood and set up camp on my couch, a college football game on the television and an IPA in hand. He turns to look at me, long arm stretched out over the back of my love seat.
“You figure it out?”
I nod and shuffle a step closer. I take an extra bite of pizza for strength and fortitude.
“Everyone thinks we’re dating,” I start. He gives me a look that quite plainly says, Was that not the point of today? I eyeball him back and remind myself that he can’t read my mind. “It’s just—if they think we’re dating, what are they going to think when we’re—not dating?”
Everyone we ran into today had been so happy for us. Invested. Bailey McGivens had teared up. Mabel almost took Luka to the ground when he insinuated we were living together. I know I should have thought about this
before, but this whole thing is starting to feel messy. And Evelyn hasn’t even arrived yet.
He takes a long draw from his beer, a little line forming between his eyebrows. “I don’t follow.”
I circle the couch and perch on the edge. “We don’t have an exit strategy.”
“Do we need an exit strategy?”
As in, fake date forever? Walk around town on Saturdays arm in arm, only to go home to two separate houses? That seems like . . . an odd choice.
My face must betray my confusion, because Luka chuckles, holding up both his hands.
“Hold on, hear me out.” He shifts his body until he’s fully facing me, resting his beer bottle on my knee. I narrow my eyes at him and reach for it, taking a quick swig. Deliciously bitter hops explode in my mouth, and I calm fractionally. “I get that today was a little bit of a spectacle, but when this is all over, after we charm Evelyn Stackhouse—”
“St. James,” I correct.
“—or whatever, and you win this contest, what really has to change? We didn’t act any different today than we normally do. I just laid out some innuendos for Mabel to pick up on.”
I think of the way he curled his hand around my neck, how I could feel the thrum of his heart against my back when he pulled me against his chest. I think of how he nosed below my ear when we walked past the bookstore, pointing out the new nonfiction serial killer anthology. True, we act like that sometimes. But I’d hardly call it normal.
Luka continues, oblivious to my dubious look.
“I mean, what were you thinking? Did you want to send out a memo or something? How about we just . . . continue.”
I blink at him. He takes a behemoth bite of pizza, pleased with himself. I have no idea what he’s talking about. Continue what, Luka? I want to grab him by the shoulders and shake. Continue what?
“We will—” I almost don’t even want to say it. I reach for his beer and down it in four gulps and then wince. IPAs are not for chugging. I hand him the empty bottle and then thread my fingers together on my lap. I employ my
patient voice, the one I use when the kindergarteners visit the farm on their annual field trip and I show them how to plant their seeds. “Luka, what do you mean when you use the word continue?”
He looks at me like he knows exactly what kind of voice I’m using.
“Say we were dating for real.” His gaze softens, hazy in the light of the TV, brown eyes warm and reassuring. A half smile tips up the corner of his mouth, like the thought pleases him. Like he can’t possibly imagine anything better. “It wouldn’t change this part, right?”
“Pizza on the couch? Absolutely not.” Though it would probably be pants optional. The idea of it sends a prickle of awareness through me.
“No, I mean . . .” He searches for the right words, tilting his chin to look at the ceiling like he might find the answer somewhere up there with the support beams. His face is all clean lines in the setting sun. The sharp angle of his jaw. The dark brush of his brows. His straight nose and the freckles that dance over it. He took off his hat as soon as we came in, and his hair hasn’t quite figured out what to do, wild and unkempt and sticking out in every direction. “I mean like if we were dating for real, I’d like to think that no matter what happened, we would still act exactly as we do now. That even in the event of a breakup, like you’re worried about, we would still be friends and still do this. We would continue.”
“So you think—” I try to follow his logic. “Oh, you think because we have a friendship, it wouldn’t matter if we break up or not.”
He nods. “Yeah, exactly. We don’t need to say anything to anyone. We’ll just keep doing what we’ve always done, and if someone asks, we can tell them, I guess. But it’s not likely.”
“Won’t that—I don’t know—won’t it impact your activities when you’re back in town? After this?”
He looks confused as he runs his hand back and forth over his hair, somehow managing to mess it up further. “Activities?”
“You know.” I make a vague gesture with my hands. “Like if you go out and want to pick up a lady friend or something.” I sound like I am one hundred and seven years old.
He blinks at me. “Who am I going to pick up? Ms. Beatrice?”
“Luka.”
“I have never once done that here.”
I grimace, remembering a night out at the bar when he visited on his college spring break, his hand on a tourist’s thigh beneath the bar, his nose brushing her shoulder as he leaned in close.
I clear my throat. “You have once or twice done that here.”
He frowns like he has no idea what I’m talking about. Like the idea of it is preposterous. “I have not.”
I am not willing to continue this conversation, nor explain why every, ah, encounter of his is seared into my brain. “The point remains,” I say with an iron-willed determination to be relaxed about this, “that if we continue and people think we’re dating, you might have some—um—trouble. Doing that.”
“Which is not a point that matters,” he counters, looking confused and a little hurt. “Because that’s not something I’ve done in, like, five years, Stella.
And especially not here.”
“All right.” He’s wrong, but all right.
“Okay.”
“Fine.”
A frustrated huff of a laugh leaves him, and he kicks his legs out, sprawled across the couch. I still have my reservations, but it’s a little late to walk back this afternoon. Worst-case scenario, we can tell everyone that we decided we work better as friends.
Or I could fake my death and move to Mexico. I bet a holiday tree farm would do great there. I could sell tiny little palm trees in coconut shells on a beach somewhere.
After a few minutes of the both of us staring unseeingly at a college wide receiver rocketing down the field, his socked foot nudges mine.
“Everything is going to be fine, La La. No matter what happens, I’m not going to disappear on you. Okay?”
Leave it to Luka to touch on my deepest fear while I have pepperoni grease clinging to my chin. My dad left before I was born and it destroyed my mother. She died when I was in my twenties. We moved around too much for me to make lifelong friends. I’ve never gotten to keep anyone.
“Do you promise?”
I’m not ashamed of how my voice shakes around the edges, the tightness in my throat. He needs to know how important this is. I’m not willing to do any of it if it means losing him in the process.
He laces our fingers together and squeezes. His eyes are earnest, and it’s
easy to believe him.
“I promise.”
