“Penny, Penny, Penny.” March tuts from the doorway. “When are you going to remember that you can’t go around saying things like that in this family?”
Laughing is too painful, so I wave my hand weakly in his direction. “Sorry. I’m too full of meat to think properly.”
His gaze narrows. “You said that on purpose.”
“He’s quick,” I tell the ceiling. “Very quick.”
“Brat,” March says fondly while strolling into the room. He plops heavily on the couch next to me. It’s enough to send me rocking.
I groan, holding my stomach. “Bastard.”
His hair is damp and carries the fresh scent of shower. “It’s a good thing I’m heading back to campus on Monday. I can’t eat like this again untilafterthe Thanksgiving game.”
“Ugh. Don’t mention food. I beg you.”
“Poor Penny,” March croons with an evil grin. When I give him the stink eye, his smile grows. “Don’t kill me yet. Look what I brought you.”
With an enticing little shimmy, he holds up an icy can of ginger beer.
The sight of stomach-soothing soda has me crab-crawling back up to a somewhat sitting position. “Gimme!”
He chuckles and hands me the can. The snick of it opening has anticipation surging through me. I take a long, cool drink and sigh. Right before an oh so elegant burb erupts.
March bursts out laughing. I’m so full, I don’t even care.
“Thank you,” I say. “I needed that.”
“No, no...” Pale jade eyes crinkle with mirth. “Thank you for the entertainment.”
Humming, I lean back and cradle myfoodbaby protectively. “Where is everyone?”
By “everyone” I mainly mean August. I lost track somewhere between finishing dinner and hanging out with the girls. They’ve since dispersed to their respective rooms to sweat out their own food babies, but the Luck men had gone out to sit by the lake. We’d let them be, understanding they might want a moment alone with Jan. Apparently, none of them have spent any amount of quality time with him since the accident; he wouldn’t let them.
March sits next to me. “Jan’s gone to bed. I left Dad and Augie out by the lake. They’ll probably be up soon.”
Though he’s good at hiding it, I know March well enough to notice the strain around his eyes and mouth. “Something wrong?”
He takes sudden interest in the textured weave of the couch cushions, tracing one with the blunt edge of his fingernail. “I’m only telling because I know August will do the same when he gets the chance.”
“You don’t have to,” I assure. “I’m not going to pry.”
“That’s why I don’t mind.” Brow furrowed, he runs a hand through his hair in a gesture so like August’s that he might as well be his twin just now. “It’s Jan...”
I listen quietly as March tells me about the accident, Jan’s ex-fiancée, and their breakup.
“It’s just a shock, you know?” he concludes, unhappily. “I thought my big bro had it all together. The girl he loved since college, the top of his game—for fuck’s sake, he’s a three-time Super Bowl winner and he isn’t even thirty.” Wide eyes implore me to understand. “You know how fucking cool that is?”
“I do.”
“And here he’s telling us that it’s a relief to be free of it. All of it.” March shakes his head softly as though to clear it. “August and I looked at each other like,What the fuck?He’s what we’ve strived to be. And now he’s telling us that wasn’t what he wanted!”
His words settle over us in a heavy blanket of quiet. Gently, I reach out and hold his hand. He takes it immediately, which tells me he’s more than flustered: he’s upended.
“It just does my head in,” he whispers. “Makes me wonder what’s the point in dreaming.”
It hurts to see happy-go-lucky March, the sweet boy who never left me out of anything, distressed like this. After all these years, I never fully accepted that he’s my friend too. Just as much as June and May. January too. They’re my family. Not by blood but by love.
I grip him more firmly, and our fingers thread. “Does that mean you’ll quit football?”
