“Please tell me there are pictures,” Fox said.
“Fox,” Indira said.
“Everyone’s wondering!”
“Of course there are pictures,” Dottie said, “but I don’t know if Dash—”
“Absolutely not,” I said.
“One?”
“One, Dash?”Millie asked.“Please?”
“One with your clothes on?”Dottie added.
“Oh my God,” I said.
Millie and Dottie shared a look and said, at the same time, “Yay!”
I immediately realized my mistake.I mean, it wasn’t a bad picture.I was wearing my brown reindeer suit, and the antlers were kind of cute.I looked like a baby because it had been, God, seven or eight years ago.The only problem was—
“Who’s that hunk of man?”Fox asked.
“That’s not Hugo,” Millie said.
Indira made a little sound that was almost a purr.“He’s very handsome.”
“Oh, that’s the quarterback Dash was dating.Dasher, what was his name?”
“I wasn’t—we weren’t—”
Keme looked at me and then looked back at the picture.He pushed his hair behind his ears, grinned, and chose that moment to say his first words of the evening: “Dude.Nice.”
“We all loved him,” Dottie said.“He was so sweet.He was perfect for Dash, actually.”
“He was perfect for a nervous breakdown,” I said.“Especially since he’s married to a woman and has three children now.I didn’t even know he was closeted for the first six months because I just thought he liked hanging out in my room.”
Bobby’s low “Oh my God” sounded particularly despairing.
“You know what?”I said, my face heating.“This has been so much fun, but Dottie has to go now.Right, Dottie?You’ve probably got a plane to catch to, uh, Kuala Lumpur.Love you, happy New Year, bye.See you when the first parent dies.”
“Dashiell,” Indira said.
“Oh, it’s from a TV show,” Dottie said, waving away Indira’s shock.
“Dottie can’t leave,” Millie said.“Dottie is AMAZING!”
Keme glowered at me.
“You’re not going to throw your sister out in this weather,” Fox said, “are you, Dasher?”
“I mean,” Dottie said slowly, “I was hoping I could crash here for a few days…”
Everyone must have seen the moment of defeat.Millie cheered.Keme’s glower eased into a frown.Fox shouted, “Huzzah!”And Indira smiled at me and nodded.
From Bobby, though, I felt only a keen, wary interest—and so I did my best not to look at him, in case that interest turned into a question.
“Come on,” I said to Dottie.“Let’s find you a room.”
