When Ma excused herself to the parlor, I cleared my throat. “Listen up,” I said. The table went silent. “Newt stays,” I said, repeating what I had said this morning for those that weren’t there. “Anyone has a problem with that, they can take it up with me.”
Ransom lifted his glass, shrugged. “Fine by me. He’s better company than most of your exes.”
Harlow grinned, and even the cousins just nodded and kept chewing.
I looked at Newt, let him see it was final.
He smiled, slow and real, then let his hand slip under the table to find mine. Our fingers tangled up, awkward but firm.
For the rest of the night, we didn’t let go.
Chapter Five
~ Newton ~
After dinner, the house emptied out in stages—cousins first, then Ransom, then Harlow, who ghosted up the stairs with all the stealth a giant could muster. Ma’s slippered feet faded into the back parlor, where she’d nurse her grudge and watch Wheel until the static put her to sleep.
By ten, the old place was as quiet as a coffin, the only noises the low hum of the fridge and the restless ache of the wood settling into night.
I killed the lights in the hall, left the kitchen on dim. There was an open bottle of whiskey in the corner cabinet, and I helped myself to a double, neat.
The glass was cold in my hand, condensation tracing slow arcs down the outside. I took a seat at the end of the table, boots up on the rung, and let the burn slide down my throat and settle somewhere behind my ribs.
For the first time in months, my shoulders unclenched a little.
I sat there, turning the glass in my hands, not thinking about the day, or the way Newt had looked at me over breakfast, or the way his fingers had curled around mine under the table after dinner.
I tried, but my brain had its own agenda. Every detail stuck like shrapnel in my head. The pinked-up skin at the edge of his bruise, the way his tongue kept darting out to check his busted lip, the way he wore my hoodie like a badge or a shroud, I couldn’t tell which.
I poured another, told myself it was for the pain in my knee, not the one behind my sternum. That was the trick, always—find a smaller ache to hide the real one.
The kitchen clock ticked so loud I wanted to shoot it.
Newt was asleep by now, or pretending. He’d found his way to my bed with the same animal sense that got him through dinner—low to the ground, eyes always searching for exits.
I wanted to go up there, push open the door and see him sprawled in my sheets, but I didn’t. I had nothing to say that wouldn’t sound like a threat or a plea, and I was tired of both.
The glass was half-empty when I heard the scrape of boots on linoleum behind me. I didn’t look up. Only two people in the world walked like that, and one of them was dead.
Pa came in slow, favoring his right leg, hands shoved deep in his coverall pockets. He didn’t speak until he was halfway to the stove, where he took a ceramic mug down from the hook, poured himself a finger of the good stuff, and drank it like water.
He stood there, studying the window, jaw working side to side like he was grinding the words down to powder before he let them out. The lines on his face were deep tonight. He looked like a man who’d watched too many years vanish and not enough worth remembering.
He didn’t turn, just said, “This a good idea, boy?”
I didn’t answer right away. I let the whiskey numb my tongue, then let it numb the part of my brain that wanted to have this conversation. But it was Pa, and there were rules, and I wasn’t going to break them.
“Probably not,” I said.
He grunted, a sound halfway between approval and disgust.
The old man crossed the kitchen, planted himself against the counter, arms folded tight over his chest. The overhead light caught the silver in his beard, the webwork of scars along his knuckles. He’d never been a big man, but he took up space just fine. When he looked at you, he looked through you, like the rest was just camouflage.
“You know what you’re doing?” he said.
I stared at the glass. The answer was no, but I hated admitting ignorance even more than I hated the truth. I shrugged. “I’ve had worse odds.”
He barked a laugh, then went quiet. “You keep that up, you won’t see forty.”
