“I don’t do that.”
“You do.”
Okay. Maybe I do. But it’s worth it if it makes Tanner laugh. Most things are.
Eve’s new place isn’t far, but it’s a long enough drive that I get to enjoy Tanner’s quiet humor. It gets me pondering too. Thanksgiving doesn’t mean much to me, but it’s everything to all the Americans I’ve ever known, and I wonder what it is to him. So I ask and he thinks hard enough about his answer to stoke the curiosity I’m trying to contain.
“I guess it’s nostalgia,” he says eventually. “Cliché, but it’s true. We weren’t a family of four for long, and after my dad died, my mom worked every holiday in an all-night diner. But when I was a kid, I remember the turkey and the cranberry sauce from the can. My dad let me and Gabi drink beer too, the real stuff that made us giggle and fall over till my mom got mad.”
“I can’t imagine your brother giggling.”
“Yeah, it’s a reach these days, but it happened, I swear. What were the holidays like in your house?”
I park outside Eve’s house and kill the engine. “We don’t have Thanksgiving—it’s all about Christmas, and we always went to my grandparents’ place. Turkey, Christmas pudding, and my nan’s decimated Brussel sprouts. Good times.”
“Were they?”
“Yeah. It was the one day of the year we stayed in one place and stopped chasing ideals that don’t exist.”
“Do you miss them?”
“Who?”
“Your family.”
“No. Well, maybe my sisters. They were pretty young when I left and I’ve missed everything important to them. I regret that. What about you and Gabriel? Eve says you’re close, but you never talk about him.”
“I just did.”
I skewer him with a scowl that has him rolling his eyes. And I’m joking. Mostly. Almost. I think.
Tanner sighs. “We’re as close as we can be with him gone so much. And I have regrets too.”
“Like what?”
“Like not being stable enough to appreciate him last Thanksgiving when he was here.”
“Stable? Were you sick?”
“Something like that.”
It’s the most I’ve ever drawn from him. If we were alone in his bed or mine, I might’ve pushed for more, but Eve’s appearance outside the car gives me a reason to stop. I find his hand and squeeze. “Don’t know about you, mate, but I’m fucking starving.”
Tanner laughs and it meets his dark eyes. “Me too, but Jax?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m not your mate.”
* * *
Tanner
Eve’s place is a communal cave of boho rugs and incense. She cooks a huge turkey for me, Jax, and four of her yoga friends who haven’t made it home for the holidays. Three chicks and one dude whose gaze flickers to Jax often enough for me to want to throat-punch him.
Jax doesn’t notice.
Eve does. She drags me into the kitchen to help her lift the ostrich-sized bird out of the oven. “Stop giving Rumi that nasty glare.”
