by Jessica Roe
I snort with laughter as it cuts off.
I think Mom's already planning Christmas gifts for our future kids, I text her.
It takes her less than thirty seconds to reply.
Told you we should've stayed home with Father Beermass.
Yeah, but Christmas dinner. . .
Leftover takeout? We could've managed.
I'm grinning from ear to ear when I rejoin the others at the table a minute later, because Ivy always seems to have that effect on me.
“Naked video?” Zac guesses, smirking. I consider sucker punching him, but it's great to see him finally acting like his annoying self. And Mom would kill me. Not that I'm scared of her or anything. Definitely not. “Or was she dressed up as a naughty snowman, waiting for you to shower her in snow?”
Mom chokes on her food, and Dad reaches over the table to cuff Zac's ear while Blair and Jemma break out into giggles.
“You're such a dick,” I say, shaking my head.
“I will send you both to your rooms!” Mom scolds Zac and I. “Don't think you're too old!”
“Sorry, Mom,” we chorus, and the table falls quiet as we continue to eat.
“Or a dirty angel,” Blair pipes up a minute later, obviously unable to help herself.
“Begging to be stuck on top of Nash's tree,” Zac finishes for her, and the pair of them break out into laughter as they bump fists.
“No Christmas pudding for either of you,” Mom tells them.
“You just don't know when to shut the hell up,” Hailee hisses to Zac venomously, and silence immediately fills the room. Hailee and Zac have been dating a couple of years now – they met in college and went traveling together after they graduated – she's always been a bitch, but she's on top form today. Zac is such an easy going guy and she's his total opposite; I don't know why he puts up with her.
He clenches his jaw but says nothing in return. I want to, and I know I'm not the only one at the table, but none of us do. It's not our relationship to get involved in.
Jemma coughs awkwardly, and gradually the others begin to strike up conversations again. Every now and then I catch one of my family shooting daggers at Hailee, though Blair is full on glaring at her.
My brother and I need to have a serious talk about why he can't seem to let this bitch go.
“I didn't know you and Ivy were dating now, Nash,” Ila chirps, seeming to perk up at the idea.
“We're not dating. Ivy's just a friend.”
“Then why is she sending you naked videos?”
I choke on a chunk of potato as it goes down the wrong way. Laughing, Silver thumps me on the back. “She's not,” I finally manage to get out. “Ignore our dumb ass brother.”
“Language,” Mom warns, but it's a tired effort now, like she's given up on this meal ever being a civilized kind of affair. If she wanted civilized, she probably shouldn't have had so many kids.
“So you're not together then?” Zac wants to know. “I always thought you would be in the end.”
“We're not together,” I stress, exasperated.
“You looked pretty together on the dance floor the other night,” Silver adds with a smirk.
I dig him with my elbow. “Like you'd remember. You spent half the night so drunk outta your face you were practically drooling over Blair's feet.”
Blair nods. “That's true, baby.”
He shakes his head at her in a defeated manner. “We're supposed to be a team. I'm getting no love here.”
“I'll love you!” Ila pipes up, and then her face blushes bright red. She's been starting to look at Silver with stars in her eyes whenever he's visited recently – I guess my baby sister has found her first crush. What is it with my best friend and the girls in my family?
“Um,” he replies, because obviously he's a ladies man of the smoothest sort.
Hailee slugs back her glass of water then slams it down on the table in front of Zac, flicking her blonde hair behind her shoulder.
“You want another?” he asks her quietly.
“Obviously.”
Mom's shoulders stiffen at the way Hailee speaks to him, and I can tell it's taking a lot for her to hold her tongue. I'm impressed, because our mom can be an ice queen of epic proportions when she doesn't like somebody. “Would you prefer something stronger, Hailee? Wine? Beer? Sherry?”
“Arsenic?” Lance mutters, and I have to stifle a laugh because that was just so dark coming from a ten year old.
Hailee ignores Lance, or maybe she just doesn't hear him. “No thanks. Water will have to do.” She glares at Zac as she says that.
“You really should drink some wine,” Jemma says cheerfully. “Wine always makes me nicer when I'm. . .” She trails off, the corner of her mouth turning down in a cringe when she realizes that she may have inadvertently insulted Hailee.
“Being a bitch,” Blair finishes for her with a sweet smile, popping a carrot in her mouth. My sister doesn't really have a filter, and she's much less inclined than the rest of us to be nice. It's one of my favorite things about her.
Reid shoves a forkful of food into his mouth as he tries to hide his laugh, and Dad's mouth vanishes into a thin white line as he fights the same urge. I don't bother to hide my chuckle.
“Language,” Mom repeats weakly.
Hailee drops her cutlery and places her palms on the table by her plate, leaning forward to glare at Blair. “You might want to shut your mouth, little girl. Before I shut it for you.”
Everyone grows deathly silent then, because you don't, under any fucking circumstance, threaten a member of our family. You just don't.
Jemma blinks. “Oh no she didn't.”
“What did you just say to my sister?” I demand.
Blair arches an I don't give a crap eyebrow at Hailee. Silver takes her hand, threading his fingers through hers protectively. His furious gaze flickers from Hailee to Zac. “You might wanna control your girlfriend,” he says, his voice coated with ice.
“I'll have to ask you not to use threats like that in this house, Hailee.” Hailee words have whipped up a storm in Mom's eyes. “Or you'll be asked to leave.”
Hailee turns to Zac. “Well? Aren't you going to say something? I'm your girlfriend, Zac!”
The poor guy looks tortured, helpless. “Come on, Hailee. Don't do this.”
I raise an eyebrow, surprised and a little pissed. A few years ago he'd said some pretty shitty things to Blair when he'd been under the impression that she'd given Jemma drugs and landed her in hospital. He'd been wrong, and ever since then he's always gone out of his way to defend her to anyone who would speak out against her. I expected more from him than a half assed plea.
I'm not the only one who's surprised. Hailee, who'd obviously expected him to be on her side, slams a hand down hard on the table. “Perhaps you should just go ahead and tell your family why I'm being such a bitch then?”
This, of course, immediately grabs all of our attention. My mom doesn't even remember to tell her off for cursing.
Zac drops his face into his hands and rubs his eyes tiredly. “You were the one who said you didn't want anyone to know yet.”
“Zac?” Mom questions, going into full on worry mode. “What is it? Is someone sick? Are you sick? Hailee?”
“You could say that.” Hailee sits back in her seat and folds her arms across her chest, scowling furiously. “Your son got me pregnant!”
Another silence. Longer, this time. Confused. Shocked.
Because what the fuck? My brother, my little brother, is going to be a father? He's going to have an actual baby? A living, breathing baby?
“Whoa,” Lance says finally. “This is the best Christmas ever.”
Mom drains her wineglass with a shaking hand and sets it down. I don't think she knows how to feel right now. Happy at the prospect of a grandchild? Surprised that it's Zac who's going to be giving it to her? Worried? Excited? Pissed? “Oh honey. You're. . . you're both so young.”
“I'll be twenty thre
e soon,” comes his muffled voice from behind his hands. No wonder he's been looking like shit recently. I wonder if he's even processed this himself yet?
Dad seems at a loss for words. “I thought. . .I thought you were both planning to travel some more. You had. . .you had plans. . .” He trails off, because Zac, as much as we love him, has always been kind of aimless when it comes to his future. He's never really known what he's wanted to do with his life. He flitted from major to major in college before finally deciding on business – I think more to please our dad than anything. But Zac was never going to be a businessman, we all knew that. It's just not his style. It didn't really come as a surprise when, after graduating college, he decided to jet off around the world to travel. And now. . . Well, shit.
“Guess we've got new plans,” Hailee replies with a huff. Yeah, she's gotten good and maternal all right.
“How far gone are you?” Reid asks, because someone really should, I guess. He doesn't look uncomfortable with all the family drama at all, but then he seems like the kind of guy who doesn't get fazed easily.
“Just under three months. We found out right before Thanksgiving.”
Jemma's eyes are wide and unblinking. “How did this happen? God Dad, did you forget to give him the safe sex talk or something?”
“Jemma!” Zac protests. “Of course we used. . . For Christ's sake! We were careful, all right?”
“Clearly he wasn't careful enough,” Hailee puts in.
I frown at that because sure, my brother isn't exactly faultless here, but. . . “Takes two to tango, doll,” I point out, and aw man, that is not appreciated.
+++
Things go pretty much downhill from there. Hailee yells, she cries, she screeches, then she does all three at once. Zac tries to calm her down, and the rest of us attempt to come to terms with the fact that this fucking nutbag is now in our lives forever.
After a while, Zac manages to get her to go lie down in our old room, where hopefully she'll sleep some of the bitch off.
Mom serves dessert, but aside from Lance, we've all lost our appetites. In the end, Dad escorts her away from the table and calms her nerves with a sherry while Jemma and Reid take over clean up duty.
With an unspoken agreement, Silver grabs three beers out of the fridge and hands one to me. We head outside where Zac has taken up residence on the porch steps, his chin in his hands as he stares across the road at nothing in particular. Sitting down on either side of him, Silver hands him the third beer and I slap him on the back. He takes the bottle, twisting off the cap and downing the thing almost in one.
We sit quietly for a while, because none of us are really sure what to say. Shit just got real for Zac in a serious way.
“Where's Blair?” he asks Silver eventually.
“She went to meet up with Ibbie and the rest of her old high school friends. They've got that tradition, remember? She wanted to stay, but I told her to give you a while.”
“Thanks, bro.” Because that's what Silver is to us, another brother.
“So,” I start, because I think I should probably offer him some comforting words of advise. That's what older brothers do, right? Only I've never been any good at the whole advise thing, so when nothing else comes to mind, I say, “Fuck.”
Zac just nods despondently. “Yeah. Pretty much fuck.”
+++
After Blair arrives back, Silver takes her straight out again on a drive – probably to someplace quiet to do shit I do not need to know about – so I'm alone when I get home, well after dark. Mom offered to let me stay over, practically begged me to, but after all that drama I just needed to get back to my place and chill.
The lights are already on when I let myself in, and I'm momentarily surprised because I'd thought Ivy would be staying with her folks tonight.
I find her in the kitchen with her back to me. A giant red sweater swamps her petite figure, and I spot another larger one on the kitchen table which her mom must have knitted for me. Ivy is doing the dishes, so immediately I know something is wrong because she never does the dishes – usually we ignore them up until the point where there's no cutlery or plates left in the cupboards. Last week we even debated for an hour over going out and buying new ones until we realized it would probably take less effort to just wash them.
I was fine living on my own; after growing up with so many siblings, the quiet was perfect when I finally moved out. But when Ivy came home she just slipped so effortlessly back into my life and now I can't remember why I ever thought living alone was okay. Everything with her is so easy, is just. . .better. Her living here is supposed to be a temporary thing, but if she left now it would it. . .it would just suck.
“Hey,” I say, dropping my jacket over a kitchen chair. “What're you doing home?”
“Hi,” she replies without turning to look at me. “Just thought I'd come back. I didn't feel like staying at Mom and Dad's place tonight.” There's a hitch in her voice, and I realize with a jolt that she's washing up because she's trying to hide tears. She should know by now that she can't hide anything from me.
Ivy, she isn't the kind of girl to cry. Never has been. Not when she was a kid and I was being a dick to her at our family get togethers. Not when she'd fallen out of a tree and broken three of her fingers. Not even when Ian Finch asked her to prom then broke up with her two days before because big titted Natalie Donovan had suddenly become available.
In fact, I think I've only ever seen her cry once before in all our years as friends. We'd been sixteen, and her Gramps, the one she'd been so close to, had just died of a heart attack. She'd been holding on by a thin piece of thread, refusing to break down because she wasn't that kind of girl. Nathan, Silver and I had taken her to the lake in the next town over to get her mind off of it, but a couple of ass heads from the local school had been there too. They'd said something shitty to her, I don't even remember what now, but it had been the last straw and it had brought her to tears. That had not been okay with us. Insults had been hurled, fists had swung, and I'd ended up with a broken nose and some seriously bruised knuckles. Those dickwads never messed with her again though.
So this, seeing her like this. . .it fucking breaks me.
Moving behind her, I slip my arms around her waist and rest my head on top of hers. Without her heels on, she fits perfectly beneath my chin. “There's more to this married guy from San Francisco than you've been letting on, right?”
She shrugs, aiming for nonchalance, but the glass in her hands slips back into the water with a small thump, splashing her with soapy bubbles.
“You can tell me,” I murmur, burying my face into her hair. “You don't have to hide from me. Out of everyone, you don't ever have to hide from me.”
She sniffs. “I guess he kind of. . .broke my heart,” she admits, and I squeeze her tighter because I know how hard that was for her – to admit weakness. Still stubbornly refusing to turn and look at me, she lifts a shoulder to wipe her damp cheek.
I feel. . .like I want to drive down to San Francisco right the hell now so I can find that dick and kill him with my bare hands, right in front of his goddamned family.
Ivy has never been this way over a guy before, never been so torn up. In all the years I've known her she's never had any problem attracting guys – mostly because she's hot and fucking awesome – but though she fooled around, she always kept herself at an emotional distance from them, unwilling to commit to anything even remotely serious. That some douche managed to get under her skin and didn't realize what a precious fucking gift he'd been given. . . Yeah, I'm feeling murderous.
But she doesn't want my pity. Doesn't need it. It's the one thing bound to send her packing. I lower my head, rubbing my nose up and down her neck lightly in a way that makes her shiver. Her skin is amazingly soft, and smells like the strawberry scented lotion she keeps in her bathroom. “You and me, we're a pair of idiots,” I joke.
“Heartbroken idiots,” she agrees, and for the first time I can hear the hint of
a smile in her voice.
“We're pathetic.” I grin. “Only one thing for it.”
“And what's that?”
Reluctantly I let her go and back away towards the table. “Well, first of all, I. . .” I grab up the sweater from the table. “. . .am going to put this on.”
She swivels around, wiping her hands dry on her skirt. Her eyes are red rimmed, but she laughs when she sees me in the sweater and that sparkle is exactly what I wanted.
I love Deb almost as much as I love my own mom, but she really can't knit for shit. Despite having been knitting me a sweater every Christmas for at least half my life, she's once again made it too small so that it fits me like a second skin, and one of the arms is at least three inches longer than the other.
“Oh God, photo moment.”
“Only if you're in it too.” I whip out my cell and pull her against me. We both stick out our tongues and cross our eyes as I snap the picture. “Wow,” I marvel, nodding my head as we study it. “Now that's next year's Christmas card right there.”
She snorts out a giggle. “We look so freakin' hot right now. It's hard to believe Lambert and Bambi aren't falling at our feet. What's next on our pathetic party agenda?”
I grab a six pack out of the fridge and hold it up. “Beer. And I'm pretty sure The Grinch is playing on TV.”
She holds a hand over her heart and pretends to swoon. “Oh man, you know me so well.”
I grin, because I really fucking do. “Hey, you'll never guess who's pregnant. . .”
Chapter 6
Ivy
Water or beer? Water or beer? My lips purse together and I tap my chin with my fingers as I debate between the two six packs. I'm in the only store in town that bothers to open on Boxing Day, leaning against my cart as I try to decide. We have been drinking a lot of beer lately, and obviously water is the healthier option, but then it is the holidays. . . Decisions, decisions, decisions.