I reach out and tear one of the phone numbers off the bottom corner. And then I tuck it into my pocket on my way out the door.

FOURTEEN

People Get Restless

Weston

My phone rings when I’m on the way into my econ class. This class bores me, so I stop outside the lecture hall and answer my brother’s call. “What’s shakin’, Stevie?”

“You’re coming home for Thanksgiving, right?”

Uh-oh. Cue the awkward silence. “Nah, I’m sorry. My practice schedule is awfully tight.”

“Bullshit!” he says immediately. “You’re a lying liar who lies!”

“Aw, come on now. It doesn’t make sense for me to rent a car and drive across the state for a meal, Stevie. I’m a busy guy, and it will be a—“

“Shit show,” he grumbles. “That’s why you should feel obligated to come home and suffer with me. It’s not like we live in Texas, asshole. Get a Zipcar. Drive a hundred miles. A hockey game is longer than your drive home.”

“I can’t, man. I have a date.” This is strictly true, seeing as I have at least three offers already this morning.

“A date,” he says, his voice betraying flat disbelief. “On Thanksgiving.”

“Yup.”

“That’s what you said last year, too.”

“It was true last year as well.” He doesn’t need to know that I’ve hired myself out. In truth, I feel bad that Stevie has to suffer through Thanksgiving at one of our parents’ homes. He’s a year behind me at Dartmouth, which is just a few miles away from our mom’s house in Norwich and a few more miles from our dad’s place in Fairlee. He can’t blame the hockey schedule, either, because he hasn’t played since high school.

He’s trapped. But that is not my fault. “You’ll have Lauren’s company though, right?” Our sister lives in town with her fiancé.

Stevie makes a disgusted sound. “You know what she’s like right now. All she can talk about is the wedding. Flowers and colors and the rest of that bullshit.”

We both shudder. As the owner of a dick, weddings were never interesting to me. But since our parents’ spectacular divorce a couple of years ago, just the idea of marriage makes me feel a little squicky.

At some point in the near future, I’m going to have to put on a tux and watch my sister marry her boyfriend of three years. I’m going to have to clap and smile and try not to suffocate in my bow tie, while I watch my sister make the biggest mistake of her life.

Nothing against her guy, either. He seems nice enough for now. That’s the problem, though. Once the glow wears off, people get restless. And then they do stupid, crazy things to each other. And they make their kids watch.

Fun times.

“Look.” I level with my brother. “I’m not coming home for Thanksgiving. You don’t have to either, you know. You don’t owe it to them.”

“Dad, though. He’ll be all alone.”