Greg dipped his index finger in the rabbit pot and licked it off. “They’re sending us the dog’s ashes.” He smacked his lips together. “Tastes like blueberry jam.” He pulled a little notepad and pen out of the back pocket of his khakis and jotted something down. “Rabbit, grab it. Blueberry jam,” he sang to himself.

Peaches watched him with stoned dissatisfaction. She pushed her wineglass away. “Stuart told me once he’d never do a kids’ album. It’s too middle-aged and obvious.”

“Oh, he told you that, did he?”

“Yes. He tells me lots of things.” Peaches wasn’t sure what she was doing. Last time she’d seen Stuart Little, she’d basically told him to go home to his wife.

“Why don’t you ask Stuart Little to come over and eat your rabbit with you?”

“Maybe I will,” Peaches responded.

“Guys,” Liam pleaded. “Stop.”

“I saw you kiss him,” Greg said.

“Yeah, and I enjoyed it.”

“Mom?”

Greg ignored his pleading son. Liam was seventeen, he could handle it. When Peaches was in labor with Liam she’d growled at Greg like a rabid dog and shouted expletives at him. Somehow it helped. If Peaches needed to fight now, he could fight.

“Fuck your flirting. And fuck your rabbit,” Greg said ridiculously. He tore off his socks and hurled them across the kitchen, inside out, to rile her up even more.

“Dad!”

“Fuck you,” Peaches snapped. “It’s your fault the dog died.”

“Mom, please.”

But they kept on ignoring him, and Liam fled the room.

In his room, Liam fumed. Why was everything so messed up? His dog was dead, his parents hated each other, and he’d totally messed things up with Shy. They were practically about to have sex and then he’d left his backpack in the park and got so worried that someone was going to steal it and his calculus textbook with it that he’d basically abandoned her, half undressed, without any explanation. He’d gotten an 89 on his calc test the next morning, which was totally unacceptable, his lowest grade ever, and he’d been in a foul mood ever since. Not that he blamed Shy.

Fucking Bruce, that’s who he blamed. If Bruce hadn’t burned down the schoolyard, his mom wouldn’t have been mad at him all the time and he wouldn’t have developed this complex that he didn’t deserve to have things work out, that he deserved things to be fucked up and to not be able to talk to or even text an apology to his girlfriend. Okay, so he hadn’t officially asked her to be his girlfriend, but fuck that, she was his girlfriend. If she didn’t already know that, she was an idiot. She was too busy being obsessed with their Latin teacher anyway. Fuck him. Fuck her.