“Your knuckles,” she said in a quiet voice as she reached over to the hand I had on the table. I held my breath as she ran her fingertips over my knuckles. It was a feather-light touch, but it traveled straight through me and I jerked. She pulled her hand back, casting her gaze to the table. “Do they hurt?”

“No.” My voice sounded thick. “They don’t hurt at all, baby.”

Her lashes swept up, and her eyes darted across my face like she was looking for something, but then she looked across the table.

Andrea cleared her throat. “Did you guys hear that they’re calling for another snowstorm next week, on New Year’s Eve?”

And so that’s how the conversation went for a while. Andrea or Tanner would smooth over the tense silence with some random statement, Syd and I barely said more than an entire sentence to one another, and then the food came.

Syd had ordered a steak, but she just seemed to cut it up into tiny pieces and push it around her plate with her fork. “You’re not hungry?”

She glanced up, tucking back her hair with her free hand. “I guess I ate too much bread.”

My gaze went to the half loaf that remained and I arched a brow. “Doesn’t look like you ate that much.”

Her fingers tightened around the handle of her knife, and I wondered if she was fantasizing about stabbing me with it. “How do you know that’s not our second or third loaf?”

“It’s our first,” Andrea announced, stopping a deep conversation about the differences between the zombies from The Walking Dead and 28 Days Later.

Syd shot her friend a look, and I hid a grin. Andrea shrugged and turned back to Tanner. “The infected are not the same as the zombies in The Walking Dead.”

Tanner shook his head. “Is there really a difference?”

I shook my head as she went into a deep description of the differences. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Syd grin as she speared a piece of steak with her fork. She glanced at me. “The infected are different,” she whispered.

A smile pulled at my lips and tugged at my heart. “I believe you.”

She met my stare for a moment, and then attacked another piece of steak, dipping it into her mashed potatoes.

“Are you going to your grandparents for Christmas?” It was a stupid question to ask. She always did, but I wanted to say something.

Syd nodded. “My parents want to leave Christmas Eve and stay the night with them. How about you?”

“Grandpa is coming down this year, doing the Christmas morning thing with us.”

“Wow. He’s driving down from Morgan County by himself?”

“Yep.” Pride filled my voice. “The man is as old as dirt, but he’s still running around like he’s twenty.”