Pans are piled high in the sink. Brent was supposed to wash up but I suspect he won’t. The boys had a full-blown shouting match on Christmas Day after Curtis cooked a turkey, and Heather refuses to stay over because the place is in such a state, so Dale has to stay at hers.

Saskia touches my hair. “I love the color.”

“Thanks. I still get a shock when I see myself in the mirror.”

She twirls a long pink strand around her finger. “I might have to dye mine.”

I give her a sharp look. She laughs, and I realize she was joking.

“Want to come over to mine on Tuesday night?” she says. “We’ll have a girls’ night.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“I’ll text you the address.”

Julien enters the kitchen, remote in hand. “You missed my section.”

“Did we?” Saskia says innocently.

Up close, he has the worst case of panda eyes I’ve ever seen. His nose and cheeks are brown, his eye area white and freckly. He’s shorter than Saskia and a fair bit shorter than me, and looks like he’s about fourteen, although he’s actually twenty-two, according to Brent.

“I rewind it for you, okay?” He tugs her off the counter and tows her back into the living room.

Saskia looks over her shoulder at me, blue eyes sparkling with mischief, and raises her hand to her forehead. Dickhead.

Brent slips in as they leave. “Are you staying over tonight?”

“I hope so,” I say. “I drank three cans of Smash today and I won’t be able to sleep for hours.”

Brent’s eyes darken. “Fine with me.”

It may taste like shit but it seemed to help my riding that day, so I swapped him a box of muesli bars for a crate of Smash and I’ve drunk half of them already.

He leans in to kiss me but a sound behind us makes us pull apart.

Saskia gives us a curious look and lifts her beer from the counter. “I forgot this.”

I still haven’t learned if she and Brent have history. As soon as the door shuts behind her, I open my mouth to ask him, but Heather breezes in.

She takes a bottle from the freezer—champagne—and looks at Brent with doe eyes. “My manager gave me this. Could you open it?”

I want to laugh. She must open all kinds of bottles at work every night, yet she asks Brent as though she thinks it will give him personal satisfaction—make him feel more of a man or something.