Heart Thaw (8 page)

“And the freckles. They’re very elvish. Do you have those weird pointy ears?” He dips his finger in my hair and pushes it back behind my ear. “Nope. Regular ears. Maybe you’re an elf-hybrid?”

He rubs the curl of my ear and gently pinches the lobe.

I have no idea how that simple touch can make me so hot.

“How did we get onto this line of conversation?” My voice is squeaky. Elfy. We’re walking into a blizzard of emotions we aren’t ready for. “We were talking about Georgia.”

“We were talking about being scared.”

The accusation in his eyes makes my palms slick with sweat.

“We were talking about…babies.”

Before the weirdness of that blurted observation settles in, the front door bursts open, and this time the boots are light and dancing.

There are bells on the toes and the high heels clip over tile in the foyer as my sister calls, “Hellooooo! Merry Christmas Eeeeeve! Hello?”

I’m about to call her to the tree when Trent snakes one arm around my waist with greedy speed and yanks me close. His body is hard and hot, and he smells like spray paint, clover, and pine, a combination so sexy, I want to ask for it, bottled, for Christmas, from him.

His mouth curves down over mine, hungry and quick. His teeth nip my bottom lip, his tongue is smooth and tastes like the potent inner core of a sucked-on peppermint. It rolls over mine, licks along my lips, then his mouth drags away and presses down my jaw until he comes to my earlobe, where he nips again.

He lets go, and I roll away, panting and stubble-burned, my head and heart whirring. Ella’s boots dance our way, and she slides under the tree, pushing us closer in the crowded, bright space.

“Whatcha doin’?” she singsongs as she gives Trent’s neck a nuzzle. “What the hell cologne do your wear? I want to eat you for dinner.”

“What you’re smelling is pure Trent Toriello, baby.” He kisses her temple. “Merry Christmas Eve, Ella. Should we go check on your mom and Georgia?”

Ella scoots back, stands up, and holds her hand down to help Trent up.

He stares into my eyes and runs a finger along the line of my nose before he grabs Ella’s hands and lets her haul him to his feet. When he reaches down to help me, I have to rub all the excess sweat off of my hands on my pant legs first.

My pupils are wide from the dim under-tree light and Trent’s tricky, slickly quick tongue and lips, so I stumble into the kitchen and half-slam into Mom and George’s coy smiles.

“Mom, you have mascara running down your face,” Ella clucks, grabbing a gingerbread man dishcloth and swiping under Mom’s eyes and down her cheeks. “What’s up?”

Mom and George exchange little looks and giggles before George bursts out, “I’m pregnant!”

I’m not sure if I’m supposed to know, so I do that face you learn to make when you accidentally peeked at your birthday gift before the big day or overheard news about your friend’s college acceptance from her mother before she technically told you.

Unless, of course, your friend—your
best friend
—never bothered to tell you about her college acceptance at all. There’s always that possibility.

Trent takes a second to let his sister’s words register before his eyes, a lacquered, wooden brown, turn to me.

Turn
on
me.

“Pregnant?”

The question should be for Georgia, but he’s asking me. 

“Yes!” George exclaims and moves around the cookie-laden counter to hug him.

Trent’s arms hang down at his sides a few seconds too long.

“Why aren’t you happy?” Georgia demands, clawing at her ear, her annoyance radiating off her in waves.

Ella rushes over and puts her skinny arms around both of them, determined to defuse the tension that immediately chills the cozy little kitchen.

“We are, Georgie! We’re so happy! You just still look so tiny, and no one had a clue!”

Again, Trent’s head whips my way, and I swallow hard.

“So happy,” I echo weakly.

But the only person George is interested in is her brother.

“You haven’t said ‘congratulations’ yet.”

I can hear the crackle and snap of her frayed nerves.

“Congratulations.”

The word drops with a dull thud.

Chapter Five

“Okay, some of you need to scoot your asses,” Mom says, her eyebrows too high and her mouth too tight. “Outta this kitchen Georgia and Trent. I want you with your feet up.” She points one long red nail at George. “And
you
, get your sister whatever she needs.”

She whirls and whips her dishrag so it snaps Trent in the ass. If he was going to protest, the swift, uncompromising set of my mother’s eyebrows changes his mind.

It’s too quiet when they leave because the three of us are listening hard while we pop the ends off green beans, baste the turkey, whisk the gravy, and avoid eye contact.

I wrestle Ella for the position closest to the arch that leads to the living room. She’s about to huff, but I mimic Mom’s eyebrows, and she contents herself with a spot three feet away and turns the volume on the radio down.

Mom, head tilted, doesn’t even notice that her youngest has broken one of our cardinal kitchen rules:
Never touch Mom’s radio. Especially if Elvis is playing.

But we might as well be trying to trick each other. George and Trent have been around for so long, they can feel us listening through the walls. Their voices are just low enough to communicate rumbles of emotion, but there’s nothing distinct.

The only other option if we want any information is to rush dinner so we can watch them closely and pick up on their every expression and gesture. We wordlessly agree to speed through dinner prep.

I waste large chunks of greenbean, snapping with frenetic energy. Ella singes the gravy and has to skim the top. Even Mom, always food proud, jabs the turkey over and over with the thermometer, not sure she can trust her always-accurate nose when she’s so hell-bent on racing dinner to the table.

“C’mon, pups!” Mom claps. “Let’s eat!”

Trent and Georgia burst into the kitchen, her cheekbones bright pink, his nostrils flared. She grabs a basket of rolls, he hefts the turkey in its too hot pan. I offer him the Christmas-ornament potholders, but he grunts and heaves, his face studiously calm, refusing to give away the fact that his hands are slowly roasting.

Ella weaves ahead with Mom’s fancy snowflake coasters and I put out the Currier and Ives Christmas sleigh-ride plates and the ridiculous snowflake silverware, too clumsy to hold comfortably.

Ella and Mom flank Georgia, and Trent slides in between Ella and me. There’s a crisp, cold moment when no one speaks and no one seems to know what to do.

“Eat!” Mom orders.

She jabs a serving spoon into a bowl of jiggly cranberry jelly, no fruit, left in the mold of the can. I know for sure she’s nervous about tonight. Mom always crushes the cranberry jelly up.

We smash through the awkward silence with a flurry of motion, and everyone’s busy scooping lumpy mashed potatoes, ladling gravy, passing salt. Trent uncorks the wine with a rough yank.

He pours a reindeer embossed goblet of wine and slides it towards my mother before he flicks his eyes my way, his expression twisted with annoyance.

“You want some?”

“Yes.”

I
need
something to lubricate the tension.

“You?” he asks Ella.

She nods and winks at him. Ella’s wink is so adorable, it’s a no-fail lucky charm, guaranteed to ward off all grumpy behavior.

It fails for the first time ever.

Trent doesn’t so much as tip the tiniest corner of his mouth up at her.

Georgia grips the stem of her wineglass in such a tightly clamped fist, she’s an ounce of pressure away from shattering it.

“I don’t want any,
thank you
. You know why? Because I got myself
knocked up
. And you know what’s fucking hilarious?” She grabs the heavy jug of cider with such a quick tug, she almost topples it onto the table. “It’s like I’ve got the biggest goddamn pot
ever
calling my kettle black. Right, brother?”

Ella and I exchange matching looks of open-mouthed horror. The Toriellos are not known for their ability to control their tempers. If this shapes up to be a full-fledged knock-down fight, we’re in for some serious trouble.

Trent fills his goblet right up to the rim and takes two huge swallows before he looks over.

“Look, the girls can coo over this all they want, but I’m not going to sugar-coat it for you. Sure, I’ve gotten my ass into trouble, but it’s
me
, my life, my trouble. This isn’t just you, Georgia. You got knocked up by some married douche-nozzle, and now you’re going to, what? Keep the kid? Work full time while you drop the baby in some daycare all day long? You’re too soft for that, and you know it. So what’s the other option? Trying to scrape by on welfare? Didn’t you watch our mom do the single-mom shit? Did you forget how fucking hard it was?”

My mother clears her throat and jabs a finger in Trent’s direction.

“That’s enough from you, mister. Your mother would have slapped you upside your fresh face. This is your sister’s decision, and a baby—
any baby
—is a miracle. Now shut your mouth.”

Trent clenches his teeth and mutters something under his breath, but my mother doesn’t miss a beat.

“Don’t you dare give me lip at my own table, Trent Toriello. It’s Christmas Eve. It’s gonna be a nice holiday, your mouth be damned. Now shut it.”

My mom’s crocheted, red-and-green bell-adorned vest and jingling Santa earrings might communicate holiday jolliness, but her snapping eyes and grim mouth both say,
Go ahead. Try me.

“How’s work, Ella? Lloyd came in to get a tooth filled, and he said he’d been laid off.”

Georgia smiles at Mom, whose eyes soften. Mom always melted like whipped cream in a hot drink around my best friend.

“Yeah. Him and Monty both. Jerry felt bad, but Michelle lost her job, so, what’s he supposed to do? They were both past retirement, you know. They were just hanging around because they’d go crazy without working every second.” Ella sops a roll in gravy and takes a bite. “I bet they’ll get all kinds of freelance stuff. By the way, Lloyd said it would be good with him to go get your car anytime next week.”

I look up from my neatly piled green bean mound. Ella’s the one talking to me, but Trent’s stare is so severe, it yanks my attention to his green eyes.

“Good. Thank you, El. Tell him thank you.”

An irritated prickle spikes hot under my skin when I remember my sister pointing out how I didn’t thank Trent. How I take him for granted.

“I’ll go, too.”

Trent’s voice is so unexpected, every neck at the table snaps towards him.

“It’s okay. You already made the trip once. Lloyd will drive out with me, and I’ll come home as soon as the car is fixed.” My mom opens her mouth to say something, but I add, with careful emphasis, “But thank you. Really. I appreciate the offer.”

“I know I can be a dick.” Trent’s voice is low and sorrowful, and his eyes make a guilty flip in Georgia’s direction. “But you have to drive all the way back after Lloyd drops you. That’s a shitty trip alone.”

All I can think of is the way Trent smells, the way just being in his vicinity makes me feel hot and wet. Then I think about being stuck with that irresistible smell in a too small car on a too long trip.

I shake my head, but Mom overrides with, “I don’t like you driving that piece of shit alone. What if you break down?”

“I could go,” Georgia offers. “It might be fun.”

“You’re pregnant,” Trent snaps. “You need rest. You need to keep comfortable. You need to not be using public bathrooms and eating greasy food.” He stabs his mashed potatoes with his fork just as Georgia’s lips curl, preparing to hurl some kind of barbed insult his way despite my mom’s explicit directions to be nice. “You better take care of my niece. Or nephew. Do you know? I mean, is that something you can know already?”

All that anger pools like hot gravy, and then Georgia’s smile transforms the tension into a spray of glittering love-confetti.

“We don’t know yet, but in a few weeks we will.”

Her hands move back under the tablecloth to massage her belly.

Ella tosses a piece of a roll at Trent, who tries to catch it, but misses, and almost knocks into my mother’s cabinet, filled with plastic animatronic scenes from
It’s a Wonderful Life
.

“Are you an idiot? Didn’t you pay attention in sex ed?” she chides.

“I know how to put a condom on a cucumber
and
a banana.”

He lobs a piece of flaky roll that lands neatly in my sister’s mouth.

Our mother passes her a sharp look, and Ella puts down the piece of roll she was going to throw back at Trent. My mom will put up with bad table manners in an emergency family feud situation, but there’s a limit.

After we’ve avoided talking about anything upsetting for long enough, Christmas Eve dinner is over. Ella and I get up to clear and wash, but Trent elbows the plates out of my sister’s hands.

“Go hang with George. She needs someone cartoony to entertain her for a while.”

Ella lets him take the plates and tickles his ribs through his shirt until he squirms.

“Cartoony’ huh?  Cartoony how? I mean, cartoony like I’m Sponge Bob Squarepants, like I amuse you? I make you laugh, I’m here to fucking amuse you?”

“Ella, cut the shit.” Trent is laughing so hard, the plates almost slide out of his hands. “Your mom will kick my ass if I break her Christmas plates. Cut it out!”

“Ya stutterin’ prick, ya!”

She pokes him in the ribs and scampers out before he can land a kick on her tiny backside.

“Your sister does a really decent Joe Pesci imitation.”

Trent follows me into the kitchen, where he drops the dishwasher door open.

“Sorry. These plates aren’t dishwasher safe. Gotta hand wash.”

When he glances up, I wish I hadn’t said a word.

How did our little square of a kitchen shrink so much? There’s not a solitary inch where I can move and avoid bumping right up against Trent. The sink is miniature, so tiny we have to fit in front of it like two puzzle pieces. He grabs a gingerbread-lady dishcloth, still starchy and unwashed from the store, and I tug it out of his hands and pull an old, soft plaid towel out of the cabinet behind me.

“Mom keeps those out for decoration. She’d kill you if you used them. Anyway, I don’t think Mrs. Gingerbread Lady’s apron would have dried…”

I sputter to a stop, because he’s suddenly so close, I’m trapped by him. I back up until the counter bites into my spine.

He keeps moving, closing me into the tiny space.

“Why didn’t you tell me about George?”

He catches his hands on the lip of the counter behind me, boxing me in his arms, so close to his chest I can feel the warmth of his body and the tremors from his thudding heart.

“I didn’t know. Back up,” I say, but it comes out in a whisper. I don’t want them to hear from the living room.

And, if I’m being totally honest, I don’t really want him to hear. Because I don’t want him to back up at all.

Like he can read my mind, he rocks forward so his hips pin mine.

“You’re lying. You were always a really shitty liar, Sadie.”

I squirm, avoid eye contact, but I’m still trapped. So I confess.

“It wasn’t my news to tell. And she only told me an hour before you found out.” I put my hands on his hips, ready to push away, but I squeeze instead. “It’s not like I’m any happier about this than you are. But what the hell do you want me to do?”

“Talk her out of it. This is a huge, huge mistake.”

His thighs press along mine and a hot, sweet tingle flows all along my inner thighs.

“You think I don’t know that? You think I didn’t try to tell her? But you saw how pissed she gets. And I was the one who told her to forget Danny. It took her months to forgive me for that.”

I look up into his face, and the tight lines of anger smooth out. His eyes lighten until they’re soft and green as spring leaves.He leans in and presses his forehead against mine. His words come out, forced and rusty.

“Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

Our noses touch, the stubble on his cheeks prickles against my skin, his face brushes over mine, but our lips keep avoiding each other.

“Like your heart’s broken.” The silver rings on his eyebrow scrape softly against my temple. A few strands of my hair get caught in his earrings when his lips dip close to my ear. “Like you think I can fix it.”

“I don’t need you to fix anything. Just don’t judge me. I feel like I don’t know…
anything
anymore.”

My fingers glide up his ribs, round to his back and along his spine, slide up his neck, and hold tight there. I’ve known Trent since before I could make memories, and I thought there wasn’t a single secret about him I hadn’t uncovered. Then his mother died, and we knotted in a hot tangle that I’ve never been able to untie and smooth out.

“Everything got really complicated, and I just want it to be simple again.”