Kiss Her Once for Me (65)
“I’m sorry that my wife showed up on Christmas morning.”
I stare at the place where our bodies overlap through the rubber of our shoes, and just like that, I’m ready to throw away two hundred thousand dollars, ready to tell my mom to fuck off, ready to do whatever it takes to be just a little bit closer to her.
“Do you think if—” Jack starts.
“Why the fuck were you blaring Britney at nine in the morning?”
We both whip around to see Dylan stomping through the snow. Jack folds her legs inward so she’s sitting cross-legged in the snow by the time Dylan reaches us. We’re not touching at all. They’re wearing Andrew’s herringbone peacoat over a pair of footie pajamas and scowling as they look at Jack and then me and then back again. “And why the fuck are the two of you sitting in the snow?”
I stare at Jack and imagine I can pull the rest of her sentence from her mouth. Do you think if… what?
Do I think if Claire had never shown up, things would have gone differently?
Do I think if I hadn’t ghosted, if I’d given Jack the chance to explain, we might have been able to figure out a way to extend the magic beyond a single snow day?
Do I think if I wasn’t engaged to her brother, then maybe…?
But I can’t make Jack finish her previous thought, and instead she smiles up at her best friend, and says, “Alan Prescott is why we’re sitting in the snow.”
“Of fucking course he is,” Dylan says, and then they flop down into the snow beside us.
Chapter Seventeen
Alan Prescott is a real piece of work.
Within the first ten minutes of meeting me, he insults my jeans, my job, and my parents, and while the last might deserve it, this still seems like a dick move.
He criticizes the objectively delicious omelets Jack makes for breakfast and then launches into an offensive and ableist lecture about how Jack could have been more successful in life if she just buckled down and didn’t use her ADHD as an excuse. He oscillates between berating Andrew (for the way he dresses, for the way he eats, for the way he sits in a chair) and wanting to talk business with him. The real kicker, though, comes when he insults Katherine’s laminated schedule and refuses to participate in family games. This leads to the postponing of family game night so Katherine and Alan can go upstairs to scream at each other.
At which point Meemaw hands Andrew her credit card and tells us to get out of the house for a while, like an older sibling sending the kids to get ice cream while Mommy and Daddy fight.
Whatever. I love ice cream and hate fighting, so I happily accept Meemaw’s suggestion.
“You know what?” Dylan says thirty minutes later from the backseat of Andrew’s Tesla. “I really fucking hate your dad.”
For once, Dylan’s anger feels directed at the right source.
We don’t go get ice cream. Andrew takes us to a bar—aptly named the Mountain Bar—a dive right along the highway, next to a gas station called “Gas” and a little market called “Market.” Like the Kim-Prescott cabin, the bar is designed to look like an old-fashioned lodge, but unlike the Kim-Prescott cabin, the Mountain Bar mostly succeeds in this endeavor. It’s made of interlocking logs, with wood beam ceilings that look damp with age, scuffed hardwood floors, single-paned windows, and a vast collection of original neon signs for Budweiser and Coors Light. The crowd is a mix of grizzled locals, seasonal ski instructors, and groups of tourists staying on the mountain for the holidays.
Andrew looks like a tourist but moves like a local, ordering us two pitchers of Rainier beer and leading us to a dark booth in the back. Andrew and I slide into one side of the booth; Dylan and Jack slide into the other. Underneath the table, Jack’s knee brushes mine, and I need a drink if I’m going to—
No, I decide as a bearded server sets the pitchers and foggy plastic cups down on the table. Here we are, the four members of the love trapezoid, isolated together at an establishment full of alcohol. It’s probably best if I try approaching Jack sober for once. A few hours ago, she touched my foot with her shoe and I was ready to give up two hundred thousand dollars for her.
Sober is my best bet.
I order myself a ginger ale and then sit in uncomfortable silence while the others quickly pound their first glass of cheap beer. I’m not sure if it’s because Dylan is in love with Andrew, who’s engaged to me, or if it’s because I’m secretly in love with my fake fiancé’s sister, or if it’s because I kissed my fiancé’s sister last night beneath the mistletoe, but everything feels extremely awkward in our booth as the others attempt mindless small-talk. No one seems keen to address the trapezoidal elephant in the bar.
Finally, Jack says something interesting enough to distract us from our suffering. “Dyl, why don’t we work on your dating profile?”
And then everything gets exponentially more awkward. “Oh, uh, nah,” Dylan sputters, scratching the back of their neck and deliberately not looking at Andrew. “I really don’t want to think about online dating right now.”
“Come on.” Jack holds out a hand to demand Dylan’s phone. “There’s no time like the present.”
Andrew, who has consumed his second glass of beer in the last ninety seconds, belches. “I thought you were seeing someone. Allie or Amy or—”