Where the Stars Still Shine(25)

“Yeah, sure,” he says. “No problem.”

Another silence falls, broken only when Joe points and calls me Peach again. Everyone chuckles nervously and fails to make eye contact. This is a million times worse than the dinner I’d imagined.

“So, Alex, what happened to your face?” Phoebe asks.

It’s only then I notice a deep pink splotch—a bruise so new it hasn’t had the chance to turn black and blue yet—on his cheekbone.

“Bumped into a fist,” he says. “But you should see the other guy.” He laughs it off, but his eyes are grim. He’s hiding something, but I don’t think Phoebe notices because her mouth is too occupied with frowning.

“You know Mom would not approve of this behavior,” she says. “You should be in college, not wasting your life and getting in bar fights.”

“Well, I’m not.” The muscles in his left arm flex and he puts down his silverware. “Did you invite me over to nag me again? Because I’ve got some leftover pizza back on the boat.”

I focus on buttering my dinner roll.

“I just worry about you,” she says.

“Don’t,” Alex says. “I’m fine.”

“Mom asked about you today. She misses you.”

“Phoebs—” There’s a warning in his tone and he looks as if he’s ready to push away from the table.

“I’m sorry,” Phoebe says quickly. “I’m sorry. Don’t go. Please.”

Alex doesn’t leave, but the rest of the meal seems to stretch into forever. The tension zig-zags across the table, connecting us all like an invisible spiderweb. When we’ve finished eating and there’s no more excuse not to talk, I stand and start gathering the plates. “I’ll do the dishes.”

“Thank you, Callie.” Phoebe removes Joe from his high chair. “Come on, little man, time for a bath.”

As I fill the kitchen sink with soapy water, I hear Greg tell Tucker that it’s his bath time, too.

“Can Uncle Alex read me a bedtime story?”

Alex’s response is muted, but from the delighted sound Tucker makes, I can guess the answer. A few moments later, Alex comes into the kitchen with the remaining plates. “So that was all kinds of awkward, huh?”

I scrub at a bit of food stuck to one of the plates but don’t look at him. “Did you know?”

“No.” He adds the plates to the water, then takes a drying towel from one of the drawers. He stands beside me and I can feel the warmth from his body spanning the space between us. “But when Phoebe asked me over for dinner to meet Greg’s daughter, Callie, I finally put it all together.”

I rinse a bowl and shove it at him. “You really expect me to believe that?”

“Yeah, I do.” The bowl drips water onto the floor as he looks at me. “I’ve been sponging full-time since I was seventeen, and for the past year I’ve been working two jobs. I don’t even have time for my own life, let alone time to pay attention to all the little details of Greg’s life.”

I wonder if I should be insulted that he considers me a little detail, but I decide I’m kind of flattered that he’s the only person for whom my coming back here is not a big deal. I hand him the next plate. “Why did you lie to Phoebe about your face?”

His eyebrows pull together. “What makes you think I was lying?”

“I’ve spent a lifetime keeping secrets,” I say. “I know a lie when I hear one.”

Alex puts the plate on the counter and hooks his finger through a belt loop on my new jeans, pulling me against him. Someone could walk into the room at any minute, but when his mouth finds mine, caring isn’t even a consideration. He lifts me onto the counter, wedging himself between my knees.

“We should not be doing this,” I whisper, sinking my fingers into his curls.

“No, we shouldn’t.” He slides his hands up my thighs to my hips, his thumbs grazing the bare skin at the top of my jeans, under the hem of my shirt. “We should get out of here.”

My mouth is about to form the word “yes,” when the sound of giggling boys drifts out from the bathroom. Alex pulls away from me, blinking as if he’s surfaced from sleep. He runs his fingers through his hair, making that one curl spring out in a random direction. “Wow.”

I reach up and put it in place. “You forgot about story time, didn’t you, Uncle Alex?”

“Completely.” He slides me down from the counter-top, holding me against him. He draws his thumb across my lower lip as if he’s thinking about kissing me again. I hold my breath, waiting to see if he does. “We could still make a break for it,” he says.

“We could—”

Alex releases me and bends to pick up the towel he dropped. There are damp handprints—my handprints—on the back of his T-shirt, and I feel an inexplicable surge of possessiveness, as if I’ve marked him as mine. Which is ridiculous, because soon the prints will be dry and no one will ever know. I return to the task of washing the dishes and, except for still being able to feel the imprint of his lips on mine, it’s as if we weren’t just making out.

“—only I’m grounded from the last time we, um—”

He laughs. “Already?”