In A Holidaze(37)

Looking at me from beneath his lashes, Andrew reaches up, scratching the back of his neck.

“Today was fun,” Miles says, and tries to take Theo’s beer, but is instantly smacked away. “I’m glad you talked Dad into just heading for the lodge. If I had to ride with Mom this year, I think I would have bailed.”

“Thanks for taking one for the team and sledding with Mae,” Theo says to Andrew, and then smirks at me. “Worst sled steerer ever.”

I glare. “Hey.”

Andrew gives a magnanimous shrug. “I’m a humanitarian.”

I smack him. “Hey.”

His eyes sparkle when they meet mine, and the smiles fade into that same buzzing awareness. I finally blink down to the table. We rode the slope about six times, and I guess I’m grateful that nothing was as loaded and heavy as that first ride down, because I probably would have had some internal combustion issue and ended up back on the plane from a heart attack. There was plenty of Andrew being Andrew: he sang terrible opera on one trip, swore he closed his eyes the whole way down on another, and said hello to every other sledder we passed on a third, but it was just normal again. Which I loved, and hated.

Turns out, where Andrew is concerned, I apparently like heavy and loaded.

“We need to call ourselves something other than ‘the kids,’” I say, breaking the quiet. Theo sets down the deck of cards in the middle of the table. “ ‘The kids’ are the twins now.”

“Aren’t the twins ‘the twins’?” Miles asks.

“We could be called the ‘kid-ups,’ ” I suggest, laughing, and Andrew beams over at me, thrilled with this suggestion.

Andrew slides the deck of cards closer to him, tapping, shuffling. I watch his fingers, trying not to think about his hands and how big they are. He has long, graceful fingers. I don’t think I’ve ever noticed a man’s nails before unless they were dramatically unmanicured, but Andrew’s are blunt, clean, not fussy. I think I’d like to see those hands roaming and greedy all over my bare skin.

Theo clears his throat and my attention flies away from Andrew’s fingers, guiltily.

“Two truths and a lie,” Theo says, and gives me a bewildering wink.

Andrew looks up from his shuffling and deadpans, “I don’t think that’s a card game.”

Ignoring this, Theo lifts his chin to Miles. “You first. I’ll give you a sip of my beer.”

“Miles hasn’t lived enough to have interesting truths or lies, and he’s definitely too young for day-drinking,” Andrew says.

“Actually,” Miles says, “we did this game as an icebreaker in chemistry last year. It was hard thinking of things that were appropriate for school.”

I hold up my hands. “Pardon?”

Andrew laughs. “Don’t break your sister, Miles.”

“It’s your idea,” Miles says to Theo. “You go first.”

I can tell with a little annoyed tilt of my thoughts that this is why Theo suggested this game to begin with: he wanted to share some scandalous stories. And really, if I think back, nearly every game Theo suggests is a ploy to subtly or not-so-subtly talk about what a wild and exciting life he leads.

“Let’s see,” he says, leaning back and cracking his knuckles. “Okay, one: in college, one of my fraternity brothers kept a chicken living in his room for an entire year and none of us had any idea.”

Inwardly, I groan. That’s right. Whereas Andrew lived in a messy but comfortable apartment off-campus at CU Boulder with some of the funniest and weirdest guys I’ve ever met, Theo was in a fraternity with a bunch of players and trust fund men-children. I know there are lots of great, progressive fraternities out there, but Theo’s was not one of them.

“Dude, why was he hiding a chicken?” Miles’s face pales. “Was he being gross with a chicken?”

I turn to my brother. “Miles Daniel Jones, don’t you be gross.” And then I turn to Theo. “And don’t you break my brother.”

“Two,” Theo continues, laughing this off, “I have a tattoo of a parrot on my hip that I got when I was in Vegas with some friends.”

“A parrot?” Andrew’s expression is a hilarious mix of bewilderment and deep sibling judgment. “On your hip? Why have I never seen this?”

Theo smirks and rocks back in his chair.

Andrew shivers as he gets it. “On your groin is what you’re saying.”

“I’d like to go back to the part where he thought it would be a fun time to get a tattoo in Las Vegas,” I say. “I’m really hoping that one is the lie.”

“And three, I’m not ticklish,” he says, and then turns his eyes to me, adding, “anywhere.”

This wink is definitely lascivious. Rude.

“Um, I’m going to go with number one,” Miles says, still stuck on the chicken.

“I’m glad there are some things I don’t know about you.” Andrew wipes a weary hand down his face. “I’m with Mae: I’m hoping number two is a lie.”

“I also hope it’s a lie,” I say, “but my guess is that number three is the lie. No way do you not have even one tickle spot.”

“Wanna check?” he asks, smirking.

“I . . .” I flounder. “No, I’m good.”