Kind of.
Car’s fingers trailed up my back, and those thoughts vanished, making me nod against his chest.
Here and now was good enough.
Prom started an hour ago, and neither Car nor I had done anything to leave. He gave me a few looks while checking the time, telling me with no words—just glances and slight shoulder shrugs—that anything we did was up to me.
It took me seventeen years and 334 days to feel pure happiness in a home. It was still hard to picture that people could be as happy as his parents were. His dad made light jokes and conversation while we sat at a table right outside the kitchen, and his mother shouted back her responses, which were more jibes at his dad than anything else.
Each time she jibed back at him, he smiled. She wasn’t even looking half the time because she was busy cooking something that smelled way too good to exist, but still—he smiled and looked back at her like…
Like Carver looked at me.
The similarities between him and his dad were startling, and if I narrowed my eyes, I could almost picture Carver as a matured man. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t picture myself in Nora’s position. She was too kind, too upbeat, and too carefree for me to fill the shoes of.
Carver’s dad checked his watch, then whistled and glanced between his son and me. “Don’t you two need to get goin’? It’s getting late.”
Carver gave me one quick look, then shook his head. Whatever he saw on my face prompted him to say, “I think we might be skippin’ the first half.”
A smile touched my lips, or maybe it had been there since I’d walked in and officially met Nora and Calvin.
His dad bobbed his head. “Well, I’ve got something we can all do.” He leaned behind him and pulled up a metal box, then set it on the table.
“Dad,” Carver warned.
“Don’t ‘dad’ me, young man. I bet your girlfriend would love to play some poker while we wait for dinner, since you’re skippin’ yours and all.”
“Poker?” I asked, cocking my head while looking at the metallic box.
“My dad plays poker once a week with a few of his friends. He’s convinced it’s a tradition I’ll carry on when I grow up and have a family of my own.” Pinpricks flooded my arms at the way he’d mentioned a family while looking at me like—
No.
Jesus fuckin’ Christ, Ly, stop thinking you’re better than the gutter you live in.
Foreverand afamilywas too much for one night.
I took a sip of my water, shifting my attention to the sliding glass door that led out to the back porch.
“Here, son. Shuffle and deal.” His dad twisted in his seat and reached for the stereo behind him, turning up the volume on a Dolly Parton song. “Nora! It’s your song!” his dad shouted. Sure enough, she started singing and humming along. Her voice was like liquid sunshine—warm and soothing. The song was about hard times, and though she didn’t look it, I’d wager she’d lived through her own, though now, those times seemed to have gone.
I didn’t have to look behind me to know she was smiling back at her husband as she sang—I couldfeelit. Their love was almost electric, a current that rippled through every room they were in, connecting them.
Then, there was me—the girl who had no clue who her father was and whose mother didn’t love her enough to stay. I didn't fit this life. I wasn’t sure I ever could.
A warmth settled over my shoulder, long fingers sweeping over my upper arm in circles. I’m not sure when Carver moved from across me to beside me, but there he was. “I’ll show you how to play,” he said as he tapped on the upside-down cards on the table in front of me. “But, I think you’ll be a natural. Well, against my dad, that is.”
“Don’t think she’ll beat you?” his dad cocked a brow, lifting his cards just enough to peek at what they were before pushing them back down. “That’s mighty ignorant of you.”
“C’mon, dad. You know I’m not thinking that.”
“This is the game where you bluff to win, right?” I asked.
Carver grinned. “Yep. Sure is.”
I nodded, and Carver’s dad seemed more confused. “Carver likes to call me ‘Ly,’ because I lied to him a bunch when we first met,” I clarified.
His dad covered his laughter with a finger as Carver added, “You still lie, I just catch you most times.”
