“First of all,” he begins, “I live with five hockey players, not the whole fucking team.”
“And second of all?”
“I actually don’t have a second of all.”
“Of course you don’t.”
“You know, I didn’t bring you a home-cooked Thanksgiving dinner, so you could disrespect me.”
“I’m not disrespecting you.” I chuck a roll at him, but it lands perfectly in his hand. Like this happens all the time.
“When’s your mom gonna be home?” He takes a bite of the roll. “I’m gonna leave the food; maybe you guys can have dinner together.”
“I’m eating right now.”
“Doesn’t mean you can’t eat again later. It’s Thanksgiving.”
“I’m not sure when she’ll be home,” I begin. “She went to this meeting at the last minute. Said something about holidays being hard and needing an extra meeting.”
“You don’t seem too sure about that.”
“I don’t know. Like I’ve told you, I want to believe my mom will stay clean this time. That we don’t need to check her into rehab because she can get clean through AA,” I continue. “Jay helped her detox, and he’s been taking her to her meetings, but he’s working today and—”
“And you’re worried she’s not actually at a meeting but out getting high?”
“I don’t know. Does that make me a bad daughter?”
“No.” He smiles. “It means you care.”
“Yeah,” I mumble, pushing the food around my plate as Zeke practically licks his clean.
I glance at my phone, which reads5:43pm, but for some reason, I don’t feel the urge to rush Zeke out of here like I usually do. Because deep down, I feel like my mom won’t be walking through that door at six-thirty but stumbling through the door at two am.
And even though Zeke says that doesn’t make me a bad daughter, I can’t help but feel my lack of faith in her makes me exactly that.
twenty-five
Zeke
I’m just saying we have about two weeks before that stupid banquet, and you haven’t asked anyone,” Declan says, stripping off his gear.
“You haven’t asked Ember yet,” I reply.
“Yeah, according to Tate, she had no idea the banquet was even happening until Tate brought it up,” Fletcher adds.
“First of all, how every conversation directed toward Zeke ends up directed toward me is beyond ridiculous. Second of all, if you guys don’t lower your fucking voices, someone who shouldn’t hear about Ember and me will hear. Third, I can’t exactly ask her to an event that her brother will be at.”
“Bowman left already,” Brooks says.
“That man changes so fucking fast,” I begin. “How he gets out of here before us is beyond me.”
“I don’t think Bowman likes us very much,” Fletcher jokes.
“Maybe he feels like we don’t like him,” Declan interrupts. “How often do we hang out with the guy if we don’t have a game?”
“Well, when we don’t have a game, you’re screwing his sister, so it’d be kind of weird,”I respond.
“How many times do I have to tell you guys we aren’t screwing?! And I can’t ask her to the banquet, so I didn’t even consider bringing it up.”