I reach forward and tap her shoe a few times with my palm.

  “Dinner’s almost ready,” I say. She looks up and nods, a fake smile that I recognize because I’ve worn it too. “Don’t let it ruin your appetite,” I say, nodding toward the window and the monstrosity outside.

  She bites down on her lip and nods. Her eyes go right back to studying though.

  Jesse has become hyper focused on making sure his brother is okay. He even brought Conner to the show at the community center. It’s probably the safest venue we’ll ever play. I gave his brother a tambourine to play along with us. He didn’t find the right beat once, but he’s cute so the teenaged girls who showed up for the concert loved him. They loved him more than Jesse, which I loved.

  “All right…this is as good as it gets!” My mom plunks a heavy tray of ham on the center of our table. She tried to make it look fancy but none of our plates match, and the only candle we have is in a jar and meant to mask Bessy’s odor. It’s still lovely.

  “It smells so good, Debra,” Amanda compliments as she starts to stand where she’s been sitting at the head of the table. My mom waves her down.

  “You’re in the right seat. The women are in charge in this house,” my mom laughs.

  “Ain’t that right,” my dad says with a roll of his eyes.

  Both my mother and I flash him a scolding look. When he notices it, he raises his hands, caught like a robber.

  “What?” He smirks.

  “Uh-huh,” my mom says, whipping the dish towel at him with a snap.

  My dad squeals, which then sends everyone off on a nonstop tease fest over what a pussy my dad is and how my mom is the tough one. It’s maybe a little sexist but it’s funny as hell. And really, it’s partly true. My mom is the tough one.

  Tough as nails.

  The room grows loud with talk and laughter; plates get passed around and loaded with food. Jesse and I sit still, though, across from one another, our plates empty. It’s a buzz of activity, and a world we’re not quite attached to right now because all we can seem to do is worry. I’m worried for him. He’s worried for his mom and his brother and sister. We’re both worried about what life will be like here in a month when that house gets done.

  My dad has vowed to keep fighting. He’s filed an injunction, which he says will really only buy time because it turns out that rock solid was an accurate assessment of that contract. Where it gets fuzzy is if his mom and his siblings can be shown. They could actually move, even if it turned out they would only be shown disguised by blur and voice treatments. It’s Jesse that’s the sticking point. He’s listed as a main character because that’s what he was supposed to be. We all are, as a band. We could always break up, but then that’s not fair to our dreams. And the only way we would ever earn anything would be to complete episodes.

  “Can I say grace?” I smirk at the sound of Conner’s voice. I remember the last time he did this. Jesse’s lips curl too. He reaches his hands to either side and decides we all need to hear his brother’s sermon.

  “I think you should, bud,” Jesse says.

  I reach to either side and take Sam’s hand to my left and my mother’s to my right. When everyone is connected and most eyes are shut, Conner begins to speak. Jesse and I look down, but we keep peering up at one another through our lashes, ready to bust a gut over whatever insulting thing might slip out in the next few seconds.

  “Dear God,” Conner begins. “Thank you for this ham. I’m really glad that it’s not pot roast because I hate pot roast. The meat sticks in my teeth. I threw it up once, too, and the color was yucky.”

  “Conner,” Amanda whispers, jerking at his hand to try to get him back on track. We’ve all started snickering; it’s too late. His comedy set is out of the bag.

  “What? Gosh,” he huffs. He shimmies in his seat and closes his eyes tightly again.

  “Where was I? Oh yeah. Pot roast is gross. I don’t ever want to eat it again, please and thank you. Also, I like this grape soda. Arizona bought it so maybe you can have her buy me some for home.”

  “Conner!” Amanda whisper shouts again.

  “Shhhh,” he says, tugging back on her hand.

  We all laugh.

  The little boy coughs, his sinister smile showing how aware he is of just how snarky he’s being. He’s going to be so much trouble in a few years. If he stays this cute, it’s going to be double.

  “My mom is getting mad at me. I’m asking for stuff, and she says that’s not what this is about. Thank you for my family. I love my family, and I love the people in this house. They’re all really nice and fun. Especially Arizona. My brother thinks she’s pretty.”

  I blush and flit my eyes to Jesse. He blows me a kiss while his brother cackles, proud of himself.

  “Okay, last part. You’re in charge of lightning, so maybe if you can, send a bolt to that house down the street. You know which one. Just make it disappear. That’d be great. That and the pot roast. Just those two things. Thank you. Amen.”

  Only a few of us utter the word with him. Oblivious to what he really said, Conner instantly goes into stabbing his fork at the cut-up bites on his plate and scooping up potatoes while his feet kick back and forth underneath the table. Rag and Logan start to push things around their plate, the dragging sound of metal on porcelain filling some of the deafening silence left in the room.

  The rest of us blink and dart our focus around the table to one another. Lightning. We need to pray for lightning. It’s come to this.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Jesse has been at our house more than Sam. That’s saying a lot.

  It’s getting late, and we’re alone in my room. The door is cracked, but really…it’s basically shut. I keep waiting for someone to come say it’s time for him to leave. It’s almost midnight. It’s Christmas tomorrow.

  “You ever wish it would just snow here? I mean like…really snow?” I breathe fog on my window and draw a heart. Jesse puts two dots on it and turns it into a pair of boobs. I shove him so he falls to his back. We’re sitting on my bed with the door nearly closed. Someone has to be coming soon.

  “You’re such a boy,” I say, pulling his sweatshirt over my palm and erasing the evidence on the glass.

  “We see boobs basically everywhere,” he shrugs. I level him with a straight face as I draw my mouth in on one side.

  “It’s just a fact,” he says, rocking himself back up to sit in front of me. He looks toward my door and chews on his tongue for a minute, then looks back at me and grabs under my knees, dragging my legs on either side of him and pulling my body up to sit on his lap.

  My eyes flash wide.

  “My dad is going to kill you,” I whisper.

  “I think your parents are asleep.” He tilts his ear toward the door, and I do the same, our eyes staying connected.

  There’s a low hum from the television downstairs, and if I listen closely, I can hear my mom’s snoring. She saws several logs a night, and sometimes my dad has to stuff plugs in his ears. If she’s this loud, loud enough for us to hear from here, then he probably has the plugs in tonight.

  My mouth ticks up, suggestively.

  “You’re milking my dad’s pity. You know, if he were on his game, he would kick you out by now.” I lean forward and nuzzle my nose against his. I like the view of his mouth and the line of his jaw from here.

  His smile forms my favorite dimples just before he nips at my lips.

  “Yeah, I know. I’m okay with pity,” he says.

  His hands run up my waist under my shirt and his sweatshirt, and his fingertips flirt with the edge of my bra. He leans forward and kisses along my neck.

  “You’re going to have to wash this sometime, you know,” he teases.

  I bend my neck to let him kiss more of me.

  “Yeah, but then it won’t smell like you,” I say.

  He chuckles.

  “Trust me, it doesn’t smell like me,” he says through laughter.

  I push him backward in a playful shove and he drags me with him so I’m lying on top of him. I hold my head up and he wraps strands of my hair around his fingers on either side of his face.

  “I’m sorry I brought this world to your front doorstep.” His smile drops away and the distance creeps back in.

  I lower my lips to his and suck at his top lip lightly, letting go with my words.

  “I’m not,” I say. I lift myself enough to look deep into his eyes. He sweeps my hair back and holds the sides of my face. “I love you, Jesse Barringer.”

  We swim in this little moment of vulnerability for a while before succumbing to the temptation of being alone and in my bed. We’re quiet, but we live on the edge. My hands find him hard under his jeans, and his fingers dig into the back of my shorts, grabbing my butt and pulling me against him. We let the friction work until we can’t take it anymore, and I get up to shut my door while he unzips his jeans and pulls a condom from his pocket.

  I kick away my shorts and sit on top of him with my hands on his chest and lower myself slowly, finding the fit even easier than the times we’ve done it before. There’s something powerful about having sex like this for me. I’m in charge of every movement, how far inside I let him go, how fast my hips fall down to meet his thrust.

  My breaths become regular and heated, but I bite my lip to keep them silent. Jesse does the same, and his stare grows in intensity until I feel him find a release. His body relaxes underneath me, and my insides are still hungry and nowhere near done. He can tell, so he holds me to him, pressing our bodies together hard until I fall over my own edge. Still wearing his hoodie, I collapse on his chest, now damp with sweat. I lie like this, with him inside me, for several minutes until I giggle quietly.

  “I can’t believe we did that…here,” I say.

  I feel his chest shake with his own laugh.

  “Your dad is seriously going to kill me.” I roll away from him and he stands, moving to my doorway and covering himself while he peeks outside my door. He looks back at me and whispers. “I’m making a break for it,” he grins, then dashes into the hall to my bathroom. I hear the lock click so I rush to find my shorts and dress myself as if nothing scandalous ever happened here in my room.

  It’s past midnight. That means it’s Christmas. I took what was mine.

  I peel his sweatshirt away and toss it on top of my hamper, then grab my favorite T-shirt from my closet. It’s soft and worn, one of my first drumline shirts from my freshman year. I tug it over my head and I’m waiting in bed for Jesse by the time he slips back into my room. He leaves my door more open this time, a move to pretend that’s how we’ve had it all along.

  Nobody will buy it.

  He should go home.

  He doesn’t, though. And I never suggest it. Not once.

  I lie down in his embrace, his arms around me and our bodies formed together on top of my cool sheets. He falls asleep first. I think about waking him, but I don’t. Soon enough, I’m dreaming.

  It’s almost the same pattern as before. Rocks in windows. Glass breaking. Shouting. So much shouting.

  I sit up faster this time, my mind having gone through this once before when I woke up to Conner throwing rocks. This noise is different, though. It’s brash and constant, and there’s a crowd outside. And the smell.

  I push Jesse, rousing him. When his eyes crack open, he gets up fast, first thinking we’re in trouble because we fell asleep. He soon realizes that there’s something bigger at play, though.

  We crawl on our knees to press our faces on my window, and I pull my blinds all the way up so we can watch in awe at the flames literally destroying every board and brick of that house.

  “Oh…shit…” Jesse mouths.

  “Lightning,” I say quietly.

  We’re both thinking it, and we don’t have to say it out loud. Conner set that house on fire. He erased the problem. He’s going to be charged with arson.

  My heart starts to thump wildly. Jesse’s must too, because we both scatter from my bed and kick at the tangle of blankets trying to grab at our feet. I shove on a pair of Vans and Jesse does the same, leaving his laces open while he rushes from my door and down my stairs. My parents are already in the driveway, and my dad gives us an eye when we walk up behind him. His stare grows cold on Jesse.

  “We fell asleep.” I swallow, my excuse meek. My dad doesn’t stop looking at Jesse.

  “Okay,” he says.

  It isn’t okay. Not at all. But there’s a roaring fire a few hundred feet away from us. He isn’t about to have this out now.

  “When did it start?” I ask my mom.

  “No idea,” she says, her mouth agape and eyes frozen open. The flames reflect in her pupils.

  A firefighter carrying a radio walks across our lawn, and my dad steps forward to meet him.

  “It’s not safe for you to be this close. Smoke, and we never know about explosions, so if you have somewhere to go…”

  “We can go to my house. I’m at the end,” Jesse says, pointing to his house several hundred feet away.

  The fireman nods.

  “That’d be good,” he says, turning to talk on his radio. He’s asking for another truck. They need more manpower. There won’t be anything left.

  I turn and feel the smile pulling at my lips. I hide it because I’m not sure anyone else is at that point yet. There are some scary realities that probably still need to be sorted out, and Conner is going to need a lawyer. Or maybe he won’t. Maybe he was never around, and we all say that he wasn’t. Maybe Amanda and the two kids were gone, on vacation. And maybe Jesse was too.

  I begin to work it out in my own head when I feel Jesse’s hand weave into mine. We all walk slowly down the street to his house, where his mom, Conner, and AmberLynn are now standing under the open garage door, staring at the black smoke billowing out behind us.

  Our instruments and amps are just thrown in the open garage behind them, leftover from our last gig. Jesse starts straightening things, so I work to help him, rolling up cords and moving my set as if I’m getting ready to play.

  We don’t say a word, and nobody questions our need to do this and do this right now. I turn my bass drum around, fixing the pedal, and when my hand grasps at the bolds on the side, Jesse’s fingertips graze over my knuckles on his way to do something else.

  It’s going to be his birthday soon. It’s Christmas today.

  This maybe was the best gift anyone could have given him.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  My father is the last one on the interview list.

  Everyone’s been cleared. Somehow.

  Alton is sure Jesse started that fire, but I know he didn’t. My parents know he didn’t. He has an alibi. His brother had an alibi too. The police spent two full days talking with Amanda. Conner wet his bed the night of the fire. It was unusual for him, because it’s something he hasn’t done in months. He did that night. And he cried and his mother yelled because the stress in their home was at a breaking point. AmberLynn helped clean the sheets; they all sat up taking the wet vac to the mattress, and ultimately had to pile in together in Amanda’s bed. She never fell back asleep, and AmberLynn didn’t either. They were awake when the flames caught their eyes. Amanda called nine one one.

  “It’s going to be fine,” my dad says while my mother and I sit nervously on the couch. My dad gives us a reassuring smile while he moves to answer the door.

  I know we’re clear. It’s just the relentless pursuit I see coming that worries me. Alton’s deal is going to fall through. This freak accident was expensive—and the payoff for something that features him isn’t a guarantee, especially on the obscure cable channel his show would likely land on.

  It’s been a media circus nonetheless. I recognized the host of Access Hollywood here yesterday. They filmed a short spot out front and went knocking on a few doors. I laughed because most of the homes they visited are vacant. We have strict orders not to answer ours, unless, of course, it’s today—with the police.

  I feel like we should have a lawyer present. Technically, my dad is one, or could be again…with a small license fee to bring him up to date. But, this isn’t his kind of law. This is criminal, and the need to assign blame somewhere makes me incredibly anxious.

  “Please…come on in,” my dad says, holding his hand out as two detectives step through our door. Everyone wears smiles; we’ve become quite familiar. Detective Newman and the other one…I forget his last name, but his first name is Andy. They’re surgically kind with everybody they talk to, but Jesse warned me to be on guard. They grilled him just when he thought it was all over.

  Our house smells like Pine-Sol. My mom cleans when she’s nervous, and since we were having guests that she didn’t know very well, she wanted to make an impression. The impression is we’ve covered up a murder scene.

  With Pine-Sol.

  I catch Andy scratching at his nose. It’s because the scent is so strong. I shrink into my shoulders, embarrassed.

  Bessy has been wedged between my feet most of the morning. She knows something is up. She growls and nips at our guests, so I bend down and scoop her into my lap to stroke her fur. I can feel the growl simmering in her tiny body, so I promise myself I won’t let go of her. That would be the perfect ending to this—tiny dog attack that results in an assault on a police officer.

  They don’t waste much time, starting in with notepads open and taking down exact spellings of all of our names. I answer only when asked directly, but for the most part, Dad is our family spokesperson. This was rehearsed. Purposeful.

  The questions are innocuous at first. I’ve seen enough movies to know how this goes, and the movies are pretty accurate about this part. They ask if we saw anything suspicious. When they ask if anyone had a reason to do this, my father chuckles. He doesn’t lie because that shows his honesty.