“Tongs?”
“What?”
“Tongs. To get the chicken out. Or a fork?”
I scurry back into the kitchen, already feeling completely humiliated. How the heck did I think I was going to get the chicken out? Does Luke always have to prove he’s smarter than me? And better at everything? I choke back my annoyance and pass him a pair of tongs through the patio door. I’m not going to stand around and watch and let Luke see how he got under my skin, so I join Shade back in the living room. He’s fiddling with the tree, repositioning ornaments, so I watch him create and sort. It’s much more soothing than thinking about his father barbequing out there.
I’m kind of lost in my own little world, but I get shaken out of it pretty darn fast when Shade yells, “Fire!”
I leap off the couch and immediately look at where he’s pointing. Yup, the barbeque is on fire, and Luke is nowhere in sight.
“Oh my fucking god!” I forget all about word substitutions. This one calls for a definite fuck.
“What do we do?” Shade yells frantically.
Big orange flames are pretty much engulfing the whole barbeque by now. “I have no idea. It’s probably a grease fire, so don’t put water on it.” At least I know that much. “And I doubt a towel is going to help.”
Suddenly, Luke is back from god knows where. He opens the lid of the barbeque, and great big billows of smoke erupt from the inside. Choking on the smoke, he quickly shuts everything off, and what do you know, it pretty much takes care of the fire. The flames go way down to a tiny little sizzle, and the smoke thins out. Shade and I gingerly creep closer.
I smile wickedly when I see the black lumps. Every single one of them is charred. I think there were probably twenty pieces of chicken drumsticks. It was a family pack of chicken.
“Ewwww,” Shade whispers to me. “Do we have to eat that?”
“No, sweetheart.” I take my phone out of my back pocket just as Luke turns around to face us. When he meets my eyes, I make sure he can see the gloating satisfied look on my face. A look that says, obviously, it’s not just me who burns everything. “What do you want for dinner tonight, Shade? How about we try tacos?”
“Yeah! Tacos!” He starts rattling off all the things he’d like on his tacos—a whole long list of them.
Luke gives me a dark look, but after Shade is done with his requests, he asks me, in a politely strangled voice, to order him two chicken and two beef tacos.CHAPTER 11FeeneyWith Luke off to work the next morning, I’m sure we’ll finally have a day of smooth sailing. Hmpf. As if. Why can’t I be right about these things for a change?
After lunch, I really want to call Sam because she’s been texting me non-stop all morning since I haven’t given her an update about how things are going. I pull the classic babysitter move and send Shade out to play in the backyard. It’s fenced, it’s safe, and things are good. I’m watching him from the window while I debrief Sam about how things are going. She’s told my parents I’m safe and that they don’t have to worry. She also promises me she hasn’t told them anything else, and she weirdly asks me if I think Luke is hot. I tell her no, I don’t think he’s hot. But she says I’m lying, so I passionately, but not so passionately that it’s suspicious, refute her claim.
I’m doing good—picking up steam to tell Sam about how I’m going to apply for a few jobs I saw late last night when I was on my laptop up in my bedroom—when Shade throws open the patio door and comes running in. I swear I just took my eyes off him for a second. Okay, I think this is what everyone says right before disaster strikes, but really. I think I looked away from the window for a minute, two at most, while I loaded dishes into the dishwasher and balanced the phone between my shoulder and ear.
“Feeney! Feeney! There’s a stray cat in the backyard, and he doesn’t look good! There’s something wrong with him! He’s missing hair in places, and he looks sick!”
“Holy shit! I mean, shoot.” I rip my phone away from my ear but then bring it back and say in rushed tones, “Sorry, I have to go. We’re having an emergency with a cat over here.” I hang up on Sam and toss the phone on the counter. It clatters hard enough to make me wince, but I’m already running toward Shade. “How the heck could a cat get into the backyard? It’s fenced!”
“It could have climbed.”