Amid it all, the smell of food was getting to me. I stared at the turkey, potatoes and other sides, and absently started to rub my stomach. It’d been a long day, and breakfast felt like eons ago.
As if reading my mind, Luke grabbed my arm and tugged me toward the lines of people. “Are you hungry yet? I’ve been giving out pumpkin pies all day and I haven’t had anything more than a slice or two.”
“You didn’t steal a pie out of a box, did you?” Victor asked, he and Gabriel following Luke and I.
“Of course not,” he said. “I took from one of the extras in the back.”
“You mean the ones meant for the diner tomorrow when it opens again?” Victor asked with a small smile. “Uncle will notice.”
“And he’ll know it was me,” Luke said. We got into line, and he released me to rub hands together. “Don’t guilt trip me now; I’ve been looking forward to this all week. It’s the one day North doesn’t yell at me about eating too much.”
Once we were in line, it moved really quickly. I was handed a plate, and all I had to do was hold it. Victor stood to my left, Luke to my right, and they took equal turns putting food on my plate. Luke loaded it with extra piles of mashed potatoes meant for him after his plate got too full to hold any more halfway down the line.
“We’ll have to come back for desserts,” Luke said, carefully supporting the bottom of his plate so it wouldn’t collapse under the weight of his food. I couldn’t believe how high he’d piled the turkey, ham, gravy, biscuits and marshmallow-topped sweet potato.
“You can come back for seconds, too, don’t forget,” Victor said with a chuckle. “There’s no need to try to get it all in one go.”
“This is just firsts,” Luke said. “Seconds is coming. I’m not forgetting.”
I couldn’t imagine his stomach holding what was on his plate, let alone any more. Where would it go?
I was thinking at first we would all be sitting together, but the boys spread out among the different tables. I hesitated, unsure who to follow. I tried to follow Luke since I carried his extra food, but he and Gabriel weaved into a spot with two seats open and nothing beside them.
As I hesitated, scanning the tables for a spot, Victor urged me to the opposite side of the table, where there were three empty chairs. I’d be sitting across from Luke, which made sense. Still, I would be sitting beside someone I didn’t know.
I was hesitant, but was at least grateful that Victor would be next to me. He moved ahead of me, put his plate down, and then reached for mine. As his slim fingers covered my hands, he brushed at them gently and held onto his light smile, the spark in his eyes a gentle simmer. He took the plate and placed it down before pulling out the chair for me.
“My, my, what a gentleman you turned out to be,” said a voice behind me. I looked over my shoulder, finding the woman with the yellow bandana in her hair. She placed her plate down and pulled out the empty chair beside mine, sitting heavily into it. She shoved the escaped lock of hair back behind her ear and unfolded a napkin, placing it in her lap. “Victor, you’ve grown up a few inches since last year. Last time I saw you, you were such a cute thing.”
Victor’s eyes flared with amusement, and his cheeks reddened. “You haven’t changed a bit.”
She laughed. “You get to a point in your life, right around thirty, I think, and then you seem to stop growing up, or growing old. You just get through life.” She started spearing her spoon at her food, mixing some gravy into her mashed potatoes. She looked at me. “And who is this girl? No one’s told me her name yet.”
“This is Sang,” Victor said, waving a hand in my direction. “Sang, this is Mackenzie.”
The woman held out a hand. “Call me Mac,” she said.
I held out a timid hand shortly, and instead of shaking, she simply held it in a strong grip, releasing quickly.
I was going over if I should say hello, or what to say, but she tuned into her plate, and then to the people on her other side, still smiling.
I sat down and delicately picked up my fork. Mac kept her conversation about the food in the plates of other people at the table. I kept one hand constantly in my lap, tucking my elbow into my body on her side so I wouldn’t accidentally bump into her. I leaned into Victor a lot. I wanted to relax, but I’d spent all morning with a rush of people—strangers—and had used up a lot of courage and energy to get through it. I wasn’t so sure I could get used to this type of Thanksgiving.
It was a little easier after I’d started to eat. Most everyone else around us focused on their plates, clearly hungry, too. With my mouth full, I wasn’t bothered for conversation.
Shortly after we’d started, Victor looked around and then frowned. “I forgot to grab something to drink,” he said. He wiped at his lips with his napkin and stood up. “Would you like some water?”
I did, but I panicked a little at the thought of him leaving. I nodded, though, knowing he was going anyway.
Once he was gone, I focused on my plate. Luckily Mac was in a heated debate with some of the men near her. There was an awkward feeling of being around friends who all knew each other but being new and not knowing anyone. My head dipped down, and I picked at a piece of turkey.
There was a nudge at my foot, and I slid it back, afraid I’d knocked into the woman next to me. I looked up in a shock to find Luke looking at me, his dark eyes intense and somewhat curious. Quietly we exchanged something of a conversation. He was asking me if I was okay. I nodded slowly, trying to tell him that I’d survive, but was a little uncomfortable.
He kept his foot on top of mine and then reached over, speared a piece of ham from my plate and brought it to his mouth with a grin.
That forced a small smile from me and I was grateful for the distraction.
He moved one hand up where I could see, and he started to sign. “Is the food not good?” he signed.
I cringed. I shook my head and then quickly signed back to him. “The food is great. It’s just a lot of new people. I wasn’t expecting this.”
“Save your energy. We’ve got a long night ahead of us.”
“What will happen later?” I asked.
He smiled wickedly. It was his plotting smirk, the one he’d worn when he wanted to draw over North’s face. Had he planted a trick somewhere here?
My heart raced, but as much as I prodded him through signing to tell me what would happen, he refused to answer, instead busying his hands with his utensils and loading his mouth with food.
Victor returned with a soda for himself and placed a bottle of water in front of me. When I looked back at Luke, he was talking with Gabriel again.
Victor opened my bottle of water for me and then gazed at me, lifting a cur
ious eyebrow. “Something wrong?” he asked.
“No,” I said. With everyone talking around us, I couldn’t really hear what Luke and Gabriel were saying. I assumed that meant neither of them could hear if I talked to Victor. “I think Luke is planning something.”
“He’s always planning something,” Victor said. “Ever since I met him.”
“In elementary school, right?”
“Yup,” he said. He opened his soda and poured it into a plastic cup before taking a sip. “Back when there were only five of us. And no Academy yet.”
I widened my eyes, looking around. Victor said it so openly. Did they all know about the Academy? I turned back to him, wanting to learn more. “What was it like before?”
“What was it like for you before you met us?” he asked. He reached over, covering my hand with his. “Strike that. I was trying to think of a comparison, but it’s not really the same.”
I understood. “So it was normal for you?”
“Just the usual early school life, only we didn’t exactly all have great parents. I think that’s how we became friends initially. We could just look at each other and know something wasn’t right.” He picked at some of his vegetables, scraped them loose from his fork, only to spear them again. “Even back then, we were trying to fix things, in our own way.”
“And Mr. Blackbourne recruited you all?”
He nodded. “He caught us trying to fix a problem. He’d been told we were just causing trouble, but really, we were helping out another student. When he realized what we were up to, he had us all out of school in the next week, and onto something better.” He lifted his head, the fire in his eyes starting to spark with life. “Having that support changes you. Someone believed we were able to do good things, and now we do.”
“What about Luke?” I asked, my voice softer, not wanting to risk him hearing the question. “Did he have a hard time with the change?”
Victor tilted his head an inch. “Luke? Well, maybe. That’s just his personality, though.”
I glanced at Luke and Gabriel again, but they were both in a friendly argument about something with people sitting beside them. They were all smiling, just loud.