Eleven

Genesis

November 23

I glanced down at my phone while I creamed the bowl of potatoes. It was only ten in the morning, and we weren’t eating Thanksgiving lunch until twelve. Bowie had plenty of time to get here. I needed to stop worrying.

Today’s plan was to eat lunch at my parents’ and then dinner at his aunt’s house in Gainesville. I had suggested that we invite his mom over for lunch here and do a family meal together, but he’d shot that idea down. Dad had been released to come home last week, and I didn’t want to leave them on Thanksgiving. I wanted to stay here and bask in the fact that he was home. We didn’t have to face Thanksgiving with him in the hospital.

“Keep an eye on the dressing,” Mom called out from the dining room, where she was setting the table.

She was elaborate with her holiday centerpieces, and with the mess she had on the table right now, this one was going to take a while.

“Okay,” I called back to her just as the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade came back on the television that sat in the corner of the kitchen.

I had moved from the potatoes to working on the green bean casserole when the front door chimed as it opened.

“Please tell me there are pumpkin pancakes left!” Kye called out.

“I saved you a plate! It’s in the microwave,” Mom told him. “Genesis, warm up his pancakes and add some butter before you put the maple syrup on them.”

I looked up from the casserole dish I was working on when he entered the kitchen. “You can warm your own pancakes,” I informed him with a smirk. “Mom might think you need waited on, but I know better.”

Kye walked over to me and put his arm around my back, then kissed my cheek. “Happy Thanksgiving to you too, Baby Doll.”

I rolled my eyes at him, but I was smiling. I was glad he’d come. I hadn’t been sure. He’d been acting weird since the engagement. Less texting, more awkwardness when he was around us, and it caused me to panic at times. I had said yes to Bowie, not thinking about how it would affect me and Kye. I couldn’t lose Kye. The truth was, if I had to choose between the two, I wasn’t so sure I wouldn’t choose Kye, and was that a way to start a marriage? Knowing that there was someone else who was more important than your spouse?

“Did my second favorite Stoll lady make my caramel pie?” he asked me as he walked over to the microwave.

“What do you think?”

Mom had been making Kye caramel pie for Thanksgiving since he had been eight.

He looked back at me with his cocky grin. “I think if your dad ever frees her up, I’m proposing.”

“Sure you are,” I replied while reading the recipe Mom had left on the counter for me.

I wasn’t a cook, but on Thanksgiving and Christmas, Mom always gave me specific things to make. The simple things I couldn’t mess up. I should know how to make green bean casserole by heart at this point in life, but since I only made it for two meals out of the year, I always forgot how to do it.

Kye walked over and pulled out a stool to sit down with his breakfast across from where I was working.

I reached over and got the bowl of candied pecans, then pushed them over to him. “You forgot to sprinkle these on top,” I told him.

He grabbed a handful as I went to the fridge to get the whipped cream out. When I went back over to his plate and added the final touch, he opened his mouth for me to shoot some inside it too. Laughing, I gave him a large squirt before putting it back up.

“See, I did need your help with fixing my pancakes,” he said to me as I went back to working on the casserole.

“Mmhmm,” I replied. “Why do I think you left those things off because you knew I’d do it for you?”

He winked and put a forkful into his mouth. Looking past him, I watched as the new Snoopy float they’d kept talking about made its way down the street. This was a tradition and had been for years. One that Bowie had never been a part of. He’d always gone to his aunt’s house with his family on Thanksgiving.

Kye had started coming over for pumpkin pancakes since I’d told him about them the first year we moved in next door. We would watch the parade together, and he’d stay and visit while Mom cooked dinner. Once he had left home, Chloe had started to travel during Thanksgiving week with friends, so Kye had begun staying here for lunch. A few times over the years, he and his mom had come over for Thanksgiving meals too.

“Where’s Bowie?” he asked, and the sarcastic way he said his name wasn’t lost on me.

“He’s on his way. He didn’t leave until early this morning,” I explained.

“Doesn’t he have to go to his aunt’s house?”

I nodded. “We are both going for dinner. He’s eating lunch here.”

Kye looked annoyed by that answer as he took another bite.

“We set a wedding date,” I said, needing to get that out of the way. I didn’t want Bowie bringing it up and Kye getting all weird on me.

Kye set his fork down. “Oh. When?”

I slid the casserole into the oven and checked on Mom’s dressing. “March 30.”

He coughed as I turned back to him. The scowl on his face made it clear that he didn’t like that answer. “Of next year? As in four fucking months?”

I had felt like it was soon too. When I’d mentioned waiting a year, Bowie had been hurt, so I had given in and agreed to sooner.

“Yeah.”

Kye narrowed his eyes as he studied me. “You’re twenty. Why the rush?” he said, his voice raised lightly. “You don’t seem real happy about it either.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Either?” I asked.

“Yeah, either. I’m not fucking happy about it.”

“Language!” my mom called out from the dining room. “And it is too soon. They need to wait a few years. Twenty is too young to be married.”

Kye pointed at the dining room. “See! Listen to your mother.”

I leaned my hip against the counter and crossed my arms over my chest as I looked at him. “Bowie doesn’t want to even wait a year. I mentioned it, and he acted like I’d hurt his feelings.”

Kye’s eyebrows were pinched together. “Because he’s a pussy,” he said angrily, although his voice dropped to a whisper on the last word so Mom wouldn’t hear him. “Don’t let him pressure you to get married so soon. It’s bad enough you’re engaged at twenty.”

I shrugged. “Does it really matter? I mean, we’re gonna get married, so why argue over when?”

Kye ran his hand over his head and stared at me with those blue eyes of his, full of so many emotions that I didn’t know which one he was actually feeling. “I can’t believe you’re gonna marry him, Baby Doll.”

“Why?”

“Because … because you have me. Why do you need him?”

I laughed then. Kye really believed that too. He didn’t seem to think I needed anything more from a man than what his friendship provided. Explaining relationships to him was pointless. We’d had that conversation over tequila before, and he hadn’t gotten the point. To Kye, sex was a fun time, nothing more. He didn’t see intimacy as something required to fulfill a relationship.

His exact words had been, “Sex and love don’t mix. It just complicates shit.”

I reached over and took his hand in mine. “Kye, you are and will always be my best friend. I know you don’t think I need more than what we have, but I need the other stuff too.”

He flipped his hand over and threaded his fingers through mine. “He’s gonna take you away from me.”

“No, he’s not.”

He stared down at our hands. “Do you swear?”

“I swear.”

The doorbell rang, and his head snapped up, looking angry again. “Is that him?”

I laughed and gave his hand one more squeeze before letting go. “Yes.”

“He’s early. You didn’t save him pancakes too, did you?”

“Is someone gonna get that?” Mom called from the living room. “Theo is asleep. I don’t want it to ring again. He needs his rest.”

“Yeah! I am,” I replied and glanced back at Kye. “Be nice. Please. For me.”

He sighed and gave me a nod before I went to let Bowie in.

This would be a first for us. Sharing a holiday. I was excited and nervous about it. Fitting Bowie into my life with Kye hadn’t been easy so far. Neither of them seemed to want to rekindle the friendship they’d once had. Deep down, I had hoped that they would find that again. But the more we were all together, the more they seemed like strangers. Almost ignoring the other’s presence.

Opening the door to Bowie smiling with a bouquet of yellow and orange roses, I put aside my worries about Kye and took the flowers before leaning in to kiss him as he stepped inside.

“I missed you,” I told him.

“I missed you too,” he replied, then nodded his head toward the outside. “Kye’s motorcycle?”

“Yep. He’s in the kitchen. Come on,” I replied, refusing to let him make this awkward.

He had known that Kye was going to be here. I wasn’t sure if he had stated it as if he shouldn’t be here or just pointing it out. Either way, it seemed odd.

I took the roses into the kitchen, and Kye looked at them, then me before raising his eyebrows.

“Roses?” he asked with a touch of amusement in his voice.

“Yes,” I replied tightly, hoping he wasn’t going to say what he was thinking.

Kye swung his gaze to Bowie. “Since you’re marrying her, you should probably know her favorite flowers.”

“Kye,” I warned.

I could feel Bowie’s eyes on me, and I was very close to strangling Kye.

“What?” he said, shrugging. “I was just gonna help a guy out. He needs to know you don’t like roses and find them basic and overrated.”

My face felt hot as I glared at Kye. “That isn’t true.”

Bowie had bought me so many roses since we’d started dating. I didn’t want him to know that I didn’t like them.

Kye let out a bark of laughter. “Yeah, it fucking is true. You’ve said that for years.”

Shut up, Kye. Shut up, I mentally yelled at him.

He didn’t care. Instead, he looked back at Bowie. “Her favorite flower is a Persian buttercup. The brighter pink, the better. If you can’t find those, then dahlias are her second favorite. She really likes those in orange. You should have gone with orange dahlias if you were trying for a fall bouquet.”

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. This was not how I’d wanted to start off our first holiday meal together. Kye reminding Bowie how well he knew me wouldn’t warm him up to this.

When I opened my eyes, I forced a smile and turned to Bowie. “I’ve changed my mind about that,” I told him. “Orange roses are now my favorite. They’re beautiful. Thank you.”

Bowie didn’t look convinced. “You’re welcome,” he replied.

“Oh, would you look at those roses! They will look beautiful in my centerpiece,” Mom exclaimed as she walked into the kitchen. Then, she smiled brightly at Kye and Bowie. “It sure is good to have you two boys in this house together again. Now, Kye, please get me the cornucopia out of the attic. And, Bowie, would you go to the basement and get the two extra chairs for the dining room table?”

I wanted to hug my mom’s neck. She’d come in and defused the tension like a pro.

Kye stood up from the stool. “I’m on it,” he told her.

“Yes, ma’am,” Bowie replied.

I turned to look at her while they both headed to do what she’d asked.

Thank you, I said silently.

She nodded. “There is too much going unsaid that you need to clear up before you walk down the aisle,” she said in a low voice, then followed Kye to the attic.

I stood there alone, wondering what she meant by that and afraid I already knew.