Page 8 of Back for Seconds

And he didn’t look away. He didn’t even flinch. Instead, he just said, very calmly, “I’m not dismissing your experience, June, but you really don’t know how I feel—about anything.”

I narrowed my eyes at him.

Every part of Joey was drenched in a sweet white light from the moon hanging heavy in the sky over us. The angles of his jaw, the deep pull of his brows, the length of his nose. There were some men who just looked like they’d know exactly how to break your heart in the most personally devastating way possible. It was a handsomeness that hurt, because for a moment even a brain as logical as mine wondered: What if he was all mine? And the worst part was the way he kept looking at me. Dark eyes flitting back and forth over my features, lips parted like he was just about to say something.

I waited.

“I don’t want to argue with you,” he said finally. It came out like an admittance. He pressed his lips together, eyes catching the gentle twinkle of warm winter lights hung in picture-frame windows. Someone was playing Christmas music over speakers from their porch. “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas…” floated in the air, accompanied by the faint smell of slow-cooked pot roast and freshly fried fish. Christmas parties everywhere. An involuntary surge of nostalgia and warmth cradled my insides. What magical words. I don’t want to argue with you.

He continued, “Please. I don’t care about any of this. It’s… It’s not important.” His hair frizzed around his forehead in a wild S pattern. Joey looked as soft as the feeling in my stomach.

My body slackened. I nodded. “Fine. Ok. But you started this.”

“Well.” His lips twitched, jumping into the tiniest smirk I’d ever seen. “You technically started it last night.”

I narrowed my eyes at Mr. DaVegan. I could respect a man who met me at my own pettiness. “You win. I’ll take that ride home.”

***

Well, I’d successfully knocked Joey into silence. Turns out there wasn’t enough room for both our egos and pleasant small talk in his Hyundai sedan.

He kept fiddling with the radio, jumping from station to station, grunting every time he accidentally tuned to “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” as if we weren’t within sneezing distance of Christmas and that wasn’t the most popular song on planet Earth, bar none.

Eventually, he gave the tuning knob an irritated punch with his thumb, plunging us into total silence.

“You really fucking hate that song, don’t you?”

“Yeah, well.” He gave his chin a single irritated brush with the hard angle of his fist. “It’s a little overplayed.”

I sunk my teeth into my bottom lip to keep from laughing. “You can’t overplay a masterpiece.”

“Seriously?” He tossed me a sideways look. “Aren’t you a little too punk rock for Christmas music?”

“Punk rock?” I blanched. “Ok, grandpa.”

Joey gave me an incredulous look. “What? You just don’t look like a Holly Jolly Santa Baby type of person.”

The bay came into view, placid and dark under the night sky, as we climbed the bridge toward Evergreen Island. Soft, suffused light warmed the horizon. Proof of life during these long, quiet months.

“Well, I am.” My voice came out flat, vacant. “I love that shit.”

“Is Mariah making you say that? Blink twice if you need help.”

I snorted. “No, sorry. I’m just…” I shot him a nervous glance. “I’m sad and hungover. Tonight was…not holly or jolly in the way I needed it to be.”

Joey’s lips parted, his teeth catching the light. Even his teeth were adorable. Slightly crooked, bright white. Instead of speaking, he just smiled.

I rolled my eyes, giving in to a tight-lipped smile of my own. “And your night sucked too, Joseph. Is that why you were hiding outside?”

He shifted his weight in his seat, running his tongue over his bottom lip. “My, uh, my ex called me to let me know she had just picked up her last box. Officially all moved out.”

I inhaled sharply. “You were at the party to stay out of her way.”

He nodded. “Better than standing there while she carries boxes back and forth.”

“Wow.” I squeezed my eyes shut, the memory of my own ex dropping his keys onto the little glass bowl we kept by the door for the last time coming back in a jolt. “I’m really, really sorry.”

Joey gave me a curt nod. Solidarity.