“Well, they have good taste,” I say, thinking of the mismatched furniture in my own living room.
We throw all of our recipe cards and a couple of cookbooks onto the coffee table, and Luke pulls out an iPad.
“Okay, so we’ve got you guys prepping the turkey on Sunday,” Luke says, pointing at A.J. and me, and we nod. “Isaiah and I are going in early Monday to peel the potatoes and prep the green beans and corn casserole.”
“I wonder if any of the other groups are going in early?” I say, chewing my pen cap.
“Let’s not worry about any of them,” Luke says. “Our destiny is in our hands.”
“There’s only twenty points separating us from the Bakers. And Synergy—”
Luke holds up his hand with what looks like an annoyed scowl on his face. “We’ve got this. Unless we completely burn everything, we’ll get those fifty points.”
I’m about to argue that I want to be ahead of Synergy, not tied with them—like, they could get fifty points, too. And if Jared’s team gets fifty points, they’ll still be twenty points ahead of us—when A.J. points at something over my shoulder.
“Yo, is that you? What happened to your tooth?”
I turn around and see what A.J. is pointing at, a photo on the shelf behind me. There’s a tall guy with a kid, and I assume it’s Luke and his little brother until I look closer and see that the kid, is in fact, Luke, complete with freckles and a chipped front tooth.
“Yeah, and that’s my dad. You can see where I get the height from,” Luke says.
“And you have his smile, even with the chipped tooth,” I say almost involuntarily.
He laughs. “That’s the photo from my first communion. My dad told me I couldn’t skateboard that morning, but I didn’t listen, and so of course I fell off my board right before I had to be at church and broke my front tooth on the curb. My dad was, like, the nicest person alive but he was really pissed about that. You can’t tell in that picture, though.”
“When did he pass away?” Isaiah asks, then he shakes his head. “Sorry, you don’t have to talk about him if you don’t want to.”
“No, it’s okay,” Luke says. “He had liver cancer. He was first diagnosed like three years after that picture. We thought he beat it, but it came back a year after that and it was really aggressive. He died four days after my brother Ryan’s third birthday.”
The sadness in his voice gives me such a strong urge to lean over and squeeze his arm supportively, but I force myself to stay put.
“That’s really rough, I’m sorry,” Isaiah says. “That must’ve been hard.”
Luke shakes his head. “It was. I was having trouble in school and was such a dick to him and my mom right before he found out the cancer was back. And then it was like I was terrified of him when he got sick again. I feel like his last few months alive I was a total shit to him, just because I didn’t know how to act.”
“You were twelve,” I say softly. “I bet your dad knew it was coming from fear and not because you hated him or something.”
“I know,” Luke say. “I just feel like you read all these books and see all these movies where people are sick and everyone just rallies around the sick person. Everyone else in his life did. Except me. I think it’s why I focused so much on the biking after that, because he knew I loved that and encouraged it.”
“It’s like you were finding a way to, like, connect with him,” A.J. says.
“Yes, exactly. I … I do wish he’d gotten to see me do so well with the bike stuff.” Then he glances at the three of us, and we all must be wearing expressions of total sadness because Luke laughs lightly. “Now that we’ve made this a therapy session, is there anything you guys want to get off your chests?”
“I have to get laughing gas every time I go to the dentist, or I freak out,” Isaiah says.
“I used to eat Play-Doh,” A.J. says
I think I’m feeling something for you right now and that worries me. What I say is, “I told all my friends in third grade that my cousin was Christina Hemmings from California Cowgirl and that she was coming to my birthday party, but of course she didn’t and half those girls never spoke to me again.”
Luke smiles. “Go big or go home with those childhood lies, huh?” The front door creaks open then, followed by a gravelly voiced “Luke, I’m home.”
“In the living room, Mom,” Luke calls back.
My heart suddenly begins to pound. It’s like one side of my brain is all, You’re going to meet Luke’s mother! and the other is, Except it means nothing because you’re not dating, Mary Ellen.
A short woman with golden-brown, feathered hair steps into the living room. She grins as she peels off her black leather jacket, and in a raspy voice declares, “This must be the other family you’re always talking about!”
“The family that doesn’t nag me about cleaning my room,” Luke deadpans.
She throws back her head and cackles and my heart squeezes momentarily realizing they have the same laugh.
She leans over and smooths Luke’s hair, then smiles at all of us. “How are you guys?”
“Good,” Isaiah and A.J. say in unison.
“Great, how are you!” I chirp with a big toothy grin, and it’s only then that I realize I’m suddenly sitting ramrod straight.
“I’m lovely, thanks for asking, honey,” she says, beaming at me. She has kind eyes. Luke’s eyes.
Luke bites his lip in what I assume is amusement, and it hits me then: That was me using my “mom cred.”
“Well, I know you guys have a lot of work, so I’ll leave you to it. But if you need anything, just yell. My name’s Casey. I’ll be in my room catching
