Page 32 of Flown in for Christmas

“Nick!” my mother screams from the open archway. She tugs me away from my cousin holding his bloodied face, groaning on the floor. Rich and Uncle Allen come rushing into the room.

I take a step back, running a hand through my hair at the scene. “Fuck.”

“What the hell is going on in here?” Dad shouts, shuffling into frame.

I stare at him.He pushed me too far.He insulted Joy.He was going through her bag like some fucking pervert, I want to tell him.But I don’t. His disappointment radiates from across the room.

“Go,” he says, pointing to the kitchen with a stern expression, and suddenly I’m a young boy again. The one who broke his mother’s favorite vase because he was throwing a football indoors when he wasn’t supposed to. It was the first and only time I’d ever seen my father look at me this way.

I hate it even more now than I did back then.

When my aunt comes shuffling in with an icepack and first aid kit, I don’t argue. I grab Joy’s bag and head upstairs.

“Nick?”

I sigh, staring at the running faucet in front of me.

“Nick—” Joy rounds the corner into the bathroom and stops when she sees me.

I don’t know what she sees. I can’t even look at myself right now, let alone her. I focus on the blood smeared on my knuckles from a small cut between them. The skin must have broken when my fist made contact.

She’s silent as she closes the door behind her and pads over to me. She takes one of the towels by the sink and wets it. “Do you want to talk about it?” she asks as she gently wipes the blood from the back of my hand.

I wait until she’s done before I say, “I caught him trying to go through your bag.” She leans a hip against the counter, patiently waiting for the rest of the story. She’s not so naïve to believe that’s all that happened. “There were some…words exchanged before I…”

“Threw the first punch.”

I cringe. “Yeah.”

“What did he say?”

I shake my head, my fist clenching at the memory. “It doesn’t matter.”

She nods.

“I’m sorry.” I rub both hands over my face and groan. “I didn’t mean to… I don’t know. He just—” I sigh, my hands and shoulders dropping in defeat. “He brings out the worst in me,” I admit, struggling to find the reasons why he does, why I let him get under my skin. “I don’t trust him. I don’t like him. I hate that he’s even here…”

Joy delicately crosses her arms in front of her as she listens to me vent about my cousin until it forms into another rant entirely. Involving my ex. I pace the bathroom until my throat is hoarse and I feel a miniscule amount better than I did before.

“Can I ask you something?” she starts, and I nod. After everything I just spouted off, I wouldn’t mind hearing her thoughts on how I’m handling this. Poorly, I’d venture to guess. “When your uncle died, did Darcy help with anything?”

“She made a few calls in preparation for the funeral.” I shrug. “Mom was too distracted with consoling my father to do it. Then there was the aftermath of hearing his will, cleaning out the house and his hunting cabin.”

Joy nods as I speak, seeming to hang on to my every word.

“Why do you ask?”

She bites her lip. “No reason. I—” She pauses, opens her mouth, then shuts it quickly.

I chuckle despite my current state. “What is it?”

“Um, could I—I mean, would it be okay if I had my father look into Eric?” She wrings her hands together in a nervous gesture. “Maybe he can—”

“Any other time, I’d probably take you up on the offer.” I don’t know what she believes her father can find that the local investigator I hired couldn’t, but now? It doesn’t feel like the right time to be digging the wound deeper, so to speak.

Or punching it.

“After how today went, I don’t think it would be the best idea.” The disappointment in my father’s gaze flashes in my mind and I sigh. “Not for a while, at least.”

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