Page 43 of Pomegranate Kiss

She tapped the end of her cigarette, watching the ash drift to the ground like snowflakes. “The lot of you are nosy motherfuckers, you know that? I was just sitting out here getting drunk on Mom’s cheap syrah and there you had to go talking sense into me.”

“We all know how feelings repulse you, dear sister,” Adrian responded, amusement in his tone. “But we’re all in this together. We might be way too overinvolved in each other’s lives, but the Dukas family sticks together, through whatever life throws at us.”

“Yeah, yeah, save it for a speech at the next family wedding, bro. You’re already working overtime saving lives—you don’t need to save all of us too.” Lex lobbed a punch in his arm.

“You’re going to hate me, but I’m turning your own words around on you,” Adrian warned. “I remember a wise woman telling me not so long ago, ‘I’d fight a whole army, even fight my own demons, to hold tight to someone who inspired that sort of passion.’”

“She sounds like an idiot,” Lex responded. Adrian’s words settled in her gut a lot like resolve. “Next time tell her to shut the hell up and mind her own business.”

“Like that’s something this family’s capable of doing,” Matty said with a snort. “I’m shocked no one’s set up an intervention for Nellie. Greg missing out on Adrian and Danny’s wedding was the last straw.”

Nellie had been having problems ever since she and Greg got married. After a three-month honeymoon phase post-wedding, he’d spent the ensuing two years either working longer hours or being such an intolerable shit most of the family couldn’t stand being around him. Lex already had had many a shouting match with the homophobic asshole, and he never failed to set Matty off.

“Trust me, a Nellie intervention is in the works. She’s been getting more miserable with every passing month they’re still together,” Adrian reassured them. “Mom, Cal, and I have been talking.”

Lex placed a finger in her mouth and made a gagging noise. “Ew, the Feelings Trio. Remind me to stay home on that family dinner.” She glanced over to her brothers, Matty still staring into the distance while smoking his cig. Adrian’s eyes crinkled around the edges as he dared a smile. Warmth pulsed in her chest despite the empty threats to herself that it would stay hollow forever.

She lifted the glass of wine and tipped the remaining contents into the grass. “There, assholes, that was my last drink of the night. Happy now?”

“Yeah,” Matty shot back. “That means there might be some left for the rest of us now.”

Lex snorted. “Let’s be real, Uncle Noel’s the problem child in there. Hide your beer, hide your whisky, because he’ll be guzzling all of it down.”

“I think he’s already induced himself into an eggnog coma,” Adrian muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose. “That’s up to Carrie and Brian to deal with, thank fuck. I’m just here to make sure he doesn’t need to be rushed off to the ER.”

“Good thing you could make it tonight,” Lex said, elbowing him in the side. When her brother began working at the hospital, holidays were a dice roll based on his schedule, yet as the ever dutiful eldest, he always found a way to make it up to everyone. “What would we do without Saint Adrian to lecture all of his wayward siblings? Watch out Matty, he’s going to reprimand you for spending so much time with your gang of motorcycle heathens.”

Matty rolled his eyes even though a wicked smirk lit his lips. “Like you’re one to talk, ex-con who full-times at a tattoo shop. We were pretty much born the problem children.”

“Shoo, Problem Child Number Two. You too, Saint Adrian. Let a girl have a little alone time out here,” she said, waving at them. “I wanted to savor a cigarette in peace and quiet before you lot took it upon yourselves to stomp out here and interrupt me.”

Adrian pushed up from his squat with a grunt and then brushed off his knees. “Come back in soon, though. You know I’m going to need help breaking up at least one fight.”

“Joy,” Lex drawled.

“Yeah, save me from throwing the first punch at Greg.” Matty flicked his cigarette into the grass, earning a dirty look from his older brother. Adrian headed inside first, and Matty swung down to pick up his discarded cigarette before he followed.

Lex lit another one. She hadn’t been lying. After the talk they had, somehow the bowlines in her mind untangled. As much as she hated her too-involved family sometimes, she loved those stubborn fuckers with all her heart. She stared out over the rolling lawn of her parent’s front yard and all the cars clutteredalong the road and parked on the grass. From inside, she could hear the bark of laughter, the steady buzz of conversation.

For years, she’d felt adrift, like she needed to hop on her motorcycle and drive out of town. The tethers of her family had wrapped around her arms like constraints, at least until she’d landed in jail after the one rally. She still didn’t regret going to the protest—no way could she stay silent while queer rights were under threat, but Adrian had commented that maybe she hadn’t needed to throw punches. When she’d come out, even from the short stint, her perspective flipped. This place had made her want to run for years, but now she found herself wanting to stay.

She wanted the stupid family dinners. She wanted the stable job at Inkspirations doing work she loved with the family the folks at the shop had become. And her time with Cam made her realize more than ever that she was done with the mindless flings, done with all the nameless faces she fucked. She wanted something real, something lasting.

Lex lifted up her phone and scrolled to Cam’s number. Before she could get too much in her own head about it, she began to type away.

I owe you a real talk at least. So, name the time and place, and I’m there.

Merry Christmas,

Lex

She sat there for a couple of minutes looking at the stars and letting smoke drift from her lips up to the aethers, as if she cast wishes to the wide expanse above her. Her phone buzzed with a return text. She scrambled to pick it up.

Meet me at the Waterfront Park, same spot as before on the 28th. Three PM. I miss you.

Merry Christmas,

Cam

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