Page 43 of Them Bones

They spent the rest of the evening listening to terrible Christmas music and baking. They made pasta from scratch, which took forever and turned out like mush. They built a gingerbread house. They baked a birthday cake, Christmas cookies, and breakfast muffins for the morning.

Dustin passed out on the barstool, head in his arms on the counter, face covered in flour. Shane eased him out of his seat with a warm smile and carried him to bed.

The air mattress was full, and had been made up with fresh sheets, and his heart squeezed again. This little odd-couple, Dustin and Laney, felt more like family than anyone had in… forever.

Laney laced her fingers through his, and quietly led him back into the hall. Shane’s heart hammered, thinking she was going to try to lead him downstairs and honestly not sure he’d have the reserves to say no, but she pulled him down onto the floor in the living room, where she tucked herself between his legs and wrapped his arms around her, both of them facing the tree.

The glow of the tree was soft, and magical, and she breathed a contented sigh.

They stayed like that, unmoving, until dawn broke. He didn’t care that his ass was asleep. He didn’t care that his broken hand was aching. He didn’t care about anything except her.

That’s when they both heard a car pull into the driveway.

With a heavy sigh, they stood up awkwardly with cracking joints and wobbly limbs. Laney rubbed the sleep from her eyes, stifling a yawn.

“Merry Christmas” he murmured and pulled her in for a quick one-armed hug. Knowing he was already pushing his luck and that Cary had probably expended the entire next year’s quota of privacy they’d get, he wrapped his other arm around her, too. She molded to him like clay, and even though he heard the front door open and shut, and the shifting of winter clothes, and footsteps on the stairs, he couldn’t bring himself to let go.

“Baaaaaaabyyyyyyyy…” came a smoky, unfamiliar voice. “Happy birthdaaaaaaaaay!”

Laney tensed and Shane looked up in surprise.

Cary was leaning against the mirrored closet with his arms crossed, one ankle hooked over the other, an amused expression on his face.

Teetering towards them was a blonde woman with dark red lips, who probably wouldn’t have been much taller than Laney if it weren’t for the giant stilettos. She was wearing toomuch makeup, but Shane recognized that beauty. She looked just like Cary, underneath it all.

“Hi, Ma,” Laney said.

LANEY

Laney didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, or scream.

It wasn’t that she really minded Ma being home. She almost would have welcomed it for a few days, always grateful for the space from Cary. It was just that Ma had so clearly been dropped on her like a bomb, Cary’s eyes flashing a warning. Ma was the price she had to pay for a perfect birthday.

After so much wordless communication between the three of them all day, and Shane’s soft, quiet touches all night, Ma was just… too much.

“Laney, baby!” she grabbed Laney’s face roughly in both hands and kissed her left cheek and then her right with loud, sloppy kissing noises. She smelled like her expensive French perfume and menthols.

Sheclick click clicked into the kitchen and tutted loudly. “Baby, what have I told you about sugar and carbs?” She picked up the plate of fresh breakfast muffins and dumped them into the trash, followed immediately by the remaining half of the birthday cake.

Laney’s stomach sank as all the Christmas cookies and the gingerbread house were tossed after them. Ma pulled out the trash bag and handed it to Shane.

“Can you take this out please, honey?”

Then she was climbing up onto the countertop and ripping open the cupboards, pulling the boxes of pasta and bags of cookies and chips and granola bars out and dumping them unceremoniously on the ground.

“We can take all of this to the food bank, baby!” she said. “Whathaveyou been buying? Honestly I’d have expected more from Cary, with his physique!”

“You know Cary lives on KFC and pizza, Ma,” Laney grumbled.

“Yes, well, the y chromosome has its benefits doesn’t it?” Then she was climbing down, her stilettos crushing several of the boxes, and she kicked at them so they went skittering across the linoleum floor. She opened the freezer door, pulled out half a bottle of Absolut, and unscrewed the cap with her eyes shining, taking a swig right from the bottle. “I’ll make us an omelet later, okay baby?” She pulled out the eggs and tossed them on the counter with a crunch. “I just need a shower real quick…”

And then she sped down the hallway and into the bathroom, the open bottle of Absolut in hand.

Shane looked bewildered, holding the trash bag of baked goods, eyes locked on the ruined pile of food he’d paid for.

“So…” Laney said, “that’s Ma.” She sighed deeply.

He rubbed the back of his head.

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