Page 1 of A Very Happy Thanksgiving
CHAPTER 1
Phae
“The weather was so bad I thought we wouldn’t get a single pumpkin this year, but when I was clearing away the leaves, I found half a dozen hiding behind the old apple tree,” my stepmother said through the phone. Stepmother. Kitty was only eight years older than me. “So I’m trying out a new pumpkin pie recipe, but I have a spare?—”
“We ordered an extra one from the store in case the pumpkins we grew taste icky,” my brother put in—the two of them were on speaker. “Can’t have Thanksgiving without pumpkin pie.”
“I’m sure the homemade version will turn out just fine.” The car in front of me turned off, leaving the road clear as I headed north out of Vegas. “Did you decorate yet?”
Holidays were Huck’s favourite thing. The food, the decorations, the house filled with people… Yes, those get-togethers had been the best part when we were younger. I actually didn’t care much for people, but at least if there was an audience, Dad couldn’t fly into a narcissistic rage. Thankfully, he was dead now, and my biggest disappointment was that I hadn’t been the one to help him shuffle off this mortal coil.
And I was also bitter as hell that he’d taken my beloved big brother with him.
If reincarnation was a thing, I was going to spend my next life hunting that asshole down and making his existence as miserable as he’d made mine growing up. However, despite throwing myself into danger on a regular basis, I didn’t intend to die any time soon, so revenge would have to wait.
“Yes, I decorated,” Huck said, even though Thanksgiving wasn’t for another three weeks. “Everything’s done, and we’re having pumpkin lasagne.”
“You’re having that tonight? Or on Thanksgiving.”
“Neither. We’re having pumpkin lasagne when you come, and you’re not coming on Thanksgiving. You’re coming the Sunday after Thanksgiving. Marc’s coming on Thanksgiving, and I already finished his painting.”
Enough with the fucking paintings. Every year, Huck painted three more, one for Kitty, one for Marc, and one for me. Five of us sitting around the dinner table, smiling, laughing, a figment of his incredible imagination. It was the only way I’d see Booker grow up, the only way I’d see the real Marc again, but I hated it, hated that Huck lived with a foot in the past while I fought to focus on the future.
Booker was cold in the ground.
Marc was Hollywood’s hottest property.
And me? I liked to kill people.
Okay, perhaps “liked” was too strong a word, but every time I popped another pimple on the backside of humanity, I felt a deep sense of satisfaction. Of course, Huck and Kitty didn’t know that. They thought I had more of a desk job. Anytime they asked questions, I bored them to death by talking about Army logistics for ten minutes, then watched them sag in relief when I changed the subject.
So, why did Marc get custody of my family on Thanksgiving? Well, he’d never let them down, only me, plus he was great with Huck. Some years, I didn’t even make it home for the holidays, so it didn’t make sense to ruin their relationship as well as my own.
“How did the trip to Omaha go?” I asked.
My little bro was an artist. More of a sculptor, really—wood carvings were his speciality. Ever since we were kids and he used to squirrel himself away in a corner, alternately rocking back and forth and whittling away at a stick with an X-Acto knife, Huck had been happiest with a lump of wood in his hands. Now, his pieces sold for thousands. Kitty managed his money and his life, booked his shows and negotiated the contracts, and to give her credit, not once had she ever tried to rip him off.
Which was a good thing, because I didn’t want to have to fuck with her.
“Awesome! All the birds except for two are sold, and the gallery lady said those will go soon. So many people love birds.”
“Which was your favourite?”
“The blue jay.”
It was always the blue jay or the cardinal. “What’s your next project?”
“A mountain lion.”
A mountain lion? Fuck. Huck liked to sculpt from life—it was his gift. He saw something once—a bird, an animal, a person, a building, a landscape—and then he recreated it in his studio.
“Tell me you saw it in a documentary?”
“No, in the yard.”
He sounded excited. I was wondering how fast I could get to Nebraska with a gun. I didn’t make a habit of shooting for sport, not since Dad died, but I’d do anything to protect my little brother.
“Don’t go out there again, okay? I’ll see if I can bring my flight forward.”
