Chapter 148

I look around the porch quickly, my hands numb from the icy cans. The heavenly smell of oyster sauce and garlic wafts through the screen door, startling my stomach into a hungry rumble beneath Dan’s hand. I want to eat, I want to get a little buzzed, and I want some loving tonight, in that order. But first, a place to sit…“There?” I ask, nodding at the far end of the porch, where my father and a few of my uncles mill around a stone urn filled with sand. Evie always called them her ashcans, and they got dumped with the trash. My dad doesn’t smoke, and I hate the smell of cigarettes, but after our little understanding this afternoon, I think maybe we should be over there, beer in hand, just one of the guys.

Dan takes a step in that direction, his fingers hooked around one belt loop on my jeans to lead me along, when I hear the unmistakable sound of a fork dropped to the wood behind me, followed by a soft curse. “Fuck.”