Winter Break (Chasing Chase London #6)

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“Corpus Christi Carol”—Jeff Buckley

“Sky, honey, will you go give your uncles a fifteen-minute warning on dinner?” Mom asks. “They’re working, so they like a heads up so they can find a good stopping place.”

“In the van?” I ask, straightening from where I’m curled on the couch with my phone, trying not to die of jealousy as I pour over the pictures of Lindsey and all our friends in a group, grinning from behind their ski goggles; posing together with their skis; crammed together on the gondola; taking off down the slopes; eating under twinkle lights in the lodge dining room; posing in their swim suits and snow boots as they get ready to head through the snow to the outdoor hot tub.

“No, they’re upstairs in the solarium,” Mom says before heading back into the kitchen where she and Uncle Carl are making dinner.

I consider passing the job off to Lily, but she’s busy setting the utensils next to the plates on the dining room table, so I head upstairs, trying to forget the pictures, especially the last one I saw—Lindsey sitting in Chase’s lap on a bearskin rug in front of a roaring fireplace, his arms around her and his chin resting on the top of her head because she’s tiny enough to fit under his chin. They look like the perfect Barbie and Ken, a couple that was made for each other and will be together until eternity.

But whatever. I have Todd.

I climb the last flight of stairs to the solarium on the top floor, in the attic space. The entire roof is made of skylights, and huge windows look out over the lake and the trees on three sides. A big desk is set up with a Mac, which Frederick is using while Seamus is at a laptop beside him.

“What’s up, Skyster?” Frederick asks cheerfully, leaning back and stretching his thick arms over his head. Looking at him, you’d never know he was Dad’s brother, but at least I’m not the only freakishly tall person in the family.

“Dinner’s almost ready,” I say.

“Great,” he says, gesturing to the screen. “Just editing some clips for the next Big Gay Adventure post.”

“We’re going to try out Two Scoops of Love while we’re in town,” Seamus says, scrolling through the information about the local ice cream parlour on his screen. “Have you been?”

“No, but it’s popular,” I say with a shrug. Lindsey’s always watching her calories, so ice cream is not part of her diet, and the rest of us pretty much do what she does.

I watch over Frederick’s shoulder for a minute as he edits a video clip of himself changing a tire on the side of the road in the dessert and talking about camping in the Grand Canyon. Uncle Fred is a low-key visionary genius who basically branded himself before the term ‘influencer’ even existed and spent his entire adult life making money off just being himself and doing whatever catches his interest. He’s currently traveling around making vlogs about van life while Seamus writes a foodie blog about the places they eat on their travels. Basically, besides the tall gene, you’d never know I was in any way related to him either.

I turn away after a minute, about to head back down when my eyes fall on an old bookshelf that’s been here all my life. My grandparents’ old photo albums are crammed onto it in no particular order, but the entire bottom shelf is packed with skinny spines with dates on them.

I swallow hard and glance guiltily at my uncle, like he can hear Preston Darling’s words echoing in my head. Seeing him in Lindsey’s pictures must have brought back his taunts about my family.

“Can I look at these?” I ask, pointing to the shelf.

“Of course,” Frederick says, glancing over his shoulder. “Just don’t laugh at my baby face. There’s a reason I keep it covered.” He winks and smooths his beard before going back to editing his clips.

“Baby face?” Seamus asks. “I might want to see these.”

I pull out a half dozen yearbooks from the nineties and settle into a wicker loveseat to flip through. I have to calculate how old Dad is in my head and what year that means he graduated, since I don’t want to come out and ask my uncle. He’s definitely safer than Aunt Diana, but I don’t want it getting back to Mom that I’m digging around for info about Dad. She’ll want to talk about it.

I flip past pages of signatures and cheesy comments written in the front and then scan through the rows of black and white portraits of his class, but I can’t find him. I find Diana and Frederick, but no sign of Dad. Diana’s a senior in this one, and she’s a year behind Dad, so I must have the wrong year. I pick up the one from the year before, thinking he must have graduated when he was young for his grade. But there’s no picture of him there, either.

I know he was a bit of a rebel, but surely he didn’t skip picture day during his senior year. My grandparents were all about pictures, if the entire shelf of photo albums is any indication. I flip through the candid shots and club photos, scanning the names in hopes of finding one of him there.

“You do have a baby face,” I say to Uncle Frederick after a while.

“Let me see,” Seamus says.

“No way,” Frederick says, and they start laughing and playfully trying to snag the yearbooks from each other.

“How come Dad’s not in here?” I ask, hoping they’re too distracted to think much of the question.

“He didn’t go to FHS for long,” Fred says, finally relenting and letting Seamus have the yearbook. He points to the shelf where the dozens of yearbooks remain. “Grab one from Willow Heights. He graduated from there.”

A funny little dip happens in my stomach, like when you go over a hill too fast in the car.

“He did?” I blurt out. “Why?”

I immediately wish I hadn’t asked. I don’t want to know if Preston Darling is right, if there’s some history between our families I don’t know about. I already know Lindsey is the only Darling to attend FHS in a long time. She’s told me as much, though her reasons for going to public school are still a little murky to me. She said it was so she could be closer to Chase, who wanted to play football at Faulkner High. But her family doesn’t seem like the type to base decisions about her future on a boy. Is there something she’s not telling me?

That thought corkscrews through my chest and recalls the images of their families on the slopes in Colorado. I’m not one of them. I will never be one of them. Just because Lindsey goes to our school, she’s not really one of us. She’s royalty, Queen Lindsey Darling. I’m basically one of her admirers, maybe a lady in waiting if I’m being generous.

Uncle Fred rolls his chair over and pulls out a Willow Heights yearbook, flipping through and sparing me the confrontation of eye contact. “Dad got promoted and got a big pay raise around the time they started high school,” he says, referring to Dad and Aunt Diana, who are a few years older than him. “Diana wanted to stay. Believe it or not, she was a cheerleader. She had a lot of friends. Your dad had a harder time fitting in, got in trouble some. So they moved him to Willow Heights.”

“Sounds right,” I mutter, my throat tight.

Frederick spins the yearbook around and hands it back, open to a page with row after row of photos. They’re in color, but otherwise the same as any high school yearbook. I find the picture of Dad looking the same but younger and less Dad-like, his hair in the longish, 90s style that curls at the back of his neck and around his ears. I can’t stop staring at it.

Dad didn’t really talk about high school a lot, and when he did, it sounded like he had friends. So I’m glad he went somewhere that he fit in better, even if it stings to realize how little I know about his life even then. It’s not like I asked and he lied about it, though. I just never thought to ask. I didn’t know it would ever matter, that the past would be important. Most people probably don’t know the names of their parents’ high school buddies unless they stay in the small town where they grew up or they’re the annoying type to bore everyone with endless stories of their glory days. Dad didn’t do either.

If he’d stayed here, he’d probably still have the same friends, still go drinking with Jim Bob from high school and Joe from work. Or… A shiver goes through me. Was he friends with Lindsey’s dad in high school? If they had a falling out, that would explain Preston’s weird obsession with my family history.

“You okay?” Uncle Frederick’s giant paw strokes over the top of my head, like he’s petting a dog.

“Yeah, fine,” I say, slamming the yearbook shut. I quickly replace the others without looking at my uncles, then tuck the Willow Heights one under my arm and hurry down the stairs to my room. My heart is hammering like I just shoplifted something from a store instead of borrowing a yearbook that’s basically community property. I sink onto the edge of the bed and flip through again, this time skipping the pages of yearbook portraits and clubs and sports. At the end, I find a huge section of casual shots of everyone else.

I scan through a dozen pages before my eye catches on a familiar face. Just then, Mom yells up the stairs that dinner’s ready. Ignoring her, I run a trembling finger across the caption.

The Fab 4 hanging in the quad.

My eyes return to the guys in the picture, all with their arms around each other’s shoulders, grinning into the camera. A couple of the guys look vaguely familiar, though I can’t place them. None of them look anything like Mr. Darling, though. My eyes return to the face I know so well, the ends of his hair curling from under the edges of his beanie, his eyes squinted halfway shut against the sun. A lump forms in my throat as I stare at his familiar face for the first time in over a year. He looks... Happy.

I slam the book shut and shove it onto the shelf of the bedside table. My ears are ringing, and I sway on my feet for a second. I don’t want to go down to dinner and face my family and act like I’m fine. But I don’t want to stay in the room with that picture, either, so I walk out of the room on stiff legs and make my way down to the dining room. Uncle Frederick gives me a sympathetic smile, but he spares me the questions in his eyes. Maybe he understands. He lost his dad when he was pretty young too.

*

After dinner, I ask if Meghan and Lily want to camp out on the living room floor like we did on Thanksgiving. We can’t watch a horror flick since Mom thinks they’ll give Lily nightmares, but my sister thinks it’s the best idea she’s ever heard. It’s hard to say no to her, so Meghan agrees. I feel a little guilty for the manipulation, but I can’t face my room yet. I’d just lie awake, haunted by the yearbook that’s scarier than any movie.

After a while of lying around watching Barbie with my sister, I’m reminded about what she said about Chase. I can’t help myself from creeping on his social media, even though it’ll only torture me more. He’s posted one picture during the whole trip, a photo of a snowboard stuck into the snow with the sunset in the background.

I know I shouldn’t comment. Lindsey will see it, and she’ll wonder why I commented on his pic and not one of the dozens she’s posted.

I glance over at Lily, who’s engrossed in the magical land of pink, and Meghan, who’s also on her phone. Lily said I needed to be nicer to Chase, and maybe she’s right. Just because I’m getting over him, that doesn’t mean I can’t be his friend. Just because I’ve sworn I’ll be immune to his charms, that doesn’t mean I should be cruel.

I write a text, erase, rewrite, repeat. My heart is pounding when I finally hit send five minutes later, and I shove my phone under the sleeping bag, determined not to pine while I wait for a response.

BlueSky: Sorry about ur hand. I didn’t kno I hrt u. R u having fun in CO?

Five minutes later my phone buzzes, and I snatch it up, my pulse racing.

“Who you talking to?” Megan asks from her sleeping bag on the other side of Lily.

“No one,” I say quickly.

She shakes her head and goes back to her phone. “You’re funny.”

ChaseLondonSuperStar: Ur family fixed me up. But that was cold. I’ll let u make it up 2 me l8r.

I can’t keep the dopey grin off my face. I should delete his contact and stay strong, but after the day I’ve had, I need to talk to someone safe. Weird as that sounds, Chase is safer than Meghan. He’s six states away, after all. Besides, it’s not like we’re flirting. He’s with his girlfriend.

BlueSky: IOU 1. May even a robot bandage.

ChaseLondonSuperStar: UO me more than that. hurts like hell to hold my ski pole. ;)

BlueSky: Shouldn’t Lindsey do that 4 U?

ChaseLondonSuperStar: Dirty girl. Lindsey not here. come hold my pole 4 me?

BlueSky: Wheres Lindsey?

ChaseLondonSuperStar: idk. Miss ur sexy legs. hot tub calls. Ttyl.

BlueSky: KK

I text Lindsey, but she doesn’t text back.

She’s probably the one calling Chase to the hot tub.

Oh god. I want to die just thinking about it.

Which is dumb as hell, considering he’s her boyfriend. Of course she wants him in the hot tub. Of course he ran to join her when she texted in the middle of our conversation. Of course his suggestive comments about his ski pole are just a tease, just like they always are.

God, I need a brain scan or something. There has to be something wrong with me.

After the movie, Lily falls asleep, but I lay awake, staring at the ceiling. I swear I can hear the yearbook up there, the pages whispering across the floor above us, beckoning me to come look again. For me to be taken in by Dad’s familiar, trustworthy face, the one I’ve known since before my earliest memory, when he probably sat over my crib watching his new baby sleep, waiting for her to wake up so he could be there when she needed him.

When did all that change? When did he become the bad guy?

Just as I’m falling asleep, my phone goes off, startling me awake. I fumble it up and see that Todd’s calling, which is weird. We usually text. I glance over at my dozing companions, then whisper a hello.

“I just wanted to see how you’re doing,” he says.

“I’m okay,” I whisper, sitting up in the dark. “How’s Colorado?”

“It’s good. I miss you.”

“Oh. I mean, I miss you too.”

“Were you sleeping?” he asks, sounding concerned. I’m lucky to have a guy like him. No one has ever called me just to say goodnight. It makes me feel special, and also guilty that I texted his friend earlier, when I needed to talk to someone. I should have texted Todd. Maybe I can fall in love with him someday, if I just work on it a little harder.

“No,” I say, laying back down and turning my back on the others. “Well, kind of. But it’s okay. Tell me about skiing.”

“No, don’t,” Meghan mumbles from her sleeping bag.

“It’s…skiing,” Todd says. “I don’t want to keep you. I was just… Thinking about you, I guess.”

I can imagine him lying in bed too, all drowsy and big and furry. I smile and snuggle down under the covers. “Okay. Goodnight. Call me tomorrow?”

“Yeah, sure. Goodnight, Sky.”

“Goodnight, Toddy Bear.” I hang up and turn my phone face down on the floor.

“Dude, you call your boyfriend Toddy Bear?” Meghan says from her bed. “I might barf if I wasn’t so tired.”

“Shut up, it’s sweet.”

“Yeah, like when you barf up a margarita. That’s sweet too.”

“I’m going to sleep now.”

“Thank fuck.”