Every Happy Family by Dede Crane Read Free Book Online

limbed and long nosed, Todd has close-set eyes, white-blond hair and the cockiness of someone much better looking.
    â€œYes, okay. I’m coming.”
    Somebody behind him claps.
    â€œLet the games begin.” Todd starts towards the door and the group follows, jostling Quinn along. Ritchie, who has a car, takes orders and money. When Quinn orders a twenty-sixer of rum and a litre of coke, Todd smirks and says, “This should be good.”
    â€œJust being economical.” Quinn pictures the near-empty rum bottle under his bathroom sink. He doesn’t drink like a fish every day, just enough to free him from second-guessing and making knots out of everything – like how things could have gone differently with Lauren if only he hadn’t hesitated. At the very least, he could have stopped her from leaving, should have stopped her. Oh god, maybe even now she’s waiting for him to initiate something more than text messages. To which she hasn’t responded. He’s on a sidewalk with these people. Maybe he shouldn’t be. Maybe he should call, be walking in Lauren’s direction. Maybe she would beam at the sight of him, helpless in joy. Maybe she’d sneer and close the door. Likely something in between. It had gotten complicated.

    With its large rooms, low ceilings and shortage of windows, the girls’ basement suite feels like a spacious cave. Somehow, maybe because of their mustard shade of yellow, the walls feel carpeted though they aren’t. Around the circular coffee table sit a legless brown corduroy couch, a matching chair and two stained beanbag chairs. A tree branch has been rammed into a pot of rocks in the corner, random things hanging from its branches: key chain, candy cane, baby’s soother, shoelace. A string of melancholy blue Christmas lights swoops across one wall.
    The bottles – wine, beer, rum, cider, two litres of Coke – and assorted glasses are plunked on the table along with a bowl of red and green tortilla chips and salsa. Quinn takes a seat at the far end of the couch. When Vanessa sits at the other end and smiles at him, he responds with a finger-waggling wave.
    Dork. He pours a shot, knocks it back when no one’s looking and quickly mixes another with Coke.
    Ritchie has produced a deck of cards from his backpack. “Ring of Fire,” he calls out as he shuffles them, and people groan or laugh or both. “We need an extra glass,” he yells to whoever’s banging around in the kitchen. Todd appears with an extra glass and asks Quinn if he minds moving over.
    â€œNo, sure.” As he slides over, the middle cushion dips violently backwards and sideways, throwing him onto Vanessa.
    â€œSorry,” mumbles Quinn, removing his hand from her thigh.
    She laughs. “There are some missing springs there.”
    â€œYeah.” He adjusts forward to even ground, wonders if Todd, now nonchalantly examining the bottles on the table, knew perfectly well about the springs.
    â€œMind if I do?” Todd tips his chin at Quinn’s rum.
    â€œI’m happy sharing,” says Quinn. Did he just sound like a kindergartner?
    â€œIt’s nice you’re here,” says Vanessa, giving his knee a pat.
    â€œNice, too.” What did he just say? He reaches for his drink. He could be home painting his newest miniature. He’d had to order four different figurines – maiden, farmer, dragon, scholar – to get the parts he needed: a staff to represent Lauren’s love of Greek mythology; a dragon tail to make the mermaid tail and represent her love of the ocean; a book because she was an avid reader. It had taken him an entire weekend to solder the tiny parts, and he was proud of how it turned out. He’d planned to paint the hair brown with red highlights like Lauren’s, the eyes her grassy shade of green, and paint on tiny fangs because of her guilty obsession with the Twilight series. Before she dumped