Page 10 of Riding the Pine

My heart’s hammering so hard I bet her dad can hear the thumping from his well-insulated office upstairs where, the guys tell me, he hides until the food is on the table.

I pick up the small, pink gift bag with the tag dangling from the handle, not missing Ares’s snort from across the room. My face is hot, my cheeks probably a dark shade of red, and my pulse has taken off like a prized racehorse from the gate at a race.

A quick peek inside and laughter seizes my body. She’s given me a Gizmo the gremlin plushie, and there’s a card inside with three rules written on it.

1. Do not expose to bright lights

2. Do not let them get wet

3. No feeding after midnight

A

Her brothers look at me like I’ve lost my mind, like they’ve never seen a seventeen-year-old so happy to have been given a soft, cuddly toy for his birthday. But this feels like an in-joke, like an almost personal, maybe nearly intimate moment shared between their sister and me. Something pulls at the bunch of tangled, messy feelings in my chest for the eldest de la Peña sibling, the very, very, okay fine, not at all very buried feelings.

All she’s done is give me a freakin’ gremlin and my heart’s all a-freakin’-flutter.

The weight of the twins’ stares pulls my gaze from the furry brown and white toy in my hand. Apollo raises a questioning eyebrow, while Ares gestures like I should explain a little more context about Gizmo.

These guys have no clue how much trouble their sister is.

Or rather, how hard I have to fight every goddamn day to stay on the right side of trouble. When all I really want to do… is get all-the-way into trouble.

CHAPTER 6

Athena

(EIGHTEEN YEARS OLD)

December 2019: The Birthdays Part II

“Hark! The Herald angels sing.”

“Glory to the newborn king.”

I turn around to find Scott leaning against the doorframe of our living room. He’s got that adorable lopsided grin on his face, watching me battle it out with a twisted string of Christmas blinking lights and filling in the next line of my favorite Christmas carol.

“You going to just stand there? Or are you going to help?”

He quirks a brow as he tips his head to the side. “You seem to have things under control.” He sweeps his hand like I should continue. “But don’t you have anything else to do on your birthday? This seems somewhat anticlimactic for a Greek goddess.”

An unfamiliar sizzle in my cheeks burns as I shrug, which allows the cord of twinkling lights resting over my shoulder to slip, landing on the ground with a clunk. “It’s my birthday?” I try to seem carefree, like my birthday isn’t a big deal.

Hopefully my voice doesn’t betray the fact I’m not only surprised he remembered, but also kind of touched. December thirteenth is apparently close enough to Christmas to warrant a singular, combined ‘event’ gift from people who love me, and with Mamá having checked out this year, it seems no one else has remembered today is my eighteenth birthday.

Until Scott. He hums, but I don’t turn to look at him. I’m not sure I can resist his penetrating gaze, his swirling blue eyes, not today. Not right now. “If I don’t decorate this, no one else will.” Mamá usually puts up the Christmas decorations, or at least hires someone to do it. As soon as Thanksgiving is over, and the Black Friday purchases have been put away, our lights come out and the tree goes up.

Not this year.

This year, it seems it’s up to me. I’ve no idea what happened, but Mamá’s been kind of AWOL this week. It’s not like her to suddenly disappear off the face of the planet, and it’s even less common for her to have been left in peace and quiet. Abuelita assures me Mamá will be back, that she’s not feeling too well, but I’ve never known Mamá to drop the ball like this before.

I refuse to do every tree in the house. I’ll do this one in the main living room, and if that’s not enough, the boys can figure something else out. Or even Papá. He could make the effort to step outside his office and make something festive happen for a change.

The chance would be a fine thing.

Blinking back the sudden onslaught of hot tears filling my eyes, I turn my full attention to the knotted string of lights, sitting on the floor cross-legged, still not turning to look at my friend in the doorway.

That’s what we are, right? Friends? He’s one of the few people I know doesn’t talk to me simply because he wants accessto my brothers, he already has it, and he talks to me regardless. I think that’s what friendship is. No ulterior motives.

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