Page 89 of Going the Distance
“I’ll help,” Amanda volunteered, standing and starting to pick up plates, too.
“Oh no, dear, honestly,” June protested. “You’re our guest! There’s no need.”
“It’s the least I can do,” Amanda said cheerfully.
Hell,I thought.Everything she said was cheerful.I guessed she was just one of those people. Or maybe it was the accent. “It’s so generous of you to have me stay for Thanksgiving.”
“It’s nothing, Amanda,” Matthew said. “What’s one more mouth to feed when there’s already seventeen ofus?”
“Says you,” June said, tutting at her husband but smiling. “All you did was the cranberry sauce!”
“The cranberry sauce is a vital component of any turkey dinner,” Matthew assured us.
“Well, it was absolutely delicious, Mr.Flynn.” Amanda laughed, picking up more plates. Linda and Colin started gathering some, too.
Rose said, “Hilary, why don’t you help?” and Hilary glared at her mom, saying,“Fine.”She grabbed some glasses and stormed out to the kitchen.
Rose sighed and drank a little more wine. “I don’t know what to do with that girl, honestly. Just because she wanted to go to the movies with her friends later, and—what did she call it, Colin? FOMO? You’d think I’d signed a death warrant for her social life.”
Amanda and I walked to the kitchen together, even though I’d stalled to try and avoid doing so. Just because she was so frustratingly easy to get along with didn’t mean I wanted to spend more time with her than I had to.
We put the dishes by the dishwasher, stacking them carefully. “June will kill us if we scratch her best china,” I commented.
“My mum’s just the same.”
“Why didn’t you go home for Thanksgiving?” I asked her. It came out sounding rude, but I didn’t mean it to. I just wanted to know. I looked away, sheepish.
Instead of the kind of answer I was looking for—“Noah and I are super serious now and we thought I should come here to meet his family” or “Noah and I are just great friends”—Amanda said, “Well, we don’t celebrate Thanksgiving.”
“Oh, right, yeah. Of course…”
“Noah didn’t want me stuck at college all by myself for the holidays. And I thought it’d be fun to see a real American Thanksgiving.”
I wanted to ask, “Yeah, but are you here as Noah’s friend, or his girlfriend?”
Instead, what came out of my mouth was “That was nice of him.”
Then Amanda said, “I hope you don’t mind me saying, but it was a bit awkward between you and Noah. At least, it felt like it was.”
Wow. Straight to it, huh?
I clenched my jaw. “Sort of.”
“I see. And if you don’t mind me asking…do you still have feelings for him?”
Seriously, how did anybody sound that nice when they were asking such a blunt, personal question of someone they’d literally just met a couple of hours ago? And to their boyfriend’s ex, of all people? It wasn’t fair.
I looked at Amanda, at the genuine concern and open curiosity on her face, and I narrowed my eyes at her. “I don’t really feel like talking about this.”
I turned and walked out of the kitchen just as some of the grown-ups came in, juggling glasses and empty wine bottles and plates, like they were part of a circus act.
“Elle,” I heard her say, my name an apology, as I was by the doorway.
I didn’t look back.
When I got back into the dining room to collect what was left of the dishes, Noah was just leaving. I bumped right into him, bouncing back and stumbling. He caught my arm to steady me, and I jerked it away like he’d given me an electric shock.
And, if I was going to be totally honest, it felt like he had.
