Page 9 of Grace & Henry's Holiday Movie Marathon
“Right,” he says. “I’ve recently started replayingMario Kart.”
“Nice. Old-school. But yeah, no. We’re a couple of miles away in Homeland. Just visiting for the day. You?” As I ask this, I realize it’s one of the few things I don’t know about Henry.
“That’s complicated,” he says. “My parents kicked me out today. I don’t actually live with them, though, so it was mostly symbolic.” He takes another sip of his beer, even though he obviously thinks it’s gross. “I have an apartment down in Fells Point. I got it right after…I haven’t actually been to the house,ourhouse, since…”
“That was a lot of half sentences,” I say. “I gotcha, though.”
As he watches the fire, I take in the general state of him. Now that I think about it, he’s a littletoothin. That’s the thing about womanless men: They either get too fat or too skinny. Solid hair, though, I’ll give him that. It could use a trim, and he needs to shave, particularly down his neck, but a good head of hair ain’t nothin’.
“Is this the first time someone’s set you up?” I ask.
He nods. “How’d I do?”
My mom pretends not to be checking on us through the kitchen window. I give her a look like,Seriously?and she ducks out of sight. “Your total confusion was charming,” I say. “You were like a stunned baby deer.”
“They could’ve worked a little harder on that modem story, huh?” he says.
“Right? C-minus for effort.”
He laughs, but not really. It’s more like ahmmsound that’s meant to acknowledge that I’ve made an attempt at humor.
“Technically this is my first, too,” I say. “People’ve been threatening me with guys for about a month, though. Everyone knows someone. A divorced dude or some weird bachelor who probably has a sex dungeon.”
“God, that sounds exhausting.”
“What? A sex dungeon?”
“No,” he says. “Well, yeah. But the setups, I mean.”
“Better get used to it,” I say. “Single guy with quality hair and a job? The ladies are gonna be jumping out at you from behind bushes.”
He sips, grimaces again.
“Here, give me that,” I say, taking his glass.
Across the yard, Harry Styles has gotten the zoomies. He steals Bella’s stick, which leads to wild chasing. When Ian manages to wrangle it away, Harry Styles nips the cuff of his jeans. “No biting!” I shout. “You wanna go in your crate?”
Harry Styles folds his ears back at “crate,” but bites Bella’s little ass anyway, then sprints in a berserk circle around the yard.
“Last warning! One more and you’re going to jail!”
My mom creeps again, a silver-haired assassin, and I wonder what she hopes to see. Henry and I making out right here in the yard, perhaps? Harry Styles and the kids cheering us on?
“That would actually be quite a headline,” says Henry.
“What would?”
“Harry Styles detained in Baltimore for biting children.”
I laugh. “Well, look at that, Henry. You’re smiling.”
“Yeah?”
“Totally. I mean, it’s kinda one of those dead-behind-the-eyes smiles, but I’ve seen worse. I’m the same way, see?” I move my lips now, show him my teeth. “My mouth mostly works, but the rest of my smile muscles don’t, like they’ve been botoxed.”
Henry flashes his teeth now, too, mimicking my face, and I hope my mom is still watching this: Henry and me fake grinning at each other like psychopaths.
“We look perfectly happy,” he says.
