Page 69 of The Paris Roommates: Dean
“Hey, that’s a decent English accent.” Madison barked out a laugh before joining them in stuffing her face with turkey. “Doc always has strong opinions on art.”
Kyle nudged her. “Like you don’t with food. How many times have you tested this recipe?”
She scowled as she finished chewing. “Four so far. Nothing compared to my duck with cherries. And Christmas dinner is important to get right. I want to prepare a meal that makes them think about home and all that Hallmark holiday movie stuff people like to watch.”
“They don’t watch that in France,” Brooke reminded her, biting into another piece and chewing rapidly before saying, “They watch what I would call crazy and disturbing holiday movies likeSanta Claus Is a Stinkeror the highly acclaimedSeason’s Beatings.Then there was the one with a kid who got radiated with nuclear stuff before Christmas and had his dad do everything to make him happy before he died.”
“No way!” Kyle exclaimed as Dean cringed in horror.
“Way,” Brooke affirmed, mimicking the classic French shrug. “Ah, life.”
“God, the French ending.” Madison made a face. “You get happy andthenyou die. I try to tell myself it’s more hopeful than what you’d get from my Latin background, where it’s only suffering and then death, but even I can’t make that work with that premise. I don’t think nuclear radiation and the holidays go together. Sick. Truly sick.”
Dean almost choked on his turkey, laughing before he said, “How did I not know about these? We should totally do a French holiday movie marathon.”
“I’ll need liquor,” Madison said, studying her turkey leg before looking up. “I hate the holidays, and I hate holiday movies. Except for most ofHome Alone.I like that he’s left by himself—a dream really—and gets to kick the bad guys’ butts, but I stop watching before his family comes home. The first and only time I finished that part I was so angry I decided to make sandwich bread to get out my rage since you have to knead the shit out of it to make it successfully.”
Kyle’s brows knit. “What made you so angry?”
“His family!” She thrust out her drumstick and shook it. “I didn’t buy any of the kumbaya crap at the end. They were horrible to him at the beginning of the movie. None of that was going to change. They’d be back to calling him nasty names again by the time they opened presents later that night.”
“Whoa!” Dean took a step back. “You’ve really thought about that, Madison. Okay, how about we make a pact to have a really great Christmas this year. The one we had ten years ago remains my best.”
“Mine too,” Kyle and Madison said at the same time.
They both swung their heads to look at each other before looking away quickly. “How cute,” Dean commented. “You two have the same thoughts.”
That had both of them glaring at him.
Brooke uttered a dragon breath, probably in response to the change in the mood. “Back to that Christmas. Itwasterrific, but so was the time when Thea came to visit me in New York. Or the one where my dad took me on a sleigh ride. He really did Christmas big after my mom left.”
“You’re lucky.” Madison covered the tray of turkey legs again. “If my dad was sober enough to remember it was Christmas, he’d sometimes say he was sorry for not getting me a present because he’d spent everything on booze. Then he’d say it was better that way because he’d toughened me up for life. No one gives you anything, and there’s no such thing as Santa Claus.”
Kyle uttered a vile swear word under his breath, and Dean couldn’t blame him. Jeez. He could barely swallow the bite he was chewing. “That’s horrible! My dad was a drunk too, but my mom tried to do little things. She’d go to the dollar store and buy like ten different things and wrap them up. When I was a kid, that was fun.”
As he’d gotten older, though, the kids had made fun of his old clothes. When he’d come back from holiday break, they’d model all their new stuff and ask him what he’d gotten. It never stacked up. Distracting the other kids by making them laugh had become one of his strategies, and as he remembered the T-shirts sitting in the other room, he realized he was still that kid in some ways. Well, hadn’t he told Thea they were all a work in progress?
“You’re glowering all of a sudden,” Brooke said to him, putting her hand on his arm.
“Stupid memories,” he said, shaking it off. “Like Madison’s. Kyle, do we even want to know how your holidays went in the big mansion?”
“Hey!” Brooke exclaimed, swatting him. “None of that.”
Golden Boy only shook his head. “I’m not rising to the bait, Dean. Sure, I had stuff. Loads of it. But other things sucked. Stilted dinner conversations where you had to keep your elbows off the table and then seeing my dad and mom fight because he’d hooked up with another woman at his annual holiday party. Then there was the holiday my mom stopped arguing with him and drank a whole bottle of white wine and took a bunch of her antidepressants. I’m the one who called for the ambulance.”
Madison put her hand on his arm before yanking it away. “Jesus, Kyle.”
Dean lowered the remainder of his turkey leg to his side. “I’m sorry, man. For that and for being a jerk. It was stupid of me to bait you. Old habits.”
“Need to go,” Brooke said with a hard look in his direction. “I’m sorry too, Kyle. I didn’t know any of that.”
He let out a huge exhalation and tried to move past Dean out of the cooler before Madison snagged his arm. Kyle turned immediately, shock rolling over his face.
“How old were you when you found your mom?” Madison asked, her voice oddly soft.
His throat moved before he replied, “Eight. That was the year I fought with my dad and got the worst beating of my life for being ‘disrespectful and ungrateful’ and a whole host of other things no kid should ever hear their parent say to them. But it’s like your dad said, Madison. I toughened up after that. And I never cried when he took out his belt. Ever.”
Madison clutched his arm, and then he was pushing past them out of the walk-in. Dean rubbed his nose as emotion flooded him. Brooke gave an audible sniff.
