Page 58 of Ignition

I tossed my phone on the counter like it was radioactive and busied myself washing the cup way past the point it squeaked.

With unsteady hands, I shut the windows and switched off the lights. Then, I ducked into the shower—where I lingered until a stifled yelp announced the hot water had run out—dragged on thick pyjamas, and tried to ignore the way my skin had shrunk two sizes.

The fire was dying in my old bedroom, casting a soft glow on the little windowsill nook I spent all my summers reading, over the pictures on the wall, on the quilted blanket as I tossed and turned, thumb typing and hitting delete, over and over.

His next text arrived with the casual innocence of someone who hadn’t just thrown me a grenade.

J: Sweet dreams, Mia.

I played a podcast so I could sleep—or maybe it was for an entirely different reason altogether—needing the noise. The sheets rustled as I shifted and buried my face in my pillow, trying to smother the bit my mind kept snagging on.

Hands-on?!

Chapter eighteen

Josh

The gates opened noiselessly after scanning my licence plate, and my tires kicked up neat gravel as I passed perfectly trimmed bushes decorated with warm white lights.

The manor loomed nearer, capped by faint snow, the orange brick and ivy making me think of the Academy, but the way my chest pinched in told me I was home, like a good little son.

The cold air nipped at my face and hands as I stepped out and took in the illusion of a festive dream: holly and branches of evergreen on every windowsill, two giant nutcrackers by the large oak door, a beautiful handmade wreath hanging above the bronze knocker that gleamed as if it had been polished earlier today.

I knew better than to give my mom credit for it—she’d stopped putting her nails in danger when I turned ten—this was the housekeeper’s work. I made a mental note to compliment her and pushed the door open.

A large Christmas tree greeted me in the entrance foyer, piles of presents spilling from underneath. Garlands of pine curled around the bannister, wrapped in warm lights that guided my steps up the stairs, chest squeezing tighter with each one.

I could’ve left the suitcase in the hall, someone would’ve brought it up, but I pushed on, needing the buffer, as I made my way to the East wing on the second floor, to the quiet nook I’d moved to first year of college, eager to put as much distance between my parents’ separate quarters and my own.

As I passed through the hallway, the ghosts of screams and glasses shattering clung to the pristine, almost clinical marble floor, and my palms grew damp on the suitcase handle.

Dinner was a mostly quiet affair of a too-large room and even bigger egos. Though the cook had whipped up roast lamb, crispy roasted potatoes and veg, and delicious thick gravy, I barely tasted it.

My cousins droned on and on about their achievements, trying to one-up each other and making me wonder where the fuck we had gone wrong, from afternoons stolen at the arcade, from chasing each other with water pistols all over the estate, to this.

My thumb fiddled with my phone under the table, the prospect of texting her enough to hush my mind.

Actual silence fell as eyes turned expectantly to me. The echo of my dad’s question still in my ears, I swallowed, hard, and shared I’d got the top spot again this year. As always, the same perfunctory nods rewarded me, before a new topic was broached.

Figures.

Everything I do right is to be expected.

What I do wrong… is my own goddamn fault.

I glanced at the same tall and strong build, now growing a paunch. My dad’s straight jaw—which I’d also inherited—blotched red with drink, and my spine stiffened.

I found myself fiddling with my phone again, keying in a message, then erasing it, over and over, like I’d done the entire dinner.

My own eyes speared me from across the table from my mother’s face, pulled into what would’ve been a frown, had she not been worried about wrinkles.

“How did it go with Alice, dear? You haven’t said,” she chimed in, swirling a glass of Prosecco.

I hadn’t bothered counting them tonight.

I took a bite of meat that tasted like cardboard and chewed thoughtfully, though there wasn’t much to think about. I’d thanked her for the date and never set up another.

How was I supposed to stomach that? I’d got away with two polite kisses on the cheek, but meeting again meant more expectations, more—