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“Real cold.” He took another shot, and this one went in, rolling around the rim twice before it dropped. He threw both arms up over his head. “That’s what I’m talking about.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“I just hit a shot in Melvin Wright’s gym.” He was grinning at her, all the way, the first real grin she’d seen on him since they’d landed. “I’m calling my dad tonight. He’s gonna lose his mind.”

By the time they sat down to eat, Nicole’s face hurt from smiling. Dinner was smothered pork chops and rice and gravy, and the first batch of Mama Gussie’s greens, and macaroni and cheese baked so long the edges had gone crispy and brown, and cornbread in a cast-iron skillet. They ate in the kitchen at the big table instead of the dining room, because the dining room was for Christmas Day and everybody knew it, and Mama Gussie said grace with all of them holding hands, Drew included. He held Nicole’s hand on one side and MJ’s on the other, and he bowed his head when everybody else did, and he said “Amen” a beat after everybody else did, like he’d been waiting to make sure.

Drew murdered two plates like he’d never tasted anything that good in his life. When Mama Gussie made him a third without asking, he murdered that one too, and her grandmother watched him eat every bite.

Tiffany had come in from the kitchen before dinner and met him at the bottom of the stairs, and she’d been polite about it. Sort of. She’d shaken his hand and said, “Tiffany. The sister.” Then she’d looked at the cut on his face and said, “That’s the girl from the letter, I take it,” and when Drew said, “Yeah,” she’d said, “Mm,” and walked off. That was it. Through dinner she asked him exactly three questions, about his major, about the draft, and about how long he and Phallon had been together. Drew had answered every one of them without looking away, and Tiffany had nodded after each answer and moved on to her food.

Her mother asked about his parents, and Boston, and whether he liked Alabama, and whether he’d thought about what he’d do if football didn’t work out. She smiled at the right places and laughed once, at something Drew said about his dad blaming the pool table every time he missed a shot. But every so often, when Drew wasn’t looking, Nicole caught something shift in her mother’s face as she watched him, and then her mother’s eyes would come to her, and Nicole could feel her adding something up.

Nobody said a word about the letter. After Tiffany’s question, nobody said Phallon’s name again. Nobody said a word about Nicole’s father, or the green boxes under the tree, or the empty chair at the end of the table that nobody sat in.

By ten o’clock, almost everybody had gone to bed. Mama Gussie went up first, like she always did, saying she had biscuits to start in the morning. Her mother followed her up, and Tiffany after that. MJ stayed up watching a game in the den until eleven, then called it a night too, and the house got quiet in that way only a big house could get quiet, with every sound you made seeming to carry.

Nicole lay in her canopy bed in the dark and listened to it.

She lasted until almost one.

Then she got up, pulled her robe on over her pajamas, and opened her door as quietly as she could. The hall was dark except for the little lamp her mother always left on at the top of the stairs. She crept past Tiffany’s room, then MJ’s, where she could hear him snoring through the door. She eased past her mother’s room, which had been her parents’ room for as long as she could remember, and then Mama Gussie’s, right at the top of the stairs. Nicole held her breath going past that one. Mama Gussie could hear a pin drop from a floor away.

She went down the stairs, staying close to the wall where the steps didn’t creak, and across the foyer, past the tree, which her mother kept lit all night through the holidays, so the whole first floor glowed gold. She tiptoed past the presents and the green boxes from her father.

Down the long hall to the guest wing.

She didn’t knock. She opened the door slow and slipped inside and shut it behind her, and in the dark, she heard the bed shift.

“Nicole?” Drew’s voice was low and rough with sleep. “Is that you?”

“Who else would it be?”

A lamp clicked on. Drew was propped up on one elbow, the blankets around his waist, squinting at her in his T-shirt with his hair standing up on one side. He looked at her, then at the door, then back at her.

“Are you trying to get me killed?” he whispered.

“Nobody’s going to kill you.”

“Your grandma is going to kill me with that big knife of hers. She told me I’d have to deal with her.” He ran a hand down his face. “Nicole. This is a bad idea. This is a really fucking bad idea. If somebody comes down here⁠—”

“Nobody’s coming down here. Everybody’s asleep.”

“Your mom’s not asleep. I guarantee you your mom’s not asleep.”

“Drew.”

He stared at her for a long second. She stood there at the foot of his bed in her robe and her pajamas and her scarf tied around her hair for the night, and she didn’t say anything else. She didn’t have to.

Drew sighed. Then he lifted the corner of the blankets. “Come here,” he said. “Still a bad idea. But what, you thought I was gonna kick you out? The fuck?”

She crossed the room with a big smile on her face, took off her robe, and climbed in next to him, and he pulled the blankets up over both of them and turned the lamp off. The bed was warm where he’d been lying, and he was warm, and he smelled like her mother’s guest soap and under it like himself. She settled in against his chest with her head under his chin, and his arm came around her and stayed there.

“We’re not doing anything,” he murmured. “I’m serious. Not in your mom’s house.”

“I didn’t come here for that.”

“Good.” His thumb moved over her back, slow. “’Cause if your grandma catches us, I’m telling her this was all you.”