Dinner did not improve things.

I was tense. I knew it. I knew it was out of proportion, and I knew it wasn’t helping. But there was nothing I could do about it. Sitting here at the table, with Nick’s crazy presence next to me, I felt ready to jump out of my skin.

Every guy before me was a warm-up.

I had brought guys home before, like Trish said. Josh, and before him the goatee guy (his name was Dave.) This should be no different. Except those guys were not Nick.

He was like a crackle of lightning, sitting next to me at the table. An insanely hot guy in a worn black Henley that showed the muscled lines of his shoulders beneath the fabric molded to his skin. I knew what all of that skin felt like against mine, what that sinful mouth felt like against mine, against the other parts of my body. I hadn’t been a virgin when I brought the other guys home, but with Nick it felt like a neon sign: WE’RE FUCKING. My mother was giving us disgruntled, uneasy looks. Trish just sat with her jaw open whenever she stared at him.

“Trish is trying out for the volleyball team next week,” Mom said nervously, putting potatoes on her plate.

My little sister slumped in her chair. She was deep in the throes of teenage-girl derision these days, and in its annoying way it was kind of awesome. “I hate volleyball,” she said.

“Tut,” Mom said. “I’m sure you’ll do fine.” She turned to Nick. “Do you play a sport, Nick?”

Nick poked the chicken on his plate. “I box,” he said. “I hit things.”

“Oh,” Mom said.

“I taught Evie to do it,” Nick said. “She’s pretty good.”

Mom blinked in confusion. “You taught Evie to box? Is that safe?”

“It’s no big deal, Mom,” I said.

“It sounds fun,” Trish said. “I’d rather box than play volleyball.”

“You’re playing volleyball,” Mom said firmly. “It’s respectable.”

Trish went quiet, and I looked at her, feeling a chill of unease. Mom had said that to me plenty of times—the job at the bank is respectable, college is respectable, that boy you’re dating is respectable. I hadn’t thought anything of it. But hearing it said to Trish made me unhappy for some reason. “You don’t have to be respectable,” I told her.

“Yes, she does,” Mom said, as if Trish weren’t in the room. “She’s in high school. It’s a difficult time. I don’t want her making bad decisions.”

I heard my fork bang down on my plate before I realized I’d slammed it down. Bad decisions. I’d heard that one, too.

Next to me, Nick sat back in his chair and looked across the table at Trish. “What bad decisions are you gonna make?” he asked her.

Trish was sullen and glaring now, but her gaze went a little unfocused when she looked at Nick, like he’d hypnotized her. I knew the feeling. “I don’t know,” she mumbled. “Mom thinks I’m, like, going out every day and doing something stupid. And I don’t.”

I couldn’t say anything, because that was my fault. I was the one who did stupid things, not her. My dinner went sour in my stomach.

“Trish,” Mom said in her Mom-voice.

But Nick ignored all of us. “You flunk any classes?” he asked Trish.

Trish looked shocked. “No.”

“Get detention?”

“No.”

“Get in a fight?”

“No.”

“You sound pretty good to me,” Nick said.

“What is this?” Mom had put her fork down and was watching their exchange with worried eyes.

But I knew. I watched them and I knew. Nick was digging past the surface, because that was what Nick did. Somehow he knew what was going on, even though I’d never told him about Old Evie and the bad old days. I watched it like you watched a roller coaster that was about to go over the top part and down—like something you know you can’t stop. Frightening and fascinating at the same time.

Nick picked up his unused dessert spoon and spun it over his fingers, then put it down again, the same gesture I’d seen in the diner the first night we met. “You ever get drunk?” he asked Trish.

“No,” Trish said, but she looked uncomfortable. “Not really. Only a little.”

“Trish!” Mom said.

“It was two wine coolers!” Trish nearly shouted back. “Jenny Cramer had them in her backpack! I’m seventeen, Mom. It isn’t like I buy the weed that Peter Hadigan is selling.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Mom sounded truly shocked now. “Someone is offering you marijuana at school?”

“I just told you I don’t buy it!” Trish said.

“That’s it.” Mom picked up her napkin, then put it down again. “I’m putting you in a different school.”

“Do you even know what year it is?” Trish was shouting now, all teenage drama.

I came out of my stupor. “Calm down,” I told Trish. “Mom is just trying to look out for you.”

“No,” Trish said, turning to me. “She’s just doesn’t want me to be you.”

There was dead silence at the table.

Then Nick’s voice broke it with his low rumble. “What does that mean?”

I risked a glance at him. He was still sitting back in his chair, his dinner ignored. His posture was relaxed, but I could see the tension in it. He was looking straight at me.

“It means Evie was a bad kid.” Trish filled him in. “I hear it all the time. I had so much trouble with Evie. So much trouble. She doesn’t want me to be like that.”

I locked gazes with Nick. His eyes were unreadable. I had a second where I was afraid he’d raise his eyebrows, needle me, tease me. Instead, he just looked at me, like he was seeing something new.

“You had a problem?” he asked. Just him and me.

“Evie sometimes makes bad decisions,” Mom said.

I felt my face heat. Humiliation, anger—take your pick. I swallowed it down. “I got in trouble in high school,” I said. “I almost flunked out. Then I, um, almost didn’t go to college. Mom got me in. And I flunked that, too.”

“There were parties and such,” Mom said. “Or so I hear. You’re impulsive sometimes.”

I tore my gaze from Nick’s and looked down at the table.

“I was worried to death,” Mom went on. “You gave me a heart attack a million times when you came home late, or didn’t come home at all. Then you left college, and I thought that you wouldn’t have a career. You went to work at that bakery.”

“I liked the bakery,” I said.

“I never understood it,” Mom said. “You were so difficult.”

I slapped a palm on the table and leaned forward, looking at her. “I was difficult because Dad died.”

Another second of shocked silence. This was the worst idea I’d ever had, the worst dinner anyone had ever had. And I only had myself to blame.

Well, myself and Nick.

What must he think? That we were miserable and dysfunctional? Maybe he was right. We were. Besides, who was he to judge, when he didn’t speak to his parents and refused to talk about his brother?

“Here’s what I don’t get,” Nick said in the middle of the tension. “High school was a long time ago. Evie flunked out of college, what, five years ago? So what? That’s a long time.”

“The bakery was after that,” Mom explained. “Thank God she got in at the bank.”

I said the words. I could see the doom before my eyes, and still I said them. “I got fired from the bank.”

“What?” Mom looked bewildered. “I don’t understand.”

Trish was looking at me with her mouth open in shock.

“Things were going so well,” Mom said. “It doesn’t make sense. You had Josh, and the bank, and now—”

“Hey,” Nick cut in.

Mom went quiet, staring at him, pale-faced.

“I get it,” he said to her. “You’re doing the best you can. But when you talk to her like that, you make her feel like shit. So cut it out.”

Oh, God. Oh, God.

“I beg your pardon,” Mom said softly.

“You make her feel,” Nick said again, more slowly as if my mother was hard of hearing, “like shit. Her little sister, too. Every time, you get it? Every time. So cut it out. If Evie wants to work in a bakery, she should work in a fucking bakery.”

Mom pressed her lips together. “That’s your idea of dinner table language?”

“It doesn’t matter, since I’m not coming to dinner again,” Nick said. “I’m one of Evie’s bad decisions. We made a bunch of bad decisions last night. We’ll make a lot more. And she’s twenty-five, so it’s none of your business.”

“Oh, my God,” Trish said. “Awesome.”

“You,” Nick said, turning to my little sister. “Stop being snotty. Don’t try out for the volleyball team if you don’t like it. And don’t buy Peter Hadigan’s dirt weed.”

“I’m not snotty,” Trish protested. “And how do you know it’s dirt weed?”

“Because any guy who sells in a high school is a shitbag with dirt weed. Got it?”

“Can we please not discuss marijuana at the dinner table?” Mom said. She turned her glare on my so-called boyfriend. “You’re right, Nick. You’re not invited to dinner anymore. In fact, I think dinner is over. I’d like you to leave.”

There was a second—just a split second—when I saw that she’d hurt him. But if you didn’t know him as well as I did, you’d never see it. In a blink, it was gone.

“Got it,” he said. He pushed his chair back politely and stood.

“Mom!” I said.

“He insulted me,” Mom replied, “and he’s giving your little sister advice about drugs. And he’s swearing!”

Nick put a hand on my shoulder. “It’s cool,” he said. His don’t-give-a-fuck tone was back. He didn’t even seem angry. “You stay,” he said. “Have a nice dinner.” He left the room.

I stared at my mother. At Trish. At the empty doorway. Should I go storming out after him? Should I stay and let him go, let the situation defuse? I’d never been in this situation before, because this was the situation I’d always dreaded—bringing home a boyfriend who would upset Mom. My nightmare come to life.

And suddenly I realized I was twenty-five, and that was pathetic.

I turned to my mother. “I’ll get him to apologize,” I said, “but he’s not wrong. You do make me feel bad.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Mom said.

“When you talk about what a failure I am,” I said. “How impulsive I am. All of my bad decisions. That was a long time ago, and I’ve tried to do better, but it’s never enough. I know you don’t mean it, but it comes out like you’re disappointed. Like you know that no matter what I do, deep down I’m still going to let you down.” My throat choked closed, but I said the hardest part. “Like no matter what I do, I’m going to let Dad down.”

Mom stared at me. Then she slumped a little in her chair. “Evie,” she said.

“Because that’s what it is, isn’t it?” I said. “The reason I have to get a good job—the right job. The reason I have to date the right guy, and marry him, and have the right kids. None of it is to please you, not really. I don’t measure up because I’m supposed to do all of it to please Dad.”

“I don’t—” Mom’s breath hitched. “I don’t mean it like that. It’s just that if he were here… Evie, I’ve had to do all of it alone.”

There were tears stinging my eyes. I looked at Trish and saw tears in hers, too. Well, this was the family dinner to end all family dinners. Welcome to my dysfunctional family. “You’re not alone,” I told Mom. “You have me. And Trish. And we both turned out pretty good. Dad is gone, Mom. We lost him.”

Mom sniffed and wiped tears from her cheeks with her napkin. “You know I don’t mean it,” she said. “I don’t mean—I love you both. He would love you both.” She sighed. “Oh, my gosh, what a dinner this is. It’s a disaster.” She was right. The Nick effect, I thought. But Mom was a good person—the best person, really, deep down—and she straightened her spine and lifted her chin. “Okay,” she said. “Go get Nick. I want to talk to him. We’ll start over.”

That was when I remembered that we’d come here in my car. Had he left? He didn’t have a ride. I pushed my chair back and stood. “Shit,” I said, swearing in front of my mother for the first time in my life. “I have to find him.”

“Yeah, go find him,” Trish said. “I like him.”

I was already out the dining room door. He wasn’t anywhere else in the house, so he must have left. I walked down the driveway, looked up and down the road. Nothing. My car was still there, the keys in my pocket.

Damn it, where did he go? Did he walk? Which way? Was he going to walk all the way home? I pictured him walking out the door and away, all alone. Kicked out of family dinner. He’d kind of deserved it, but that didn’t make me like the picture any more.

I pulled out my phone and texted him. Where are you?

But half an hour later, when I got in my car and left after hugging my mother and my sister, he still hadn’t answered.