Nora’s phone dinged. In the midst of a dream she knew was a dream, the sound nudged her toward wakefulness. Another ping, and her eyes opened. Matisse clung to her like a limpet, squeezing her tightly.

She stretched, and his grip loosened to give her enough room to wiggle her way out of bed. Outside, gray clouds hung low in the sky; it was the kind of bleak day only November could manage. It wasn’t until the phone from the bedside table lit up in her hand that Nora realized this was not her phone. This was Matisse’s phone.

Mom: Thanksgiving plans must be made. Call me.

Matisse had a mother. A mother who expected him home for the holidays.

After she placed his phone in the exact same spot she’d found it, Nora backed out of the room. Her mind turned over a Boudreau family Thanksgiving.

She liked the way Matisse’s mother stated things—clear, concise. As she climbed into the shower, she considered what she knew about Matisse and his family. It was pretty much nothing. He was from Mississippi. He was French or Cajun. Or some combination of the two. She thought Cajun was French, so the qualifications were lost on her. Being Cajun-slash-French and from Mississippi were the sum total of her knowledge of Matisse’s family and his past.

She came into the kitchen where Apollo and Ryan sat, one with a shake and the other with a coffee.

“Your shake is in the fridge,” Apollo told her, as if she’d been searching desperately to repeat the horrid experience from yesterday. ”How do you feel?”

Ready to politely decline his shake, his words had her doing a mental check. She felt good. No scratchy throat or runny nose or cough. Nothing hinting at a cold. He smugly waited for her answer. “I feel good.”

Apollo rapped the table with his knuckles and smiled. “Told ya.”

Not about to rain on his parade, Nora got the shake out of the fridge. It had more pink in it today, and when she took a sip, she smiled.

“More orange juice and strawberries with a bit of vanilla yogurt. Still packed full of the good stuff, but I heard your complaint about the aftertaste.”

Swallowing another sip, she nodded. “Thanks. This is much better. I was going to visit Cai in a bit. What are you guys up to?”

“I’m headed to the library to copy a bunch of references that Professor Bismarck, God forbid, make available online. I have to beat out the other students in the class. He put this esoteric book in Reserves which means we can only take it out thirty minutes at a time.” His eyes danced, excited at the prospect of elbowing out the competition.

“Sounds like a bloodbath,” Nora observed.

“Hardly.” He snorted. “I heard at Harvard, law students will actually hide the books in the stacks so other people can’t find them and, thus, are unable to complete the assignment.”

She grimaced. Nothing about that level of one-upmanship appealed to her.

“So.” She took another sip of smoothie and shivered. Despite Apollo’s best effort, there was still an aftertaste. “Thanksgiving is coming up. Are you guys going home?”

They exchanged a glance, and both placed their drinks on the table.

“I go to my parents’ for a day visit,” Ryan said, his gaze on Apollo, who traced the pattern in the wood with his finger. “Seok, Apollo, and Cai generally volunteer somewhere. Matisse sometimes visits Mississippi, depending on the weather and his mood.”

A huge gap in what she knew about the guys loomed in front of her. If she wanted to fill it, she’d have to navigate a river hazarded with crocodiles, and landmines, and spikes and anything else that might be in an Indiana Jones film.

Ryan had family, but did he have siblings? Were his parents married? Divorced? What about Seok, Cai, and Apollo? Seok was from Korea; she knew Thanksgiving was an American holiday, but did he go to Korea at all? Did he have family there?

“I can see your wheels turning.” Ryan reached for her hand and squeezed her fingers. “What do you want to ask?”

“How much time do you have?” she joked, her laugh forced. Glancing at the clock, she waved him away. “You need to crush the hopes of good grades for all the other students in Bismarck’s class. Go. I’ll ask you my questions later.”

Her hand still holding the glass was suddenly covered by Apollo’s much larger one. “I’ll answer your questions,” he said, and flicked a gaze to Ryan then back to her.

“You will?” Was it her imagination or did Apollo’s dark skin pale?

“Yeah. I can always pass, right?”

“Of course.”

Ryan squeezed once more, and transferred his coffee from his mug to a travel cup. “Text me if you need me, but I’ll see you for dinner. Whose night is it?”

Pursing her lips, she tried to remember. “Seok? Maybe? I’ll let you know when the others get up.”

After a quick kiss on top of her head, and a gentle one on her lips, Ryan was gone, leaving her and Apollo.

“Thanks for the shake,” she said again. “I think it worked. No scarlet fever for this girl.” She laughed then winced. It was not a funny joke, especially not when her boyfriend was still in the hospital, recovering.

“Bad jokes. You must be nervous,” Apollo said.

“I’m not sure what to ask,” she said.

“How about I start? What did you usually do for Thanksgiving?”

“Worked at the deli.”

“Anything else?” he asked, brown eyes serious. “Did you hang with friends or family?” He grimaced. “Sorry.”

“No,” she answered quickly. “You’ve given me permission to ask my own awkward questions. You’re one to my nil.”

“Shoot.” He smiled, dimple appearing in his cheek. But his knee jiggled—an outward sign of his nervousness.

“Do you have family in Vermont?” she asked.

“No,” he said, eyes sliding away from her then back. “My parents are dead.”

“Oh.” How should she respond? Stupid. She should have come up with appropriate responses to potential answers before she went skipping across the knowledge gap from one snapping crocodile head to the next. “I’m sorry, Apollo.” Pushing her shake out of the way, she climbed over his body. She hugged him and rested her head on his shoulder.

“Thanks.” His deep voice vibrated against her body. “It’s been a long time, but thanks.”

“There’s no one else?” she asked.

His cheek rested against her hair, and he shook his head. “My grandma is in a nursing home in Rhode Island. I’ve got an aunt there. I get down maybe once a year, but she has Alzheimer’s. My Gram, not my aunt. So she really doesn’t know I’m there. My aunt is nice, but she’s busy with her own family. And I have the guys.”

“We both do,” Nora said.

“And now we have you and everything is new.”

She sat back to see his face. Did he truly mean what he said? Were she and the others enough? Not asking him what happened to his family and how he ended up all alone was hard, but she could sense she’d pushed him as far as he could go.

“Cai will want to tell you about his family, I’m sure,” he went on, his tone hinting at something dark.

“My mom wasn’t big on holidays,” Nora began. Not often did she allow herself to reminisce, but she would for Apollo. “But my dad was. When they were together, I mean.” He leaned away from her to see her face as she spoke, and she grinned. “There was one time, it was pretty short so it was memorable, when they were both with it. Mom was clean. I didn’t know what that was then, but I did know there was food and the lights stayed on. My dad was never on drugs, but he had...” In her mind, she could see her father pacing back and forth in their living room. Her mother drawing on a cigarette while her father mumbled under his breath. With an adult’s perspective, she knew her father had some sort of mental illness. But to the little girl she was, it was just one of his dark times. After a while, the dark out-numbered the light, but she didn’t want to give Apollo a dark time. “I’m not sure what he had, but for this holiday—I’m pretty sure it was Easter because of all the pink—I woke up and he’d hidden those little eggs, the chocolate ones?” Apollo nodded encouragingly. “He’d hidden them all over the apartment, and my mom and I searched everywhere for them. I bet he hid an entire bag because that summer, I was still finding chocolate eggs. He would do things like that. Special things. Buy me scratch tickets for my birthday. Take me to the library and tell me to get everything I wanted.” She laughed.

Her dad—how long had it been since she’d thought of him? He’d been a good guy for a while, until his demons made him run away.

“I don’t look much like my dad. I take after my mom, though her skin was clearer than mine and she was taller. Thinner. And her hair was wavy, not kinky-curly like mine.” Her fingers trailed over her forearm. “I have my dad’s freckles.” A memory suddenly came to her. Dad holding his hand next to hers to show her how she’d inherited his fingers. It was nice. Her dad, whose mom had been Irish and dad Dominican, had skin a lighter tan than hers, but freckles all over his face. And in some lights, his hair was auburn.

Apollo traced her lips. “You’re smiling.”

“I have happy memories. They’re not all bad, you know? Being a kid, not really understanding what’s going on, gives you a kind of shield between you and the world. Not having electricity, when you’re young enough to believe your parents, can be an adventure when it happens. Like camping.”

“I have so many good memories,” Apollo replied, hands cupping her face. He kissed her, his plump lips catching hers. “But sometimes I think they hurt more because they’re good.” With a sad smile, he pushed away from the table before he helped her to stand. “I gotta go to the gym again. You good?”

As he spoke, she heard the shower turn on above them.

“Someone’s up,” she said. “I’m good.”

He took a bottle of water from the fridge and stuffed it into the side pouch of his gym bag. “I’ll be back for dinner. You sure you’re good?” he asked again.

She walked with him to the door and held his arm for balance when she lifted onto her toes and kissed him. “Promise.”

With one last kiss, he left. Ryan had left the coffee machine on and had filled the reusable k-cup with fresh coffee. As the water hissed and spat, Nora thought about what she’d told Apollo. The happy memory had come easily, like it’d been waiting there for her to find it.

She’d told him she was fine, wanting to reassure him. Now, though, as she sipped her coffee and listened for the footsteps of whomever was awake, she found it was true. Talking about her family hadn’t sent her into a funk. It was just a memory. She was better than fine. She was happy.