One Big Mistake

by Barbetti, Whitney

  “Fun family dinner,” Jade said and shoved food into her mouth.

  “Kool-Aid, Jade?” I asked her. “Didn’t you learn your lesson last summer?”

  “It looked pretty,” Jade said with a shrug.

  “Oh,” Keane said right before erupting into laughs. “Was that when you tried to dye your hair pink?” He laughed harder. “And then you had those pink drips down the front of your face that you had to scrub so hard that you scrubbed your spray tan off of your forehead only?”

  Jade glared at him.

  “Yes,” I answered for her. “And who paid for the hair appointment and another spray tan? You did.” I sighed, setting my chopsticks down and leaning back in my chair. “You knew that was a bad idea, Jade. Why didn’t you try to stop it?”

  Jade shrugged. “Rose was being a bitch.”

  “Language,” I reminded her, warning in my voice.

  “Why are you up my ass? Auntie’s not even here.”

  “Because I remember when Auntie got a call from school that you’d dropped the F bomb and the stress that put her under. And who had to deal with you then? Me.”

  “Well, you’re not our mom. And Aunt Isabel’s not either.”

  “Your mom isn’t here. Someone has to step in until you’re an adult.” My head was throbbing bad now, and I knew it would lead to me pounding coffee soon, in an effort to be rid of it.

  “In two years, I’ll be an adult.”

  I spread my arms. “Then in two years, drop all the F bombs you want.”

  Jade set her chopsticks down on the table and leaned forward. I recognized the challenge in her eyes and steeled myself for what she was about to do. “Fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck fuck. Fuck!”

  “Finish your dinner and get ready for bed,” I told her, setting my jaw.

  “Oh, I’ll fucking finish my fucking dinner, al-fucking-right.”

  “Jade,” Keane said, butting into the conversation.

  “Shut up. You’re not my dad.”

  “Because your dad’s not here,” I reminded her. “And if he was, he’d tell you not to be a disrespectful little brat.”

  “Really, Navy? Oh gee, gosh, he hasn’t even called me on my last two birthdays. Think he’d actually give a fucking shit?” Her voice was loud, too loud now.

  I took a breath. “Look, you’re not wrong, okay? Dad is—”

  “Not here,” Jade interrupted. “And neither is Mom. Or Aunt Isabel.” Rising from the table just like her sister had, she added, “So can you stop playing all of those roles and just be our sister for once?” With that, she stomped off to her room.

  Silence blanketed the room after she left. I couldn’t even look at Keane.

  “Well, that was shitty.” When I didn’t respond to Keane’s remark, he continued. “Oh, right. Language. Sorry, Navy.”

  I turned my head and pinned him with a glare. “Are you making fun of me?”

  Keane held up his hands in surrender. “No, I mean, not really. That was tough. Your sisters are definitely handfuls, but—”

  “But what?” I interrupted. “I’m in charge of them. My aunt is expecting me to keep them in line because—in case you haven’t noticed—there is literally no one else doing that around here.”

  When Keane opened his mouth to speak, I held up a hand. “No, sorry—I didn’t mean to talk to you that way. Yeah, maybe I should lighten up on them but the last thing my aunt needs when she comes back from a much-deserved vacation is two kids—who are not even hers—being mouthy and getting into more mischief because I took three weeks off of raising them. My aunt raised us when my parents wouldn’t. You’ve always had your mom and dad. We don’t have those same luxuries.”

  “You’re right.” He covered my hand with his. “I’m not saying you should take three weeks off and let them run amuck until they get arrested. But have some fun with them. You are their big sister.”

  I slumped back in the chair. “It’s hard. There’s a fine line between humoring their behavior and admonishing them for it. My aunt left me in charge of all three of my sisters one weekend when I was eighteen and it didn’t go well.”

  “Was that the weekend Rose broke the garage door?”

  “Yes. My god, she was so pissed. It was all crumpled to hell. Brand new door cost my aunt over a grand.”

  “I mean, that was an extreme case though.” He squeezed my hand. “Right?”

  “You forget that Jade has been returned to this house by the police more than once.”

  “That was harmless pumpkin tossing, though.”

  “She threw a pumpkin on a cop car,” I deadpanned. “While the officer was inside of it.”

  He puckered his lips and blew out air. “Yeah, that’s bad.”

  “Exactly. I know they’re teenagers and some of that comes with the territory, but they definitely don’t make my aunt’s life easy. And, considering my aunt has had to raise all four of her sister’s kids because their mom is too busy being reckless well into her forties, well, I guess I just don’t want to make it any harder than necessary on her.”

  Keane rubbed a hand over his scruff and then scratched along his jaw, in deep thought. “I just don’t want you to bruise your relationship with your sisters because your parents are flakes.”

  If I didn’t know it to be so terribly true, I might bristle at Keane’s curt description of my parents. “The twins don’t even understand why mom and dad aren’t around. That’s probably a lot of their acting up, if we’re being honest. I guess I was lucky that I was old enough to experience my parents’ broken promises, to see them as lies instead of fruitlessly hoping that this summer would be the summer they’d get their lives together long enough to be actual parents.”

  “Hey,” Keane said, shaking my shoulder. “You’ve had a tough couple of days. Want to crash on the couch with tonight’s movie?”

  I leaned into his touch, wanting a reprieve from everything just for a night. It was nice having Keane around. This was why I hadn’t canceled. But a quick glance at the clock above the stove reminded me that I’d be leaving to get my sister in three hours. A few hours would have to suffice. “Yeah, I’d like that. But I’ve got to cut this mop.” I ruffled his hair. “Take off your shirt, we’ll make it quick. I’ll get a towel so you can rinse off after.”

  “Are you sure? I can wait for a haircut.”

  “Yeah, right. And tomorrow, when you’re using the skill saw to cut something and your hair falls into your eyes, you’ll call me crying about losing a finger and saying how much you wish you’d just let me cut your hair.”

  “Wow. That’s quite a story you came up with on the fly.”

  “It’s what I think about when I think about you working on the cabin with hair that’s too long.” I dove my fingers through his mane, enjoying the feel of his curls in my hands. It was fun hair to play with, and part of me dreaded lopping off his locks. But his need to see what he was doing was more important than my desire to twist his hair around my fingers. “I’ll go grab the towel and scissors,” I said, leaving him. “Go on up to my aunt’s bathroom, then you can shower there after.”

  We parted ways for a second, leaving me to grab the scissors, spray bottle, and towel from the linen closet. Keane was already sitting on a stool he’d swiped from the kitchen downstairs, facing the mirror above the vanity.

  “You’ll wanna take off your shirt,” I reminded him. “Or else you’ll get a ton of small hairs in your shirt and you’ll itch for weeks even after you’ve washed it.”

  “Oh, right.” He pulled the shirt up and over his head, tossing it on the floor just outside the bathroom. My eyes followed it, remembering seeing his shirt on his bedroom floor just yesterday morning.

  Danger, I thought. And I couldn’t disagree, as I took in shirtless Keane. I mean, I’d seen the guy shirtless so many times that I’d learned to not ogle at him. But looking at him shirtless, the day after I’d seen him fully naked made the bathroom feel much more cramped than it was.

  “Okay,” I sa
id more to myself than to him, stepping up with the scissors. “Just an inch or so, I think. Sound good?”

  “Whatever makes me not look like there might be a few mice taking up residence in this.” He ruffled his hair and the movement drew my eyes down, to his shoulders. Were those… scratches? From me?

  I wasn’t going to draw his attention to them. Hell no. I didn’t need both of us thinking about what had happened Friday night. I sprayed his hair down with the water bottle and started cutting the top, getting the length right before I attacked the back and sides.

  Cutting Keane’s hair was almost like therapy for me, something that I enjoyed probably more than he did. It was a small way I could provide care for him, a small way to give back to him for everything he did for me.

  After my once-over with the scissors, I dragged my nails over his scalp and Keane moaned.

  That sound. Whoa. It brought me right back to a dark bedroom, to the image of Keane over me, slamming himself into me over and over.

  “Feels good,” he said, his eyes closed, and his head tipped back as I stood behind him. From this angle, I could take in his long, thick lashes—lashes most women would envy, his slightly crooked nose—from the time I accidentally hit him in the face with the tetherball in elementary school, and his wide mouth which was curled at the edges in a satisfied smile. He was beautiful to look at. I could say that not only as someone who had crushed on him for the majority of her adult life so far, but also as someone who recognized good looks when she saw them.

  His eyes slid lazily open, looking directly into mine—stilling me. “Hi.”

  I swallowed and stared into the reflection, not able to keep direct eye contact with him. My emotions were too easily read, and I didn’t need him to figure out what I was feeling before I did myself. “How’s the length there?”

  Keane raised his head and dragged his hand through his hair, sending little flicks of water from where I’d sprayed across my chest. “That’s good.”

  “I’ll just take a bit off the sides then, even it up.”

  Keane just nodded and I turned so I faced his profile as I continued my cutting, trying my best to avoid looking at the angry red lines that started at his shoulders and continued to his back. They weren’t bleeding, but they definitely looked like scratches. And I knew they were from me.

  When I finished one side, I moved to the other, getting closer to his face since the other side faced the dark bedroom and made it harder to see what I was doing. Being this close to him, I could see all the details of his face so much more clearly. The light freckles that dotted his cheeks and the line of his throat, interrupted only by the bump of his Adam’s apple. Even though I’d accidentally broken his nose when we were in elementary school, his profile didn’t reflect the damage. My eyes tracked over the scar he’d told me about at the bar and I shuddered in response to the story.

  “Cold? I’m the one with my shirt off.”

  “No.” I traced the scar with my finger. “I just remembered the story you told me about this.”

  “Oh,” he said on a laugh. “Yeah, it’s not the most pleasant story to tell. My mom threw those hooks away when it happened and never hung up hooks again. We had to actually put our jackets on hangers in the closet like a bunch of freaks.”

  “Imagine that,” I murmured.

  “Hey, what’s up with the air mattress?”

  I watched one perfect curl fall to the ground. “What?” I asked, playing dumb in order to buy myself time to think. I hadn’t thought about him seeing the air mattress. “Oh, that. It’s the one I brought along our Moab trip last year. It’s for me.”

  “For you?” He raised one brow. “Sure, makes sense. Screw the big, comfy bed—a cold, plastic air mattress sounds like heaven.”

  “Exactly.” I sliced off another curl, mourning it as it fell to the floor. He really had the best hair. “No, sometimes I have a hard time sleeping in beds that aren’t mine.”

  When Keane didn’t say anything to that, I realized too late what I’d said. Should I address the elephant in the room, or pretend it was camouflage? I debated.

  In the end, Keane decided for me. “We can talk about it, you know.” I felt his eyes on me in the mirror’s reflection but acted like I was super concentrating on my task.

  “It’s fine,” I assured him, clipping another lock. “Really. We don’t have to talk about it.”

  “Is that why you’re being so weird with me?”

  “I’m not being weird.” I moved to clip off another lock, but his hand closed gently around my wrist.

  “You’re being weird. I don’t know if it’s because of what happened, or if something else is going on and you don’t want to talk about it with me.”

  A bit of both, buddy. But I couldn’t say that because he might press me on both. “I’m just really tired, honestly.” And it was honest. I was wiped out, running on empty. And it was also not the full truth, because, yes, there was more to it. But I wasn’t ready to talk about it. “But we don’t need to talk about that night. I really don’t want things to be awkward.”

  “It doesn’t have to be.”

  “But it will be.”

  Keane turned on the stool so that we faced one another. “What’s going on, Navy?”

  “Nothing,” I said, knowing he’d see the lie on my face. I closed my eyes, wished for the words that I needed. “Okay, it’s not nothing. But I don’t want to talk about what happened. I want us to be normal again. I want my best friend without the complications that we made.”

  He let go of my wrist. “Okay.”

  “Okay?”

  “We don’t have to talk about it right now. But I’ll want to, at some point.”

  “At some point,” I agreed, as my brain added or never. “Let me finish this so you can shower. I might not make it through a whole movie.”

  “Okay.” He turned so he faced the mirror again and I breathed a short sigh of relief and resumed the haircut.

  After a few minutes, I was finished. “Done. Check it out. Let me know if I missed something.”

  As he raked his hands through his hair, I began the clean-up of all the hair that accumulated on the floor and ran a lint roller over his pants to remove whatever was stuck there.

  “You’ll want to shower off all those baby hairs on your back,” I told him as I handed him the towel.

  “I’ll be quick,” he promised, and I let the door close between us.

  11

  KEANE

  We settled on the couch and I pulled out the three DVDs I’d brought with me. “Are we feeling horror, mystery, or comedy?”

  Navy studied the DVDs, but she didn’t seem all there—like she was looking through them. I wasn’t sure if it was because she was truly exhausted or if it was due to whatever was going on in her head. But I didn’t push, because I knew pushing meant she’d shut down on me. We were alike in that way.

  “Comedy?” I asked when her thousand-yard stare seemed fixated somewhat in that direction.

  “Yeah, sounds good.”

  I snapped it up and approached the DVD player, sliding it in and turning on the tv as I was standing. “Want something to drink? Wine, or…?”

  “You brought Chinese food and wine?”

  I gave her a sheepish grin. “Uh… no. I brought Chinese food, but I know your aunt has wine.”

  She looked tempted for a moment but waved it off. “No, you know wine makes me sleepy and I’ve got to stay up late tonight anyway.” As soon as she said the words, she clammed back up like she hadn’t meant to vocalize them.

  “Oh?” I asked. “Hot date or something?”

  “Or something,” she said, swiping the throw blanket off of the back of the couch. “I think she’s got some beer in the garage fridge, if you want a beverage.”

  Or something? What did that mean? “I’m good with water. Early day tomorrow.”

  “At the cabin?”

  I nodded. “I’m going to start gutting it before it gets too hot that b
eing inside is uncomfortable.”

  “That’s good. I’d love to go out and see it before you start ripping it apart. I’m guessing you’ll have the new drywall up and mudded so it’s ready for paint soon.”

  “Probably. Come tomorrow, while the girls are at school.”

  “I can’t.”

  I waited for her to explain further, but she didn’t. Something was going on, but she wasn’t willing to talk about it. But because I was an asshole, I pushed a little. “Work?”

  “No. The store opens late on Mondays.”

  I knew that, but I’d asked to see if she’d explain. Things had been weird since yesterday morning and as she curled up on the couch, her hair disheveled and the blanket pulled up to her chin, I had a sudden flash of her in my bed, looking just like that. But with fewer clothes.

  “Sure you don’t want to talk, Navy?” I’d just promised myself I wouldn’t press her, and here I was minutes later—pressing her. Jade was right, I was such a dick.

  “Huh?” she asked, looking at me as if she forgot I was even here. This wasn’t like my best friend.

  “Something’s going on. What is it?”

  “Nothing.”

  “That’s bullshit.”

  Her eyes looked a little more awake with that comment. “It’s not bullshit.” She stared down at the blanket, picking at its threads to avoid eye contact.

  “Yeah, it is. What is it?” I crossed the room to sit beside her on the couch. “Something’s going on.” Why did I feel panicky? It was like I was the girl in this relationship. This purely platonic relationship.

  “I’m not lying to you.”

  “You’re just not telling me things.”

  “Yeah,” she said, lifting her face. We were so close on the couch that I could see my shadow in her eyes. “Kind of like how you didn’t tell me you and what’s-her-name had broken up until I asked.”

  “I forgot.”

  She snorted, and I saw her arms move under the blanket. I knew her well enough to sense she was defensive.