by Brea Viragh
It made me want to puke.
And this is why I don’t come over. I perused her wardrobe and tried to slow my breathing. It was a challenge to stay calm when I wanted to scream and head for the hills. Hell, I’d need to keep busy if I wanted to avoid a nervous breakdown.
I’d completely bypassed my old room. After high school, I packed everything I owned into five plastic containers and loaded them in the back of my beater car. Then it was onto the open road without a backward glance in the mirror. Now, I would end up staying here for the next several days rather than drive the thirty minutes home. My parents expected it, and I knew the twin bed in my old room would have fresh sheets and a blanket ready.
Flicking through the hangers, I found nothing appealing. What do we have here? Tie-dye and rainbow and chartreuse. Oh, the choices. Each dress I came across was more hideous than the next and all screamed “I only shower once a week.”
Eventually I grabbed hold of a long maxi dress with buttons running up the front. The silken fabric had been dyed a deep shade of hunter green and the bell sleeves came down past my wrists. I held the dress up to my chest, noting the hemline fell well below my ankles to drag on the floor. Comparatively, my mother had twenty years of life and five inches of height over me.
If this is the best it’s going to get, then I’m going to rock it. Here I come, world.
She kept no mirrors in her bedroom. Something about it being bad for the soul to gaze upon your own reflection. I did the best I could without external help, kicking off my soiled leggings and throwing them aside. The dress was snug around the chest area but my hips filled the rest of it out well.
I adjusted the shoulders before leaning forward to undo my hair from the topknot and shake out the kinks. The curly strands fell to my mid-back but the relief was instantaneous, the tension headache gone in a snap. And here I’d been ready to blame it all on Thessaly.
I bounded down the stairs, careful of each step, and jogged to the greenhouse, feeling like a heroine from a bygone age. I opened my mouth to speak. Rounded the corner with an if-you-laugh-you-die look prepared.
She wasn’t there.
“How can you disappear in the five minutes it took me to change?” I called out.
“There are things to be done in preparation of the holiday, Nell,” she answered from the kitchen. “A mother’s duty never ends.”
“Then why did you insist on this huge affair? We could have gotten away with a light lunch and a see-you-next-month. Instead you want an extravaganza.”
Another turn into the large, cluttered kitchen had me running head first into a tower of boxes. “What are these?” I held a hand out to steady myself and keep the closest container from toppling.
Thessaly hummed to herself as she stirred a puce-colored pot of God knows what. “Produce for tomorrow. I’m making the gravy now.”
“That’s gravy?”
“What do you think this is?” She took a moment to shoot me a shadowed look. “If you have nothing nice to say, then get the broom and go out on the front porch and start sweeping. I want the maple leaves gone before your father gets back from town.”
“I’ve never seen you concerned with leaves before. Normally you’re picking out the prettiest and offering them up to your goddess.”
Thessaly used her forearm to shove a lock of hair away from her face, continuing to stir without skipping a beat. I could tell she didn’t care for my comments. “Nell, whatever has gotten into you today, stop. I’m in no mood for it. That dress looks fantastic, by the way. I’m glad you picked the green. When you take the time to put yourself together, you’re actually quite beautiful.”
“Given the options in front of me…” I trailed off. No way I wanted to sweep the front porch. I’d do whatever else to avoid the list of chores she surely had in store. “You’re holding the cards here, Mom, just the way you like it. You got me out of my pants and into a dress with a single stroke.”
“Stop blaming me. I gave you a simple request that you chose to ignore. At least now you look like the young woman I raised.”
I looked out the back door at the rapidly fading daylight, knowing the temperature dropped while we spoke. Night brought a chill to the air that I felt inside. Arms wrapped around my torso, I shivered. “Heaven forbid I look like anything else. My own person, perhaps? What would you do if I came home with choppy pink hair? The fluorescent kind. Or a facial piercing?”
She bestowed me with an audible, and put-upon, sigh. “Shush and help me get dinner ready. I want it to be perfect for our guest.”
If inclined, I could continue the pointless round of conversation until we both turned blue. My mother had the particular ability to barrel ahead until she made her point. It didn’t matter if she was right or wrong, or if her speech even had a point.
“Nolan and his friend will be here any minute,” Thessaly said in the lazy way of a person used to getting her way. The sharp blade of her knife chopped fresh rosemary into tiny piles while the pot of gravy simmered.
I recognized her now-predictable pattern of verbal confrontation. “Then I guess we better get on with dinner. Have you met Nolan’s roommate yet?”
“Not yet. It’s the first time he’s invited one of his good friends over. I’m excited.”
Her voice was ripe with exactly that. “I can tell.”
She dumped the handful of fresh herbs into the pot, sniffed at the vapors, then leaned back and continued to stir. The woman loved to cook. It was frustrating to know her considerable talents hadn’t been passed on to yours truly. “You should be happy your brother is coming,” she continued.
Yes, he was coming. Nolan and I home at last, drawn there by Mom’s cooking and the comfort of familial obligations.
“Who said I wasn’t?” I countered.
“You seem so disagreeable these days. And I never get to see you anymore.”
I wonder why.
“You see me plenty.” Fists went to my eyes to clear them of grit and grime and the remnants of a busy day. “Once a month is plenty, don’t you think?”
Thessaly scoffed. Done with the gravy, she crossed to a pan of green beans ready to roast, mentally crossing items off her list. She handed a cutting board to me and gestured to a line of squash. “I would rather you live here than that rat-infested apartment you call a home. Trash and debris everywhere. Your landlord doesn’t take good care of the place.”
I’d known it was coming. The prepared speech flowed easily from my mouth in a monotone. “It’s fine. Mr. Brandon is a fine landlord. There are no rats, and I am happy on my own.”
“A woman your age should have a home of her own. A family of her own.”
My fingers gripped the handle of the knife of their own accord. Drawing a deep breath, I forced each one to relax. Go easy. Do not maim, kill, or mutilate. The knife slid through the yellow skin of the squash instead of other less legal options. “According to you and your antiquated beliefs, sure.”
“Your brother’s friend sounds like a nice young man. From what I’ve heard on the phone. And according to Nolan—”
“No. No matchmaking.”
Her eyes widened with innocence. “But you didn’t let me finish.”
“No.”
“This is an opportunity you can’t pass—”
“I said no.”
“Nell!” Thessaly slapped the counter with a loud crack. “Listen to me.”
My mother had the singular talent to make my blood boil. The knife clattered against the wooden cutting board, the squash in two pieces, unfinished.
Instead of waiting to see how quickly I could reach my breaking point, I turned on my heel and left the room. “I don’t have to listen to this bullshit.”
I missed her response in my haste to leave. The damn dress was an added obstacle swirling around my feet when I stormed into the living room. In my opinion, it ruined the effect. Slamming the door behind me was a distinct pleasure to counter the stupid dress.
Instead of screa
ming, I bundled my feelings deep, fists curling at my sides. A low groan rose in my throat and stuck.
She’d wait for me to turn around and come back to finish helping her prep, and I wondered at how long I’d be able to stay gone before she gave up to come look for me. Not long enough. A hundred years wouldn’t be long enough. Snakes fought each other in my stomach, nipping and swirling until I placed a hand on my abdomen in physical agony.
Why were the holidays so tough for me? I couldn’t put my finger on it, exactly. At least, not a specific time or place where I could go Aha! The defining moment. It had always been Thessaly’s way. She wanted vegan turkey, or a candlelit solstice under the moon where everyone shucked their clothes and romped around in the nude. More often than not, she wanted me to bring a man home, lest she provide one on retainer.
Since I turned eighteen, since I was old enough to make it on my own, I’d worked and scrimped and saved until I built a life for myself. My life. I’d celebrated the first night in my own apartment with a bottle of bargain bin champagne and an array of cheap chocolate. It was summer, and at that time of year I heard the crush of the mid-afternoon tourist traffic. It hadn’t occurred to me to feel annoyed. I’d thought only of the advantages to living alone. And I’d done a good job of it since. I couldn’t seem to keep up with Mom or her desires.
It will be different next year, I thought. But I highly doubted it. The practical solution was feigning an illness and leaving, yet I couldn’t bring myself to follow through.
My reverie was interrupted by the arrival of another human being. I was unaware until fingers curled around my arms and yanked me backwards, my heart leaping out of my body. I stifled a scream. At the last moment I turned, colliding head-on with stubble and a pair of lips.
Every instinct rose to attention to ward off the attack, the unexpected press of hard male body against me. A fist came up to beat whomever it was in the chest.
Then I recognized his scent. The brush of skin against skin stung me to my core, and my face burned from his touch.
Kai.
“Hey there, sexy.” The words were whispered. “Glad to see you’re going my way after all.”
Once the initial shock wore off, I was pleased to note the low-burning fire in my blood. The pulse of raging heartbeat against fragile skin. What a surprise.
His mouth was on me again. Oh, that mouth. I remembered the feel of it, the way it rounded when he called my name.
There in my parents’ living room, with a blaze burning sweetly in the woodstove set into the old fireplace, I gave in to my urge. Seemed my nether regions had recognized Kai before the rest of me did.
I murmured a response and dove into the kiss, locking my hands behind his neck and rising on tiptoe. My body was instinctively aware of everything about him. The loose-fitting jeans that seemed to grow tighter, the scratch of corduroy from his jacket, the lightly sweet scent of hair gel.
“What are you doing here?”
“Haven’t you heard?” came the whispered reply. “I’ve been invited to dinner.”
CHAPTER FIVE
I abruptly broke contact, stepping away until the whole of him came into view. Every scrumptious inch from the tips of his hair to the stained soles of his skater shoes.
“What?”
Face blanched of color, I stared at him, wondering why he chose to make a joke now, of all times. Wondering if he’d been this funny the other night. Wondering if he was serious and I was losing my marbles.
“Dinner. Haven’t you heard of it? This exciting time of day when everyone sits down and shoves food in their face?” Kai moved forward to counter my backstep, stroking my cheek with his fingertips. “You look good. Did you just finish up with a museum exhibit, or come from a Renaissance fair? I wasn’t aware the peasant dress was making a comeback.”
Irked, I stood my ground, exasperation rolling off of me in waves. There went my good mood. “Excuse me? Rewind and repeat.” I massaged my temples against the sudden shock of pain lancing across my temporal lobes. “I seem to have suffered a temporary stroke. Thought I heard you say you’d been invited.”
The man had monkey arms. He reached across the space and grabbed me by the wrists, latching on and tugging me close. Too close.
“Yes, invited,” he repeated. A smile quirked the corners of his mouth, revealing a flash of slightly crooked teeth, and I wanted to press myself against him and nibble until he begged me to stop.
No, wrong. I cocked my head to the side and fought for a good response. “You? Here?”
“And you—” He paused long enough for another kiss, his fingers hooking into the loops of my dress belt. “—are right on the money. Nothing wrong with your eyes, sugar cheeks.”
Lifting my mouth to his, I participated in the kiss for a blissful second before raising up a hand to stop, eyes crossing from his nearness. “Okay, one, never call me sugar cheeks again. Two, get out.” I pointed to the door. “I don’t care how you found out where I live, but you aren’t sexy enough for me to forgive this. Stalking is a serious crime.”
I should be angrier than I was. The tiny shred of logic left to my name pointed out all the reasons he needed to leave. Yet the primitive part of me, the part who would rather drag him by his arm and make out in a dark corner, delighted at his nearness.
He lifted a single brow, shuffling his feet. A hired gun from olden days who knew he was entitled to a reward for any good deeds, expecting a kiss. “Is that what I am now? A stalker?”
“You’re a man who doesn’t know when to quit.” Breaking his hold on me, I reversed our positions until I stared at the point between his shoulder blades. Both my palms slapped against him and I pushed. Grunted when he refused to budge. “Now get the hell out of here and never talk to me again. Or rather, scratch that. Meet me at my place tonight and we can have another round of impromptu sex-capades.”
The space felt too small for my liking. The normally large room had shrunk in size until it was as though we beat against the sides of a toybox, and it was only Kai and I, with a fire and plenty of blankets begging us to take advantage of the budding romance.
Then I remembered. This was real life, not the Twilight Zone. Kai was in my parents’ house. I was in my parents’ house.
“It sounds like you aren’t going to believe me, and that’s fine. But right now I want to get out of this coat and warm up.” He reached behind, tugged me closer. I pressed against his back, our forms clicking into place. “Outside, it’s pretty damn frigid. Care to assist?”
The softness of his jacket rubbed my cheek. I tilted my head away, ever so slightly. My mouth was dry and I coughed to clear the dust. “It would be better if you left. Or I’ll have to employ more…drastic measures.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” Kai murmured. His chest rose and fell beneath my hands. He turned to look at me over his shoulder, his face thoughtful. “I didn’t know you would be here. It was like a slap in the face for me too. But overall a pleasant surprise. Are you making a house call? Is there a medical emergency…?”
“What? No.” He angled his head in confusion when I laughed. “No. Why wouldn’t I be here? It’s where I grew up.”
He paused, apparently deep in thought. “Then things are going to get weird. Quick.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Well, you see, I—”
His sentence dropped off at the telltale sound of footsteps coming down the hall. I broke contact in an instant. And not a moment too soon.
“Whoa, Nellie!”
I expected to see a scruffy teenager, tall and gangly and in desperate need of a good acne medicine. Instead, I was met with a man who looked older than his nineteen years, his grin mischievous and his gaze robust.
Nolan.
Pale-skinned, with a head full of endless, wavy brown hair, he had bright brown eyes and a wide-open face that made me feel instantly at ease.
“There you are! My baby brother, looking all grown up.” I took three gia
nt steps and wrapped him in a bear hug. “What did they do to you in college? Pump you full of ’roids and set you loose?” I grabbed his bicep and squeezed. “Wow. You aren’t the twig you were when I first dropped you off at school.”
He tugged his arm away and looked down from the several inches he had on me. “I worked hard for these. Arm wrestling for spending money.”
“And you’re gambling now, too? I don’t recognize you.” I resisted the urge to brush his hair aside, painfully aware of the elephant in the room.
He accompanied his response with an eye-roll, complete with a nostril-snort he’d perfected during junior high. He filled the room with his infectious energy. “Sure. Act like we haven’t seen each other in years.”
“It feels that way to me.” I took a quick step back to look at him and my hand fell on his shoulder. “I’ve missed you. I’m glad you’re here.”
I watched his back expand, shoulders broadening when he filled his lungs with a heaving breath. Expecting a coming battle. “Me too, I guess.” He was steeling himself. I recognized the look of a soldier preparing for war. “At first I almost tried to find an excuse to skip out, then I thought, what the hell? I’ll come home to see my big sister. Oh, and have you met my roommate?”
In response to his question, my stomach plummeted as if tied to an anchor above a deep trench. I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, I had the worst luck in the world. What had I said about good karma? “No…?” My voice was tentative. Tentative to the point where I felt guilty for lying.
Nolan turned to Kai, his face lighting. “Kai Ingles, my sister. Nell, Kai.”
I plastered a smile on my face, showing teeth and feeling like I wore a gaudy mask from a discount store. Looking into his eyes for an indication of how he felt, and trying to make sure there was nothing for Nolan to see in mine, I nodded. There was a chorus of protests inside my brain. Pleas to keep it together, to keep it casual, to keep it normal, all accompanied by a good deal of regret. “Great. So great to meet you. So—”