by Ali Novak
For my first few turns, I concentrated on grasping the rules and nothing more. Occasionally I would ask Alex about one of his moves and he would answer, but other than those few words, we played silently. He won the first round, but by then I’d caught on to the strategy and was confident that I could beat him in the next round. This time I dealt, and after arranging my hand, I asked Alex the question that had been bothering me since this morning.
“So, are you still mad at me?” I asked as he reached for the top card from the remaining deck. He paused and looked up at me. “Because if you are, now’s a pretty good time to talk about it.”
“I guess not,” he said. Then, after a long moment, “But I would really like to know what Mary said to you.”
“This is about you and me, not her.”
Before anything more could pass between us, I heard a distant shout.
“Where the hell are you guys?” It was Cole from somewhere in the basement.
Alex rushed over to the locked door. “Over here,” he shouted.
After a few minutes of searching in the dark, Cole found the key his dad kept on a hook outside the workroom and unlocked it. His hair was still dripping from the rain and his shirt clung to his shoulders, revealing the definition of muscle beneath, but he hadn’t been able to get the power back on.
Much to my annoyance, as we headed back upstairs with a few candles in hand, Alex told Cole how I’d locked us in the workroom.
“Don’t worry, Jackie,” Cole said, still laughing at me as we stepped into the kitchen. “We’ll protect you from all those scary monsters.”
“Oh yeah?” I said, a little grumpy. “What are you going to do? Stand guard outside my room all night?”
“Nope.” He pointed to the living room. The floor was covered with sleeping bags and piles of blankets and pillows. “I thought we could all sleep down here since the power is still out.”
Alex turned to Cole, grinning from ear to ear. “Good idea.”
Cole’s signature smirk was plastered across his face. “Yeah,” he said, “I know.”
“Awesome,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. On a scale of burned toast to global warming, this was a disaster. In my head, I could picture Heather melting to the floor in joy, but after a month of living with the Walters, I knew better. These boys were pure trouble.
In the end, I managed to snag the couch. Cole and Alex fought over the love seat, and it was no surprise when Cole came out victorious, leaving Alex to make himself comfortable on reclining chair.
I had just finished arranging my pillows when Cole started to unbuckle his belt. “What are you doing?” I hissed, and averted my eyes.
“I sleep in my boxers,” he said, stepping out of his pants as he bit back a grin. Next he tugged off his shirt, revealing his photoshopped abs. “It’s okay if you stare,” he said, plopping down on the small sofa. He stretched out, and his long legs dangled over the edge of the armrest. “I don’t mind.”
“I was not staring,” I snapped at him.
“Yeah, Cole,” said Alex, who, after watching his brother for a few hesitant moments, made the decision to yank off his shirt as well. “Not every girl is obsessed with you.”
“All I’m saying,” Cole said, wiggling down into the cushions, “is that Jackie wasn’t looking at your scrawny self when you pulled off your shirt.”
“Would you both be quiet?” I said, thankful for the cover of darkness that hid my blush. And for some amazing reason, the boys actually listened to me, both falling silent as we settled into our makeshift beds for the night.
My muscles were tired from the long day, and I thought I would drop off instantly, but I lay there wide awake, unable to close my eyes. I was exceedingly aware of Cole and Alex, one on either side of me. I was so tense, that when a drop of water hit my forehead, I nearly screamed.
“Jackie?” Alex said, his voice sleepy. “What’s wrong?”
“I think the ceiling is leaking,” I said, holding my hand out in the air. Sure enough, after a few more seconds of waiting with my palm outstretched, I felt a cool splash against my skin.
“I’ll get a bucket,” Alex said. With a yawn, he scooted off the chair and made his way into the kitchen.
“Here, Jackie,” Cole said, standing up. He picked his pillow and blankets up off the sofa.
“Don’t worry about me,” I told him as I spread my blanket out on the living room floor. “I’ll be fine.”
Not surprisingly, he didn’t listen, and soon he had a bed laid out on the ground right next to me. He flopped down, and I could practically feel him lying there, his arm inches from mine. Can you please move over? sat on the tip of my tongue, but I refused to say anything, not wanting to admit that he had an effect on me.
“What’s going on?” Alex asked when he came back from the kitchen with a mixing bowl in his hand.
“Couldn’t let the lady sleep on the floor by herself,” Cole responded. “Not with all those psycho murderers on the loose.”
“Dang it, Cole,” I said, hitting him with a pillow. “It’s not funny.” I’d managed to forget about the movie until he brought it up again. Now I would never get to sleep.
Alex paused and glanced between his bed for the night and the empty carpet on my right-hand side. “Oh,” he said. He arranged the bowl on the couch to catch the leak before returning to the recliner.
From the floor, I had a full view of the raging storm through the window. There wasn’t much to see, but every time lightning flashed, I expected to see Crazy Jack standing there with a meat cleaver. I told myself to close my eyes, but I couldn’t look away as my chest pounded.
“Cole?” I finally asked, my voice squeaky.
“Uh-huh?”
“Could you close the blinds?” I was past caring if he made fun of me.
“Sure,” he said, getting up slowly. He pulled on the curtain cord but had to yank it around a few times before the shades tumbled down. Once they settled in place and I could no longer see outside, I finally let out the breath I was holding.
“You know,” Cole said, as he lay back down, “I think the only reason you wanted me to get up was so you could see my perfectly toned abs again.”
“Cole,” Alex and I said at the same time, “shut up.”
He chuckled, but then it was finally silent again. So quiet, in fact, that I could hear the ping of water droplets as they fell into the bowl on the couch. Next to me, Cole had already dozed off, a soft wheezing sound escaping his lips as he breathed in and out. There was a creak of springs as Alex moved on the recliner, but then I saw his shape moving around in the dark.
“What’s wrong?” I whispered. He dropped his blanket to the floor.
“The chair’s uncomfortable,” he responded. I could tell from the way he stood there awkwardly that he was waiting for permission to lie down.
“Okay,” I told him.
That seemed to be enough, because a second later Alex was stretching out next to me, and not long after that he was out. In their sleep, both boys kept moving closer to me, and when I finally drifted off, there was one arm wrapped around my stomach and one hand intertwined with mine.
***
Sunday passed quickly. The boys called Will in the morning and he came over to fix the power. Once it was back on, Cole spent what little time he could watching ESPN before his parents got home. Alex tried to tempt me into playing GoG, but I wasn’t willing to break Katherine and George’s rules. I stayed in my room reading until my phone rang.
“Sammy?” I asked, picking up immediately when I saw her name on the caller ID.
“Hey, girly,” she said. “What you up to?”
“Not much,” I said, pushing away from my desk and moving to the bed. I collapsed on the comforter and switched the phone to my other ear. “Just doing some anatomy homework for next week.”
�
��Ugh, typical Jackie,” Sammy criticized. I could practically see her sitting on the fuzzy pink rug in our dorm room, painting her toenails. “You’re living with a bunch of hot guys, and instead of finding Cole and experiencing some real-life anatomy, you’re shacking up with a textbook like a pariah.”
“It’s not like I never see him,” I told her. “I mean we did sleep together last night.”
“You what?”
“Okay, wait,” I said, backtracking. “That came out all wrong.”
But Sammy was already in full-on rant mode. “My best friend went and got herself de-virgin-fied and you didn’t think to call me, like…this morning? Seriously, you moved away and poof! I don’t hear from you until five years later and—”
“Oh my God, no!” I said, shouting into the phone.
“‘No’ to what? The five years part, because it’s honestly starting to feel like that. The next thing you know, I’ll be stalking your Facebook just to see if you’re still alive.”
“Would you stop being such a drama queen?”
“Are you kidding me?” she said, clearly upset. “This situation is totally eligible for full-on drama status!”
“Sammy,” I said, lowering my voice so nobody could hear me. “Can you just chill out? I didn’t de-virgin myself or whatever.”
“Sex, Jackie. We’re talking about sex!”
“Yeah,” I said. “I know what we’re talking about, and I didn’t do that.”
“Oh,” she said after a long pause. “Then what are you talking about?”
“When I said ‘slept,’ I meant we fell asleep in the same vicinity.”
“Well, that is totally less newsworthy. Mr. Elvis sleeps with me when he can’t get comfy on his doggy bed, and then he makes these little farts that stink up the whole room, but you don’t hear me blabbing on about it.”
“I’m not the one blabbering,” I said. “And I don’t know, it just—it feels kind of big to me. I don’t know what to do about him, Sammy.”
“It’s not what you do about him. It’s what you do with him. Grab him by those big, manly arms that I’m assuming he has, and show him what New York has to offer.”
“Okay, can you please be serious for a moment? I’m really confused here,” I told her. “I try to ignore him, but then he does something cute like, I don’t know, taking me on a tour of the ranch to cheer me up, and I just—argh!” I grabbed my pillow and flung it across the room.
Sammy sighed. “All right, I’m sorry. I got a little excited to finally hear from you.”
“A little excited?”
“Do you want to talk about your Cole issues or not?”
“That’s the thing. I don’t want to have Cole issues. I just want to get through these next few years and come home.”
“So for the next two years of high school, you’re never going to have a boyfriend?”
“I don’t know.”
“Jackie, just because you’re leaving eventually doesn’t mean you can’t get to know people.”
“I’m not afraid of forming relationships, Sammy—it’s just him.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s a complete chauvinist. When we go to school, it’s like he has a different girl to make out with every period.” In reality that was just an excuse. The real reason why I was frightened by whatever was going on between Cole and me was too hard to admit.
“Okay,” she said, thinking out loud, “so he’s a bit of a man-whore. But, honey, trust me when I say that can be fixed. You should focus on the positive things. It sounds like he can be sweet when he wants to be.”
“It’s not just that. It’s…” I trailed off, still struggling to say what I was thinking.
“It’s what?”
“How can I even have these feelings?” I asked, squeezing my eyes shut. “That shouldn’t even be okay since—”
“Since what?” she snapped. “Since your family’s accident? Are you never allowed to love someone again because of that?” The anger in her voice caught me off guard.
“No, I didn’t mean it like that, but…” I paused and took a breath. “Don’t you think it’s too soon?”
“God, Jackie, no!” Sammy gasped, horrified. “It’s not like there are rules detailing the right way to mourn. Being in a relationship might be a good thing.”
“How?”
“It could help you heal,” she said, “And, I don’t know…move on?”
I nodded my head and told Sammy, “Yeah, okay,” even if I didn’t mean it. Why was she acting like I needed to be fixed? I was here in Colorado, living my life. I didn’t need a relationship to heal or whatever, and I most definitely didn’t need Cole.
***
On Monday, we all piled out of the truck when we got to school. Danny and I had to wait for everyone to grab their backpacks because ours were at the bottom of the pile.
“So, how was being grounded?” Danny asked.
It was the first thing he’d said to me since our afternoon in the auditorium. He wasn’t ignoring me per se—he’d nodded at me this morning when we ran into each other in the hallway—and I had accepted that Danny was a silent type.
“Good.” I was pleasantly surprised that he actually started a conversation with me. We were making progress! “The lights went out, but I got a bunch of homework done,” I said. Danny slung his backpack over his shoulder and nodded his head. “How was your weekend?” I asked, trying to keep the conversation going as we made our way into the building.
“I don’t like camping.”
“Really?” I asked, and my voice pitched up, revealing my surprise. I thought all of the Walter boys enjoyed the outdoors. After all, they grew up on a ranch.
“All those creepy, crawly bugs freak the crap out of me,” he said.
I choked, thinking for a moment that he was being serious.
“I’m kidding,” he said quickly, but it was hard to tell because his face was so serious. “About the bugs, at least. I’m more of an indoors kind of guy.”
“You live in the middle of nowhere,” I pointed out.
He shrugged. “My drama class went on a field trip to Chicago freshman year, and it just felt right. I’d rather live in the city.”
“Yeah, there’s something about all those people, the busy streets, and the movement—it makes you feel alive.” Danny was gazing at me now with a look I couldn’t quite decipher, so I went on. “If you enjoyed Chicago, you’ll love New York.”
“New York,” he repeated slowly.
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s the best place in the world.”
“I got the part,” he said, suddenly changing the subject.
I blinked. “Oh, right,” I finally responded, realizing he was talking about Romeo and Juliet. “Congratulations, Danny. That’s great news.”
“Thanks,” he said, and then he was gone, disappearing into crowded hallway.
Chapter 11
The next two weeks passed quickly, the days blending together. But today was different. When I got home from school, I went straight for the kitchen, which had been transformed into a bakery since we left this morning. Mrs. Walter was pulling a pan of cookies out of the oven—I had been able to smell them from the front porch—and four whole sheets of warm, gooey goodness were already waiting on silver cooling racks.
“Hi, Jackie,” she said, scooping a few cookies up with a spatula. “How was your day?”
“It was good,” I answered automatically. “Those smell amazing. What’s the occasion?”
“Thanks, honey.” She placed half a dozen cookies on a plate. “It’s the twins’ turn to bring a snack to their soccer game tomorrow. Speaking of the twins, can you go find them for me? I haven’t seen them in hours.”
“Sure,” I said. “Which ones?”
“Oh!” Mrs. Walter laughed. “Zack and Benny. Here,
take these with you.”
She handed me the plate, and I made my way to the monsters’ room, glad that I had a peace offering. As soon as I reached the top of the stairs, Zack poked his head out the door.
“Are those chocolate chip?” he asked me.
“Yup,” I said, holding the plate over my head and out of reach. I was amazed he hadn’t smelled them before now—the entire house smelled like cookies. “Before I give you any, I need to know where Benny is.”
“In here,” Zack said, grabbing my free hand and tugging me inside his room. “He’s here with Parker. Guys, Jackie has cookies!”
In a matter of seconds, both boys and Parker were circling around my legs, demanding baked goods, and I felt like a swimmer swept out into open water.
“Okay, okay!” I said, laughing nervously.
After grabbing a cookie to make sure I got one, I set the plate down and backed away for my own safety. They inhaled everything within minutes, and I was almost surprised they didn’t eat the plate.
“So, Jackie,” Parker said, licking her fingers clean. “Do you know how to play Mario Kart, or are you too girly to like video games?”
The twins were already gone, probably off to beg their mom for more, and I decided this was the perfect opportunity to get to know Parker better. Since I’d moved in, Parker had made it obvious that she didn’t like me. She was always making comments about how girly I was, as if that was some kind of crime, and one time she purposely spilled Kool-Aid on my favorite skirt. If only I could find some common ground between us, I might be able to connect with her. I didn’t know much about being an older sister, but I always loved when Lucy let me win at games.
“I think I can handle it,” I told her, plopping down in one of the beanbags. “But I want a controller without chocolate on it.”
While she was setting up our race, Parker took the time to explain the game to me, pointing out which button did what. Later, when Bowser sped over the finish line just ahead of Princess Peach, Parker punched her hand into the air. “Yes!” she shouted, jumping up in excitement. “I win again!”