by Melinda Minx
I didn’t used to be so big on ingredients, but when we were holed up in some cave and eating nothing but MREs, I would dream of fresh strawberries and freshly hunted venison. As soon as I got back to the States, I realized life was too short to eat crap.
I find some fresh blueberries in the fridge, and add them to the French toast as a finishing touch.
Just as I’m finishing cleaning up, Andrea’s parents wander down into the kitchen.
“Oh, Coal? You’re...cooking?”
“Hope you like French toast.”
Cynthia eyes the big stack of French toast and the blueberry-covered pieces I’ve already plated. “With blueberries...yes, thank you so much for making breakfast.”
“My pleasure,” I say, grinning.
Shit, what else am I going to do? It’s not like I need to chop firewood to stay warm or hunt to eat.
“I’ll go wake everyone else up,” Roger says, disappearing up the stairs.
A few minutes later, everyone starts yawning their way down the stairs still in their pajamas.
Rita walks down by herself. “Sorry, Coal, Aiden is still getting ready, but I’m sure he’ll be down soon.”
“No problem,” I say, smiling.
Like I give a fuck if Aiden eats my French toast or not.
Andrea comes down in her pajamas and smiles at me. “Oh, you really are going to cook breakfast.”
“What’s that mean?” Roger asks.
I laugh it off. “Ah, nothing. I just made a joke about wanting to keep everyone well-fed. Andrea doesn’t eat enough.”
Roger nods. “That’s true. I’m glad you’re looking out for her.”
Damien steps into the kitchen, and I suddenly remember he’s vegan and that French toast is covered in eggs.
“Ah, shit, Damien,” I say. “Let me make you some—”
“I’m not a vegan anymore,” Damien says.
Everyone’s eyes widen up at him in surprise.
“Really?” Cynthia says. “You could have told me that before I went grocery shopping…”
“Sorry,” he says. “It’s not really a long story, but it’s one I don’t want to tell.”
“You’ve got to at least tell us what the first meat you ate was. How long were you a vegan?”
“Twelve years,” Damien says. “What do you think the first thing I ate was?”
Cynthia starts to open her mouth, but Damien stops her, “Let Coal guess. I’m sure you know what it is, Mom.”
I narrow my eyes, and I see Andrea looking at me expectantly. How am I supposed to know what a guy I just met last night likes to eat? I’ve only ever had a beer with him.
“When I was deep in enemy territory in Afghanistan,” I say, “I was able to eat meat, but it was usually mutton, or dried rations. Back in the States, I’d never been a huge hamburger guy, but the moment I stepped off the plane and saw a hamburger place in the airport, I was all over it. I’m guessing you ate a hamburger.”
Damien laughs. “Yeah, good guess.”
“Damien used to love eating hamburgers,” Cynthia says. “He was so easy to please.”
Andrea smiles. “That’s a polite way of saying that he was difficult as a vegan.”
I remember Damien telling me last night that he’d been married to Rose for nine years. Twelve years as a vegan, so that’s three years of dating before they got married. Could Rose have been the only thing keeping him vegan? She must have been fucking amazing if he’d given up meat for her.
When we’re almost done eating, Aiden creeps into the kitchen wearing a button-up shirt with a sweater over it, dark jeans, and his hair perfectly gelled and styled.
I look at him, and then I look at the rest of Andrea’s family. Roger hasn’t shaved and his grey hair is spiked up from bed-head. All of the women are wearing big t-shirts and pajama pants, their hair tied back in messy buns or pony tails.
I’m wearing an undershirt and basketball shorts.
And now Aiden walks in fully dressed and ready as if we’re going out to eat for dinner. What a douche.
Rita beams at him. “You look great.”
Andrea glowers, narrowing her eyes at Rita.
I stand up and grab an extra plate. “You like French toast?”
Aiden takes the plate from me and flashes a big fake smile. “Thank you, Coal, it looks great.”
He sits down to eat while everyone else waits politely in front of their empty plates.
“You must be used to cooking so much, Coal,” Aiden says between bites.
“Not really,” I say. “Usually I just cook for myself.”
“I mean in the military,” Aiden says. “Having to cook big batches for everyone.”
“I wasn’t a cook, I was a SEAL. I wish I’d been a cook, at least I’d have had enough to eat.”
“Uh huh,” Aiden says, giving a condescending nod. “It’s funny, but whenever I talk to people who served, everyone was something impressive, like a SEAL, a tank driver, an officer...you’d think there were no cooks in the army or Navy.”
Rita elbows him.
He grins up at me, “It must just be I tend to run into more interesting people.”
I give a dry laugh. “Yeah, that must be it.”
I notice Aiden is looking over at Andrea—a bit too much—well, if he looks at her at all it’s too much for me. Either way, he’s crossing the line.
“How did you and Rita meet?” I ask, giving my biggest shit-eating grin.
Andrea gives me a warning look, but I ignore her.
“Ah,” Aiden says, raising a finger. “Now that’s an interesting story. Rita, would you like to tell it?”
This guy. I bet he thinks every mundane thing that happens to him is an “interesting story.”
Rita smiles and nods. “I’m minoring in business, and Aiden was a guest lecturer for one of my classes—”
Aiden cuts right in. So much for him having Rita tell the story. “You see, they wanted to have successful businessmen from the Bay Area come in and talk to the class about their personal story—how they started successful businesses. As I was telling my story, I noticed Rita was looking at me, and she caught my eye, of course…”
He was giving the lecture, of course she was looking at him. The whole fucking class would have been looking at him. I look at Rita, and then at Andrea. It’s not like they’re identical twins, far from it, but they have a lot of the same features. I wonder if the resemblance to Andrea is what made Rita catch his eye.
“After the lecture, Rita came up to me to ask a question—and I’m sure it was an excuse to—”
“Shut up!” Rita says, giggling.
“I’m going to clean the plates,” Andrea says. “Want to help me, Coal?”
“Sure,” I say, standing up. Anything to get out of hearing the rest of this story. I’m sorry I asked him about it.
With the water running, Andrea starts talking to me under her breath, “What a douche.”
I laugh. “Yeah, he kind of is, huh?”
“He’s an asshole.”
“Careful now,” I say, scrubbing the sticky corn syrup off a plate. “That’s what you call me.”
“You know what I mean,” she hisses.
When we go back to the table, Aiden is still talking. The story that Rita was going to tell has turned into Aiden rambling on about himself for twenty minutes.
“Now,” Aiden says, “I had the unique idea of having the data from all major brands of fitness trackers syncing directly to the Cloud, all under the Flex.ee umbrella—”
“Flexy?” I ask. “That’s your website?”
“Flex dot e-e,” Aiden says. “It’s not just a website, it’s a—”
“Dot e-e?” I interrupt again, grinning, “Isn’t that an Estonian domain?”
“Yes,” Aiden says. “Anyway, it’s not just a website, it’s—”
“Why not flexee.com?” I interrupt again. Andrea is giving me a mix of an angry glare and a stifled laugh. “People prefer .com, that’s wh
at my buddy Carl always says. He’s good with websites, you two would hit it off.”
“Flexee.com was taken,” Aiden says. “Anyway, I normalize all of the disparate scoring methods from Fitbit, from Nike+, from—”
“I think I get it,” I cut in. Aiden looks furious, but he’s good at hiding it. I’m guessing I’m the only one who can really tell just how mad he is. “So basically you make all the fitness trackers go onto a new site, and you create a new scoring system, so you can compare your stats with your friends regardless of what tracker they have?”
“Yes,” Aiden says. “But it’s not quite so simple. Have you ever started a business, Coal?”
“Uh,” I say. “I make furniture. I trade it for eggs.”
He thinks he’s got me here, that he’s going to really embarrass me in front of everyone.
“For...eggs?” Aiden asks.
“Must be good eggs,” Roger says.
“Farm-fresh,” I say, grinning. “I should have brought some with me, but I didn’t have time.”
“Wait,” Aiden says. “You make furniture, and you trade it for...eggs?”
“Yeah,” I say. “And stuff like bacon—anything I can’t hunt or forage myself. I like breakfast. Some days, I eat breakfast twice.”
“As a businessman,” Aiden says—I can already tell he loves to start sentences with that phrase—“I have to advise you to think of the value of your time. If you are decently skilled at carpentry, then an hour of your time must be worth at least $15 per hour…”
I grin. That’s a nice little jab at me disguised as a compliment. I’m the brutish SEAL whose time isn’t worth shit.
I nod. “So you don’t think the eggs and bacon are worth that much?”
“Well,” Aiden says. “Do the math.”
“I love making furniture, man, I’m going to do it either way. I might as well find a good home for what I make, and literally bring home the bacon for it.”
“You could sell it,” Aiden says. “And make actual money, then you wouldn’t have to live in a shack.”
I laugh. “I like living in a shack. Besides, I don’t need the money.”
“You don’t?” he asks. “You might not need it right now, but you have to plan for retirement.”
“I’m not some genius businessman,” I say, “But right before I was deployed, I spent all my savings on stocks.”
“How did they do?” Cynthia asks.
“Pretty well. This was back in 2007 or so, and I asked myself, what are two things people really, really hate?”
“Taxes,” Rita says.
“Close,” I say. “My first one was late fees on DVD rentals. Everyone hates paying late fees, so I put half my savings in Netflix stock. When they moved from mailing out DVDs to streaming, I thought I was screwed, but it turns out people love binge watching even more than they hate paying late fees.”
I can see the math going through Aiden’s head: $3 per share in 2007 to over $120 per share today. Even if “half of my savings” was only a few thousand dollars, I struck it rich. But half of my savings was much more than a few thousand. I give him a smug grin.
“So you did well on that?” Cynthia asks. “Roger is always watching Netflix. It sounds like you made a smart move.”
“What was the second stock?” Aiden asks.
“Tesla,” I say. “People hate paying for gas.”
I can nearly hear him grinding his teeth. Who Aiden took for the dumb military guy with tattoos is actually worth more than he is. And instead of building a business with it, I’m trading furniture for eggs. That must really piss him off.
“Well,” Aiden says, “Rita, why don’t you go get ready? We should get going.”
“Where are we going?” Rita asks.
He grabs her by the wrist and gets her to stand up.
“Thank you for breakfast, Coal,” she says.
“Yes, thank you,” Aiden says, no emotion in his voice.
The rest of us hang around the table a bit longer.
Andrea whispers into my ear, “When were you going to tell me you were rich?”
I smile over at her. “I don’t know, it didn’t seem relevant.”
17
Andrea
I wake up from taking a nap on the couch and see that I’m the only one in the living room. I love napping on this couch. Every Christmas when I’m staying with my parents, I take naps here, and waking up wrapped in warm blankets makes me feel like Christmas all over.
I reluctantly pull the blankets away, fold them, and stand up. I stretch and yawn, and everything feels peaceful in the world.
And then I remember Aiden and Rita, and my stomach churns.
My good conscience—which is not a little angel on my shoulder or a voice in my head, but rather a nagging whine in my stomach—pleads with me to just be happy for Rita, or to at least let her make her own poor decisions. Instead, I’m just annoyed and angry.
Seeing Coal give Aiden a hard time was a small consolation, though it did help me to feel a little bit better.
I wander around the downstairs, trying to see where everyone is, but it looks as if no one is home.
I wouldn’t think Coal would leave without telling me, but maybe he didn’t want to wake me?
I look through the window to see if his truck is in the driveway, and it’s there. So is Damien’s car and my parents’ cars.
I look in the backyard and see Damien, Dad, and Coal throwing a football back and forth.
Mom is lounging in a chair with a blanket and a book.
I smile and open the door. I step outside and wave.
Coal throws the football right at me. A tight spiral.
I panic, and instead of making any effort to catch it, I just shield my face with my arms. The ball hits my forearms and bounces off onto the grass. My arms sting.
“You asshole! Why did you do that?”
“I don’t know,” Coal shouts back. “Why didn’t you catch it? We’re playing catch. I was including you.”
“I need time to adjust! I just stepped outside.”
“Throw it back,” Damien says, pointing at the ball on the ground.
“Tell me you can at least throw a football,” Coal says. “Or we may have to rethink this marriage.”
I roll my eyes and pick up the ball. I get my fingers over the laces, take in a deep breath and pray that I won’t mess up and embarrass myself, and I throw it to Damien. It wobbles a bit at first, but it eventually goes into a stable spiral, and Damien catches it.
“Good enough,” Coal says.
“I’m warming up still.”
Coal catches the throw from Damien. He cocks his arm, then stops. “Wait, are you warmed up enough that I can throw it to you? Or do you need a few more hours?”
“Ha ha,” I say, speaking it rather than laughing. “Throw it to me.”
He throws another tight spiral with a low arc. I hold my hands out and manage to actually catch it.
I sigh in relief, then throw it to Dad.
We get a rhythm going, and we throw back and forth for about fifteen minutes.
We’re having fun and really getting into it, but then the door opens, and Aiden’s smug voice breaks the peace.
“Ah, football?”
I throw the ball as hard as I can to Coal, and I avoid looking at Aiden or Rita.
“We’re just playing catch,” Dad says. “Want in?”
“Hmmm,” Aiden says, eyeing Coal as he walks deeper into the yard. “Why not play something a bit more competitive?”
“I got those flag belts in the garage,” Dad says, “but if you guys are going to play for real, I’m going to go take a nap. I’m too old to play for real.”
Damien yawns. “I’m out, too. I’ve done my hour of exercise, I’m ready to drink some beer and cancel it all out.”
I see Aiden and Coal both grinning, and I realize it’s just Coal, Rita, Aiden, and me.
“Two on two?” Coal says.
Damn it. We could have just sai
d we wanted to drink, but Coal is too cocky to back down from a challenge from Aiden. If he wants to have a dick measuring contest with Aiden, he’s free to, but two on two? Why is he dragging me into it?
“Sure,” Aiden says.
Rita starts to back away. “Uh, I don’t think you can do two against two in football. Why don’t we just—”
“Sure we can,” Aiden cuts in. “Me and Coal are the QBs, you two are receivers. Fixed positions.”
“Works for me,” Coal says, grabbing me by the waist.
He whispers into my ear. “You’re good at catching. You got this.”
I sigh. I’m tempted to back out, but I realize I want to beat Rita and Aiden. And I sure as hell don’t want to back down with my tail between my legs.
Dad comes back outside with the flag belts and throws them onto the ground. He yawns very loudly and then says, “Have fun,” before disappearing inside.
I realize that Mom fell asleep already, her book lying open on her stomach. This is a high stakes game for the four of us—but for no one else.
Damien comes outside with a beer and sits down on the grass. Alright, we’ve got one person watching now. If I count sleeping Mom as a half, we’re up to one and a half.
Coal points toward the end of the yard. “The shrubs over there mark the first end zone,” he points to the other side, “and right where those rocks start is the other.”
“One quarterback sneak per four downs,” Aiden says. “No first downs.”
“Alright,” Coal says, nodding.
Damien lets out a very fake sounding cheer, then shouts, “Let’s go! I want some football with my beer!”
His shouting jolts Mom awake, and her book falls to the ground.
“Yeah!” Damien shouts. “Mom, you ready for this?”
“For what?” she asks.
“She’s ready!” Damien says, slapping her on the shoulder.
“Huddle up,” Coal barks at me.
I lean in toward him. “You know all the names of the routes and shit?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Please make sure we win, okay?”
“Alright,” he says.
Then he shouts over toward Aiden and Rita. “What are we playing to? Are there field goals? Punts?”