Pucker Up

by Seimas, Valerie

  “Your trying or their trying?”

  The mischief was back in her eyes. “Mine of course. If we leave it up to them, they’re so bloody minded they’d blind themselves to prove the sun don’t shine.”

  Faith couldn’t hold back a smile at that. God, she hadn’t heard that insane phrase in years. This girl had been indoctrinated – she was an Andrews, through and through.

  “You don’t have to have a girlfriend or a boyfriend to be happy,” Faith said.

  “I know that.” Harmony laughed, jumping up from the bed. “But you can’t deny sometimes it makes it a lot easier.” With that the girl flounced out the door and left Faith with a quizzical look on her face.

  Melody rubbed her eyes as she grabbed her phone, startled awake by the incessantly loud demand for a video chat. “Gee Harm, couldn’t you have waited until – ”

  “They hooked up! They hooked up and then had a passionate lovers' quarrel. I cannot believe you are missing all of this!”

  Melody frowned, wondering for a moment if she was still asleep. “Stop being ridiculous. What book are you reading again?”

  Harmony sighed, frustrated. “I am not imaging things. This actually happened.”

  “And you know this how?”

  “They were loud. Like really loud.”

  “You heard what they were arguing about?” Melody asked.

  Harmony looked a bit uncomfortable. “That was not the part that was loud.”

  “Ew.” Melody grimaced. “I definitely don’t want to talk about that.”

  “Good, me neither,” Harmony said before sighing, “but Dad totally will. Ugh, that’s gonna be just great.” Her face turned impish. “Actually, I know exactly how to make it that way.”

  “What are you going to do?” her sister asked.

  “What I do best, be cheeky.” They laughed.

  “So did you hear what they were fighting about?”

  “No,” Harmony said. “But it’s not from lack of opportunity. They have been fighting since the minute she showed up yesterday.”

  “Well, if she’s Ally, that story was not without adversity. Reality probably didn’t end nearly as well.”

  “They could barely stand to be in the same room together last night. I have no idea how they ended up in the same bed.”

  “The opposite of love is not hate,” Melody said. “Those emotions are closer together than you might think.”

  “Well, if they don’t get her car fixed soon, I’ll be having a master class in it. Or need to find my noise-cancelling headphones.”

  “Sorry, Nancy Drew, but you’re not gonna like the resolution to that mystery.” Melody leaned over and grabbed a carrying case from her bedside table. “You lent them to me for studying in the library, remember?”

  “I am way too nice.” Harmony changed the subject with lightning speed. “Did you find anything out from internet research yet?”

  “No, I was studying all night. I was going to do it this morning, but since your gossip woke me up…”

  “Okay, Mel, I can take a hint. Of course, the only reason I am taking it is because we both have work to do. You with the power of Google; me with the power of ultimate sneakitude.”

  “Sneakitude is not a word.”

  Harmony laughed. “Will be when I’m done with it.”

  Dustin sat in his office chair, staring resolutely out the window at the foreign car that didn’t belong. But damn it if it didn’t make an idyllic scene under his tree. The weather was perfect, sun shining brightly and a light wind rustling the leaves as if whispering in the breeze. He could hear birds calling to each other, merry little tunes. It was all perfectly at odds with the black cloud that had descended over him.

  The door to the study slammed open, but he didn’t turn. “I am so angry with you I feel like pushing you out of a treehouse.” Peter’s declaration got an inward smile.

  “Because that worked so well for you the last time,” Dustin growled. They had been seven, their “treehouse” on the porch, and he had fallen all of a foot. Their mother still made sure there was hell to pay.

  “Fine. I feel like throwing you out of the house to go sleep in the hayloft. There your sexcapades would be a lot less comfortable – and I wouldn’t have to hear it. And my daughter wouldn’t have to hear it.”

  Guilt seeped in, wiggling through the cracks around his heart that anything related to the girls could always find. “That…that was an unfortunate consequence. That I’m sorry for.”

  “Dustin, what the hell is going on with you?”

  “Meyer,” he murmured, finally looking at Peter.

  “Why are we talking about lemon varieties?”

  Dustin took a deep breath but didn’t shy away from Peter’s gaze. “That was my daughter’s name. It was a girl. We were having a girl.”

  Peter’s eyes darkened with sympathy, and Dustin couldn’t look at him any longer; his gaze shifted out the window to the tree. Peter clamped a hand on his shoulder, just one squeeze, before crossing to drop into the chair across from his brother. “Man, I’m sorry.”

  “She was never going to tell me. It just slipped out when we were arguing. I was never going to know.”

  “You don’t know –”

  “Yes, I do. She told me as much.”

  They sat in silence, understanding passing between them. They were twins; they didn’t always need words.

  “Be careful, Dusty,” his brother said.

  “You have been trying to throw that girl at me for years, and now you tell me to be careful?” Their eyes tracked back together.

  “Because you pined for her, and it tortured you. Now she’s here, and it’s still torturing you.”

  Dustin scoffed. “So melodramatic. I have not been tortured. Or pining, for that matter.”

  Peter raised his brow. “What would you call it then?”

  He opened his mouth but no words came out – he didn’t know what to say. “I’m no good with words.”

  “What, you? Mr. Eloquence?” Peter grinned, and vaulted himself out of his chair. “I know you’re working through stuff, Dustin, but I swear to God if you stage another Penthouse demonstration, I’m throwing you naked into the yard. Harmony doesn’t need any more educating on the subject. Nor do I.”

  “I don’t know, little brother – you could probably use a few pointers.”

  “I kept my wife satisfied just fine, thank you very much.”

  Dustin laughed. “If that’s what you’re saying, then you’re woefully out of practice. Been eight years, bro.”

  “I know.” Peter’s smile turned wistful. “I know.”

  Chapter 11

  Faith tiptoed down the stairs, praying she didn’t run into anyone as she tried to escape. This house was doing crazy things to her – to her composure, to her self-control, to her certainty – and she could not be rid of it soon enough. Things she was sure were settled years ago were popping back up, looking at her with questioning stares, and she couldn’t face any of them without solitude and a guitar in her hand. She could not face this new reality without her weapons – she was crumbling at the prospect.

  She winced when she noticed the door to Dustin’s office was ajar. She saw his boots propped on the desk, no doubt leaning back in his chair and staring at the ceiling, ruminating on everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours. She slowed to a virtual crawl, not wanting to attract his attention as she slipped out through the kitchen.

  “So I’ve noticed you’ve been spending a lot of time with that boy lately.” Faith stopped short in the hallway at Peter’s voice, not crossing the threshold of the room and remaining out of sight. The tone was all uncomfortable seriousness.

  “What boy, Jeremy?”

  “No, not the sexless one. That big hulking football player.”

  “Tad, Dad? You’re worried about Tad?” Harmony was laughing, but Peter did not seem at all amused.

  “Not worried. Do I look like a man that worries? It’s just… Well…�
�

  “Out with it, Dad. Spit it out already.”

  “We’ve never had that talk. The talk. About sex.” Peter rushed that last word, like he was afraid to say it too slowly or his daughter would hear. “Your mother had it with Melody before, and I… have avoided it admirably if I do say so myself. But recent events, well, I just wanted to have a talk with you.”

  Faith knew exactly what recent events he was talking about. She didn’t want to hear this. Then again, she didn’t want to risk going back from where she’d came, where Dustin was, probably laying wait to have another fight. So she stayed hidden in the hall, hearing everything.

  “Seriously, Dad, really? Fine. So, should I be having sex?”

  “I don’t know – should you?”

  Faith was surprised by that reply and sidled farther down the hall, peeking through the entryway to see them. Harmony had much the same reaction. “Really?”

  “What really?” Peter asked.

  “Well, I was just sure you were going to say ‘Not until you’re married, Peaches!’ And then I was planning to say ‘Oh, like you and Mom waited, right?’ Or something along those lines.”

  He broke out in laughter, an easy grin consuming his face. “Harmony, spitfire, you’re going to be the death of me. Sit down. Come on, sit down.” After he got her seated at the kitchen table, he continued. “No, your mom and I didn’t wait until we were married. In fact… in fact I slept with your mother the first night I met her.”

  “What? You didn’t!”

  He laughed. “I did. You remember how we met, and—”

  “Tell it to me again,” Harmony asked.

  Peter gave her a look out of the corner of his eyes. “That’s not what we’re talking about right now.”

  “Well, if you’re going to make me have this conversation with you, the least you could do is tell me something I want to hear.”

  Faith loved Peter’s grin, so much like his brother’s, a touch more humor and a touch less sternness. Was that what Dustin would look like if their daughter was alive? She shook her head to try and remove that thought and slumped against the wall to listen.

  “Fine. So Uncle Dustin had gotten into that car accident – T-boned by a drunk driving a Lexus – and I had been hanging out in the emergency room for hours.” Faith straightened and leaned closer. Dustin had been in the hospital? “And to pass the time I started flirting with this pretty little nurse.

  “She was the cutest thing I’d ever seen, in those bright pink scrubs and half a dozen pencils sticking out of her hair. She started off having none of me, but I was there long enough to wear her down. I ‘conveniently’ bumped into her in the cafeteria on her break. Convinced her to have a cup of coffee with me, and I was in love. She wouldn’t give me her phone number though, refused flat outright. As well she should of, you shouldn’t be giving your number out willy-nilly to strange men you don’t know.” Harmony waved his comment away and gestured for him to continue.

  “So I was pretty surprised when she came to talk to me after her shift. And then even more surprised when we went and had sex in an empty on-call room. And she still wouldn’t give me her damn number… I didn’t know it then, but she’d just been diagnosed with breast cancer, as in ‘walked out of a meeting with her doctor and saw me still sitting in the waiting room’ just diagnosed. I’m fairly certain it’s the only reason she gave me the time of day at all. She just wanted to forget, to have some fun.”

  Peter’s face turned from wistful to serious. “Sex—” he began.

  “Tell me the rest. Finish the story.”

  Peter shook his head. “Another time. Back to the topic at hand. I’m not going to lie, sex is fun. With the right person, sex is breathtaking. But it’s also not something to be taken lightly.”

  “Because I could get pregnant.” Harmony rolled her eyes at the sentiment.

  “Because you could get sexually transmitted diseases,” he stressed. “And yes, also pregnant. It’s a decision with consequences, and you need to be prepared to take them.”

  “Girls don’t get knocked up every time they have sex, Dad, no matter what you may remember from way back when you were actually doing it.”

  “I know that,” he said, completely ignoring her teasing, “but if you’re thinking about it, you’ll be more likely to be careful. Take all the necessary precautions. And make sure you’re ready for it. Sex comes with complications – physical and emotional ones – and you need to be aware of that. Look at me – one night with your mother, and I was hooked, like a drug, couldn’t get her out of my head. It all worked out, but sometimes it doesn’t, Peaches. And I still got my heart broken.”

  Faith watched as Harmony got up from her chair and draped her arms around Peter’s neck, leaning her chin against his shoulder. His hand came up and gently brushed her arm. “I’m so grateful that you wouldn’t take no for an answer,” Harmony whispered.

  Dustin stared at the ceiling, throwing a baseball towards the rafters and catching it as it came down. The steady sound of the ball hitting his hand calmed him just as the sound of hammer hitting nail would. Routine – he craved it, something to get lost in. Unfortunately, it wasn’t nearly as effective when Faith was within five hundred yards.

  He glanced out the window, towards the tree, and completely missed the ball as it came back down, striking him against the chin. He swore and jumped from his chair, eyes never leaving Faith peering under the hood of her car.

  “Figured out what’s wrong with it yet?” he asked as he approached her. He saw her spine stiffen at the words.

  “The engine won’t turn over. Obviously.” He grinned at her impervious tone, but she didn’t see it, head still firmly under the hood.

  “Oh, obviously.” Her ass looked perfect in those jeans, and for a moment he forgot that the last time he’d seen her he’d been hurling insults her way. “Any diagnosis?”

  “The fan belt,” she said after a pause.

  Dustin burst out laughing; that finally got her to turn around and look at him. The haughty derision in her gaze just had him laughing more. “You watch one television show where that happened, and now every time there’s a problem, it’s the fan belt.”

  “Well, it could be.”

  “Let me look at it.”

  “You’re not a mechanic,” she said tartly.

  “I’m more mechanic than you are.” She stepped out of the way, and he slipped into her place in front of the hood. “I’ve fixed every vehicle on this place at least twice. I think I can manage.”

  “None of those are German. What do you know about them?”

  Dustin glanced at Faith, arms crossed in defense and propped up against his tree. She looked like she just stepped out of one of his moody daydreams. “More than you, that’s for sure.” He wasn’t about to tell her he’d done a stint as a mechanic before he’d settled on construction.

  “But not more than the guy I’m going to call, that’s for sure.”

  “You don’t have to call anyone,” he said. “I’ll take a look at it.”

  “When? In a month? No thanks, I’ll just call a professional and go.”

  “Faith.” He sighed. “Don’t be silly. I’ll look at it right now. You don’t have to call anyone else.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Why are you being nice to me?”

  Because he wasn’t finished with her yet. Because he didn’t want her to leave. Because there were still so many things left unsaid. “Because I can.” She rolled her eyes at that, and his face sobered. “Let’s call a cease-fire.”

  “You started it,” she murmured at the ground.

  “I know.” He ducked his head back under the hood.

  “We’re never going to be able to go back to the way it was, are we?”

  “You want to?” he asked.

  She sighed. “I don’t know. Sometimes. But that’s ridiculous, right? We can’t spend even ten minutes together without either fighting or fooling around. It’s foolish to think we can be friends or anythi
ng at all to each other.” He heard the melancholy in her voice, and his heart clenched. He used to make her laugh more often than sigh. But what she was asking was madness; he couldn’t be friends with the woman that broke his heart so badly it hadn’t healed correctly.

  “Yeah, it is. But we can probably manage cordial. Veer towards friendly if called for.” He glanced back at her, and she was staring at him, sapphire blue eyes that always held him captive. He could see that she wanted to believe him, yearned for it in the same way he did.

  “That sounds nice,” she said. “Just not sure if it sounds true.” She pushed off the tree and slipped her hands in her back pockets, walking away. “Thanks for looking at my car.”

  “No problem,” he yelled after her, turning back to the engine so he wouldn’t see her leave.

  Harmony looked at the screen of her buzzing phone and made a beeline for the backyard, running towards the picnic table set way back before answering the video call. “How’s the studying going?”

  Melody rolled her eyes. “You’re not interested in that.”

  “Yes, I am!” Harmony said, sounding indignant. “I don’t want you to fail out of college and end back up here sharing a bathroom with me.”

  “You’re on the trail of a mystery, Nancy Drew – you don’t care about my midterms.”

  Harmony smiled. “Okay, maybe not. But that doesn’t mean I can’t be polite.”

  Melody laughed at that. “How much longer on the pleasantries before I tell you what I found out.”

  “Screw manners. What’s the sitch?”

  “Sitch?”

  “Yes, I get most of my vocabulary from tween shows. So goes the life of a babysitter,” Harmony said. “Now stop teasing me and tell we what’s up.”

  “You’re not going to believe this.”

  “Ooh, it’s that good?”

  “Better,” Melody said. “I looked into who wrote the Apple Lodge movies, and we already know them.”

  Harmony’s brows furrowed in confusion. “How can we know them? Is it Dad? Uncle Dust? Bea?”

  “Nope, none of those.”

  “I think I’d know if I knew a script writer.”