Rogue Nights

by Ainsley Booth

  That night, Ami and I stay up late talking about Jem and the Holograms, reminiscing about the community garden project, and things that might make us happy in the next year.

  “I don’t think I’m going home for Christmas this year,” she says quietly.

  “I never do. You can hang out with me,” I tell her.

  She smiles and drowsily rolls onto her back. “Deal.”

  I don’t remember falling asleep, but when I wake up, it’s bright and the house is already noisy.

  As I sit up, my bedroom door quietly pushes open. It’s Ami, holding a cup of coffee. “Your mom is cooking,” she says. “So I brought this to you here.”

  “Is my brother already here?” Dread floods my gut, but Ami shakes her head.

  “Nope. Your mom’s friend Sharon showed up for coffee, and they’re currently chopping vegetables. They have a plan to make all their sides together, sharing the work. They saw it on a morning talk show they feel really strongly I should watch. It’s life changing.”

  I burst out laughing. “Wow.”

  Ami gives me a wide-eyed, innocent smile. “But Fred, maybe it is? We should definitely watch it at least once.”

  “For science?”

  “For a drinking game,” she whispers before winking. “Gotta get back to the chopping, those carrots won’t murder themselves.”

  “I’ll be down soon to help.”

  I get cleaned up and dressed, then hit the ground floor just as a knock comes at the door. “I’ll get it,” I call out.

  I’m glad I do, because on the other side is my cousin.

  “Missed you so much,” she cries out as she flies into my arms.

  I grin at her husband, herding their kids in the door behind her. “How’s my favorite cousin?”

  “I am your only cousin, but I will take it anyway.” She brushes her curls out of her face. “Whew. Do I smell coffee? Let’s steal cups and go hide in the attic and talk about everyone.”

  Her husband gives her a kiss on the head and promises to watch the kids, so I drag DeAnne into the kitchen, get her a cup of coffee, and introduce her to Ami.

  “Are you coming upstairs?”

  Ami shrugs. “Sure.”

  “No sign of your brother yet?” DeAnne asks as we settle on the top floor.

  “Nope.”

  She wrinkles her nose, and Ami asks me a silent question with her eyes.

  I answer it out loud. “Dee’s not a fan either.”

  Ami leans in and says in a whisper, “I didn’t even know she had a brother.”

  “He’s got a wife with a big family. He only comes to like, every other holiday, and often not ones that Fred comes back for.”

  “Good for all of us, but I can imagine Mom put on the hard press for us all to be in one spot so she can take a picture with Granddad.”

  DeAnne rolls her eyes. “And you know it’s the picture that she cares about most of all.” She gives Ami a run down of how things work in our family—appearances first, something to send out in the Christmas letter, to talk about at bowling each week. “No offence to bowling league ladies, of course.”

  I gawk at her. “Oh my God, you’re thinking about joining the league.”

  “Gotta be disruptive from the inside of the institutions,” she says with a straight face. “And it’s fun to throw heavy things.” She shrugs. “I’m almost forty. I don’t care about being cool anymore. It’s fun, and a healthy way to let off some steam.”

  “I need something like that.”

  Ami touches her toe to mine. “We should take up kickboxing.”

  DeAnne claps her hands. “Love that idea.”

  We brainstorm a dozen other ways I could get sweaty, none of them ever likely to actually happen, until our cups are empty.

  “We should go back downstairs,” I finally say.

  “But this is fun,” my cousin replies. “And my children don’t know where I am.”

  “Fair. Tell me what’s new at work and then we’ll go downstairs.”

  She takes her sweet time, which is excellent, because by the time we finally return to the gathering, my brother has arrived.

  I can hear Sheppard’s voice booming from the living room, carrying over the pre-game coverage. He’s bragging about something, and the sound of his voice pushes against my good mood. It’s demanding, taking up too much space, and DeAnne bristles, too.

  Like we both know the next six hours are going to be a non-stop monologue about his high school football successes, his current business successes, and an angry litany of all the ways everyone else gets everything wrong.

  I take a hard left into the kitchen.

  Greetings can wait.

  Ami brushes her hand against my shoulder, and I give her as much of a smile as I can muster. “That’s Shep,” I murmur.

  “The loud one?”

  That says everything anyone would ever need to know about my brother. “Yeah.”

  She nods knowingly.

  “How goes the cooking?” DeAnne asks my mom, and that leads to a thirty-minute discussion about brined turkeys.

  It never fails to surprise me how much useless knowledge about food my mother has stored away, like her life depends on inoffensive small talk. When Sheppard’s laugh cuts over our conversation in an entirely other room, I wonder if maybe on some level it does.

  But she was his mother, and she never put him in his place, so…I’m hard pressed to feel much sympathy.

  “Where’s Granddad?” I ask at the next pause.

  “Having a nap,” my mother says.

  Would it be too weird to take my best friend to go curl up with my grandfather? Probably. Fuck.

  And it’s too early for vodka, although I have no doubt beers have been cracked in the living room. Fuck again.

  Actually, fuck it. “What do we have to drink?”

  That kills the polite conversation dead. My mother blinks at me. “There’s OJ in the fridge, sweetie.”

  Completely missing the point.

  “Is there vodka to cut it with?” But that wasn’t me. That was Ami, and I could kiss her.

  She gets a double blink. “Oh. Well, I mean…”

  DeAnne’s on it. “I know where Uncle Darryl keeps the booze. I’ll be back.”

  Later, I’ll wonder if the vodka was a mistake, or a gift, and maybe not care either way.

  But right now, I cling to my cousin and my best friend like the screwdrivers we’re going to make are life preservers.

  6

  Fred

  We mix them weakly and make them last until Mom calls everyone to the table mid-afternoon.

  Somehow, Sheppard and I go that whole time without actually acknowledging each other.

  That doesn’t last long into the meal.

  I don’t even know what starts it for him, but at some point, Ami starts bragging about me, so he’d said something and I’d missed it.

  But unlike my parents, Shep isn’t easily coerced into agreeing that I’m awesome.

  He snorts. “You can’t really call what she does a career, though.”

  Ami’s eyes go wide. “Pardon me?”

  Beside my brother, my father harrumphs, and I die a little inside. But Ami takes it in easy stride. She smiles gently. “I just didn’t hear you clearly. It sounded like you didn’t know what you were talking about.”

  Now Shep looks rattled, and I like that. I’m still dying, of course, but it’s a sweet relief kind of death. Like the last thing I’ll see is a gorgeous red-haired avenging angel.

  “Fredericka’s always been a bit of a lost soul,” my mother interjects, like she’s making this better. She’s not.

  Ami shakes her head. “She’s not lost. She knows exactly who she is and what she values, and I really admire her for that. So many of us don’t really know who we are, wouldn’t you say? You see people figuring it out at thirty, fifty, seventy. I read an article about a woman who became a nun at forty-seven, and thought…wow, that woman just couldn’t connect with what s
he really wanted for half her life. How sad is that? And Fred knows exactly who she is. It might not conform to your expectations, but I see her all the time, and she’s very content, I promise you.”

  Content is not the word I would use, but if Ami’s promising it, it must be true.

  Ami doesn’t lie.

  The nun story worked, too. My mother can’t argue with a holy revelation, and the conversation morphs away from my failings and into some anecdote about their church.

  But my brother looks over at me, and the anger there is like a physical blow.

  I turn to my grandfather, who is thankfully sitting at the opposite end of the table from my brother and parents, and give him all of my attention for the rest of the meal.

  When dessert comes to the table, I cut him the biggest piece of pumpkin pie. “Extra whipping cream?” I ask, and the smile he gives me makes up for not nearly enough, but just enough to get me through the next hour.

  After the meal is fully over, people shift. I stay in the kitchen for a bit, but there’s only so much surface level bullshit I can handle from my mom, bless her heart. So I go in search of Grandad, who’s in the living room.

  With my father and brother.

  I wade into the sea of toxic masculinity, and immediately get sucked under. My dad waves his beer can at me. “Come on, Fredericka. Come sit with your old man.”

  My skin crawls, and I look at the other cans littering the coffee table in front of him. “I’ll sit here with Granddad,” I say.

  My grandfather’s asleep, and I want to cry.

  I want to run away, but I have something I need say first. “And for the last time, it’s Fred.”

  “Not to me it isn’t,” he says roughly. “Stop being difficult.”

  And if that isn’t bad enough, then he grabs the bowl of party mix and thrusts it at my brother. “Shep, what do you think of this new kind your mom got? It’s different. I don’t know if I like it.”

  God forbid he learn to like anything new or different, even a fucking pretzel. And the gall of him to casually insult my mother’s shopping choices, when you know he’s never stepped foot in Costco in his entire life.

  I jump to my feet, but someone’s ahead of me. This time it’s not Ami who comes to my defence, it’s DeAnne. But Ami is right behind her, and she’s on guard, too. DeAnne crosses her arms over her chest and scowls at my father. “Why do you shorten Sheppard’s name and not Fred’s?”

  His face is already red thanks to the beer, but it gets redder. “Because Fredericka’s not a boy.”

  Everyone stops talking.

  Everyone.

  The entire house goes silent, and I’m glad dinner’s done. I’d promised myself I wouldn’t make a scene, but dinner’s done, and now so am I. I turn on him, shaking. “No, I’m not. But I’m not the right kind of girl either, am I?”

  He scoffs. “That’s not what I mean.”

  “Then what do you mean? It’s just a name. It’s what I feel comfortable being called, and you can’t respect it.”

  “Your cousin started this, I didn’t. Don’t ask me questions you don’t want the answer to.”

  I don’t want to give him the last word. But that is the last thing I ever want him to say to me. I want those words to ring hard in my ears forever, so I don’t ever trick myself again into thinking this might be okay.

  Nothing about this was okay.

  I look at my mother, who’d come in from the kitchen—but not to be helpful.

  She drops her gaze to the floor. She looks away from me, her baby, because she’s cowed by an awful man to whom she hitched her wagon a long time ago.

  My heart breaks and I shake my head. “Your loss, then, Dad. Your loss.” I move to DeAnne, squeeze her shoulder, and look past her to Ami. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

  “One hundred percent,” she says brightly, following me out of the room.

  I don’t stop moving until we’re upstairs.

  It’s only once we’re in my room and I’m staring at my suitcase that I realize we’re already packed. Neither of us unpacked, and I’ve already stowed my childhood stuff away.

  “Do you want to leave?”

  “Yes.” I laugh, rough and raw. Well, that was easier than I expected. I turn to look at her, still shaking from what happened downstairs. “God, yes, I want to leave.”

  “Okay.” She moves closer, all earnest and young and perfect and innocent, and I back up. Hard. Right into my dresser, my heel colliding hard with the scrolling trim along the bottom of the piece of furniture.

  “Fuck!”

  “Shit, are you okay?” She’s right against me now, looking down, her hands on my hips as she braces me.

  I’m fine. And I’m really not fine.

  Because Ami smells like lavender, and she curves over me in a way that doesn’t feel like looming or pressure or anything bad. It feels right, and when I look up, her mouth is right there.

  Her lips part. “Fred? I said, are you—”

  I push up on my toes and kiss her. Her startled gasp tastes good. Her soft mouth tastes good. All of her tastes and feels fucking amazing, and I want more. Lust roars to life, hard, and this is not the time or place. My family is downstairs, and Ami is straight and too young for me and we’re a plane ride away from her safely being able to run away from me when she realizes this is not what she wants.

  “Sorry,” I groan, pushing her out of the way. I throw my head back and look at the ceiling. At the water stain in the corner, at the yellowed paint job.

  I don’t know why my parents keep this room for me. I’m thirty-five. I’m never coming back here. I don’t even want to stay here tonight.

  I don’t want to stay here tonight.

  “That was out of line,” I say, my head and heart pounding in unison as I get as far away from her as I can in the room. “I don’t know where that came from and I am so very, very sorry. Fuck.”

  I might throw up.

  “Kissing me?”

  I turn and stare at her incredulously. “Of course. You didn’t ask for any of this.”

  She paces forward, stopping right in front of me. “Yes, I did.”

  “No, you—” I cut myself off as she raises her fist in the air.

  Her index finger pops up. “First, I flew here. At a last-minute fare. I asked to be here, with you, for my own reasons. Second—” Her middle finger joins the first. “In hindsight, although we should have talked about it, I’ve been getting closer to you for ages now. Touching you, wanting you. I’m just, you know, a bit dumb about all things everything. But I definitely put myself in your path, including wanting to physically comfort you right now. And finally, if you give me half a chance, I’d totally ask you to kiss me again, even if it wasn’t your thing. That’s how far gone for you I am.”

  “What?”

  She leans in, her usually calm face covered in emotion. “I really feel like this is something I should have figured out about myself a hell of a lot sooner.”

  “You’re not straight?”

  “Not really.”

  I swallow hard. “Because you have a crush on me?”

  She shakes her head. “Because I dream of soft legs and warm breasts and I watch a lot of videos of girls going down on girls.”

  The image of Ami watching porn—lesbian porn—makes my thighs ache. Fuck. “We can’t have this conversation here. There’s nothing hot about making out in my childhood bedroom. This was a prison cell and it’s not where I want to…” I flounder.

  She moves closer. “Where you want to what?”

  I can’t think straight. “Talk.”

  “Is that what you want to do, Fred? Talk to me?” She’s right in front of me again, and this time, I’m not backing into anything. I could free fall. I just might. Or I could lean into the circle of her arms, which she’s offering, and take the sweet sip of her mouth, also on offer.

  I don’t know what to do, and I guess I say that out loud, because she leans in.

  “Don’t wo
rry,” she whispers. “I’m still me. I just really want you to kiss me again. We don’t need to make out. That can wait until we get to a hotel room, but right now…do you want to kiss me? Because I want you to, and I kinda might die if you don’t, but like, no pressure.”

  7

  Ami

  Until the day I die, I’ll never forget the heart-stopping seconds that stretch out painfully as Fred looks at me.

  My heart pounds in my chest and my hands go slick.

  Then her face softens, and she exhales my name. “Ami…” She shakes her head. “God, yes, I want to kiss you, but—”

  “No buts,” I breathe. “Doesn’t matter.”

  “This isn’t the—”

  A knock sounds at the door, and I swear to Goddess, I will kill whoever is on the other side of that door.

  “Fred?” It’s her mother.

  Crap, I can’t kill her mother.

  Fred moves to the door, then stops and comes back. She takes my hand, her fingers hot on my skin, and she squeezes. “Gimme a minute.”

  Oh. Well, in that case, she can have all the time she wants. I press my hands together, rubbing the spots where she touched me.

  She opens the door, and they murmur back and forth.

  “I know, but I’ve had enough. No, I’m not going to— Look, I came here for Granddad, and I don’t think he’d want me to be miserable. It’s probably best if we head out sooner than later.”

  I’m doing a fist pump in the air when she closes the door and turns around.

  She gives me a half-smile. “You like that?”

  “Of course. Team Fred, all the way.”

  “It’s almost like you knew this is how this would go down.”

  “You’ve been pretty grumpy the last few months.”

  “So you came prepared with answers for my family about why they should like me more?”

  “Didn’t need to come prepared. They just should. You’re very likeable.”

  “But it didn’t work.”

  “Ah, we gave it the old college try. And it’s their loss, but I’m going to stick up for you, unless you don’t want me to, but I gotta say, it’ll be hard for me to keep my trap shut, because you are awesome.”