29. Leo
“Ihave your balls!” The announcement came from the living room.
“Not mine,” I said, holding up my hands. Mari looked at me at the pronouncement before the new guest made themselves known. “You know exactly where they’ve been...” I whispered in her ear.
She elbowed me, but not before a blush burned her cheeks, and she looked at Janice, who was already headed to greet the guest, not paying attention to us.
After almost a week of pure bliss, it was Christmas Day, and Janice was back. I had been enjoying playing with the band and tutoring Cath, but having so much uninterrupted time to be greedy with Mari was the only gift I needed.
Vander rounded the corner as my mom came to meet him. “You always bring so much class to my house, Vander.” She playfully swatted at him but kissed his cheeks as she grabbed his Crock-Pot. Dinner was open for anybody who didn’t want to be alone. Janice and Mari sang along to festive songs as they set the table and cleaned while I prepped for the meal.
“Cocktail meatballs, made with my special recipe,” Vander explained.
“It’s just jelly and barbecue sauce. He uses frozen meatballs,” I said to the room.
The two women shot me disappointed looks.
“What? I’m not saying they’re bad. But it’s not some treasured secret recipe.”
“Thanks for bringing a dish,” Janice said.
“Thanks for having me, Janice. The house smells great.”
“That’s all Leo. He made braised pork belly with a cherry glaze.”
“Among other things,” I added. I had at least five exquisitely perfected side dishes. Shopping and preparing for this meal was the only thing that finally got me out of Mari’s arms. And even still, we drove into town to the Piggly Wiggly, unable to detach completely. Hands around waists when pushing the cart. Her accidentally brushing her breasts against me when she reached for something. More than once, I had to take a minute to kiss her senseless on a deserted aisle until somebody strolled through. It was a miracle we ever got out of there and with everything we needed.
“Sounds amazing,” Vander said.
We hugged, and I quickly tugged Mari back under my arm. He chuckled at my protective action, but then stage-whispered to Mari, “He’s just jealous of my balls. Always has been.”
“Hi, Vander,” she said as he bent to kiss her cheek. He lingered just for my benefit.
When he straightened, stance akimbo, he looked back and forth between us. “Aren’t you two cozy?”
“Yep,” I said with no further explanation. I squeezed her tighter, and she looped her arms around my waist.
We were cozy. We were so much more than that. The past week had been a delirious carbs-driven sex-a-thon where Mari and I drove each other to the brink of madness with our bodies. Mari’s desperation for me could only be matched by my own for her. I felt like I’d known her forever, our spirits reacquainted. There was no doubt in my mind that Mari and I were meant to meet. That everything had led me to her, good and bad. It was this assuredness that told me not to worry about the bits she still kept to herself. She didn’t care to talk about her family. She spoke about Cath’s audition as if it were a looming deadline. Maybe after that, she would be ready to define our relationship. Until then, I was content.
We’d been just about to sit down to eat when another knock came at the side door. As only strangers used the front door, it had to be somebody familiar.
But when I looked around, everybody I knew was there.
I counted on my fingers, just in case. I noticed then the extra plate I had missed.
My mother fluffed out her sleeves, clanking her wooden bracelets in the process. She took a breath and patted her short curls. Mari raised her eyebrows in my direction as Janice left to answer the door. We shared a look that said, Are we about to get the big reveal?
Sure enough, when my mom returned, she had a person in tow. A person I knew.
Pin Dick stood, ruffled and scowling.
My insides felt like they were turned inside out. All the color drained out of Mari’s face. Whatever her worst fears were, they could only be matched by mine. This wasn’t happening. My mother was a wise, kind, gentle woman of the contemporary world. She raised me to love and accept all.
Pin Dick was her complete opposite. Aside from the most obvious, there were so, so many reasons this didn’t make sense.
I stood on instinct. I wasn’t sure what I would do. Maybe I should punch him in the face. Yes, punching him in the face felt right. Screw toxic masculinity. Sometimes, you fought fire with fire. Vander, likely sensing the tension in the room and seeing my sudden rise, stood at my side. He looked among all of us, clueless but ready to fight.
It was like being fourteen again, walking home to be cornered by the football team. He had my back, no matter what.
Mari stood then too, her hand gently resting on mine. When I looked at her again, she glanced subtly at Janice. A reminder. This wasn’t about me.
The past few months, Janice had an ever-present smile and a lightness to her step. But how? Not that I liked to think about these things, but I was confident this man knew less about a woman’s needs than the types of musical instruments in his own school.
The math wasn’t mathing.
Principal Pin Dick looked down his nose at Vander and me, standing shoulder to shoulder. “Well, looks like your boyfriend is back. Am I gonna be in trouble?” He snorted at his own “joke.” “Sorry. That’s probably not PC or whatever you’re sensitive to these days.”
Vander tensed at my side. He would totally be on board with the face punching. It had been weeks since I felt this way. Most of the town accepted my return, and I’d grown comfortable around town, especially when flanked by Mari. One comment from Pin Dick and old insecurities burned down my esophagus.
Failure. Loser. Loner.
No. I wasn’t a loner. I was in a room filled with the people I cared about. People whose opinions actually mattered.
My nostrils flared, and my head turned slowly, wide-eyed, to Janice as if to say, THIS GUY?
She crossed her arms, a slight smile to her lips. Turning to the new guest, she said, “All are welcome on Christmas, Curt, but was there something you needed?”
Even hearing her use his first name made me queasy?—
Wait, what had she said?
Pin Dick was still glaring at Vander. “I suppose it’s your foreign piece of trash blocking my driveway.”
Mari squeezed my hand as a sense of absolute nirvana flooded me. He wasn’t here as my mother’s date. He was just here to complain as normal. Confetti cannons went off in my mind.
“I didn’t think I was blocking it,” Vander said, tone flat.
“Two inches into my driveway,” Pin Dick said.
“Right. I can move my car,” Vander said, but not before looking back to check with us.
“Two inches is a lot to some people,” Mari said to Vander with doe-eyed innocence. I almost choked on my tongue, trying not to laugh. She said it so sweetly that Pin Dick just narrowed his eyes like he was looking for her to crack.
“Miss Mitchell. You’ve been spending a lot of time in my neck of the woods lately,” Pin Dick said. I really didn’t care for the way his gaze tracked her figure when he spoke.
Mari, holding far more restraint than she ever gave herself credit for, didn’t reply to his non-question. Except I did just now notice the fork she had a white-knuckled grip on.
Will. Not. Punch. On. Jesus’s. Birthday.
The principal shifted on his feet. “Better make sure that student of yours is in tip-top shape. Just a few weeks away now. It’s bad enough that?—”
“Thanks, Vander,” Janice said loudly and interrupting whatever garbage he was about to spew. “We’ll be out of the way now. Anything else we can do, Curt?” My mother’s calming voice, when using somebody’s name, still had the same power as it did when she’d been a teacher.
“Just don’t let it happen again.” He turned on his heel and stomped away.
Vander jogged to get his keys and went out the door, following Curt. “Merry Christmas,” Janice said. “Thanks again for finally taking care of the tree.”
Pin Dick grumbled, shoulders up to his ears as he left the house.
The second he was gone, I slumped into the chair, hand on my slamming heart. It was that feeling of skipping the last step times a million.
Janice came up and flicked my ear.
“Ow!” I turned to her. “Why?”
“You really thought that was my guest?” She stood with her arms crossed, head tilted and shaking.
“I-I didn’t know. I certainly didn’t want it to be. Or understand it.”
“You are something else,” she said.
“Sorry.” I slouched. “But Mari did too,” I mumbled.
Mari held up her hands. “Only for a second.”
“Lies!” I shouted.
She looked at me and glared but was also sort of laughing around her eyes. “Mostly, I was just shocked to see him here, threatening to ruin Christmas. But it couldn’t be him because he was at school that day we came here, and, uh—” She flushed.
“Oh yeah,” I said, remembering the day we got my drum kit.
“You both owe me an apology,” Janice said.
“Sorry,” we mumbled in unison, heads down like scorned children.
Vander jogged back into the room, tossing his keys to the side table. “Who was that toolbag?”
“My boss,” Mari said as Janice said, “My neighbor.”
“He seems like the guy who brings up old football plays to any woman he talks to,” Vander said.
“He tells women they’d look prettier if they smiled,” I said.
“He pop quizzes any person wearing a band shirt and says, ‘Oh yeah, you like Nirvana. Name five songs?’” Vander returned.
“He asks the beverage cart woman on the golf course for a hug.”
“He thinks the vulva hangs at the back of your throat.”
“He’s gestured at countless women to take off their headphones at the gym, just to talk.”
“A pair of brass balls hangs from his lifted truck.”
“He actually does have that,” Mari cut in before our back-and-forth went on too long.
We were all laughing when a new person entered the room.
It was Faye Brentmore, one of the newest women to join the Bunco Broads, a transplant from New Jersey who had moved here after she retired... oh.
“Is there a reason that awful man is out on the front lawn with a tape measure?” she asked by way of greeting. We all turned to the new arrival, and Janice made a sound of happy surprise. Faye carried a holiday tin with a big red bow on it. Her long, straight black hair was streaked with gray and pinned over her left ear with a sparkling clip.
All at once, I was filled with warmth.
Faye was funny and kind, and I genuinely liked her. Not that my opinion mattered if she made Janice happy, but compared to having just assumed the worst, I wanted to scoop Faye up like a trophy.
Instead, I went to her and gestured for a hug. “Nice to see you again, Mrs. Brentmore.”
“Faye is fine.” She returned my hug. “Hi, Leo. Nice to see you again.”
“Excuse me, son,” Janice said, gently knocking me out of the way. “Hi, dear,” she said and embraced Faye.
The two women shared a look that had me going to Mari to hold her.
Introductions were made all around, and we finally sat down to eat.
Much later, full of food, cheeks sore from laughter, I looked around the table as peace spread through me.
These were my people, and I was happy here in Green Valley. Maybe if I wasn’t so content, the realization would have surprised me, but I’d felt it for a while now.
Mari had her head on my shoulder, and I kissed her hair.
She sighed contentedly. “I wish this could last forever.”
Her voice was tight with a whispered sentimentality for the moment she was currently in.
It could last forever, though. Or at least, this—us—could last. I sat up and turned to her, hoping for clarification. Her smile was genuine but tinged with sadness. Why did she say it like this was the beginning of the end instead of just a great moment of many to be had?
I was about to pull her to the side when the doorbell rang. This time, all of us looked at one another in confusion.
“I don’t think my heart can take any more surprises,” I said as I got up.
I opened the front door with a blast of cool air to find Cath in a black beanie and only a hoodie despite the winter night.
“Hey.” I smiled.
She waved back, sleeves pulled down over her hands. “Hi. Sorry to show up unannounced like a weirdo.”
“More like a Christmas miracle,” I said with the over-the-top enthusiasm that she pretended annoyed her.
“Don’t make this any weirder than it is,” she said in her usual deadpan tone.
“Come in?” I thumbed behind me to the warm house, where laughter rang out.
“Nah. We gotta head up to my grandparents’ in Merryville,” she said. I bent forward to wave at her parents parked in the street, and they waved back. “I just wanted to give you this. And say Merry Christmas and thanks and all that.” She rushed and mumbled the words.
My heart felt like it might explode out of my chest with glitter and rainbows. But expressing any of that would definitely make it weird.
“Aw.” I reached for the gift excitedly, not making eye contact with her to ensure she didn’t crawl out of her skin. “It’s almost like you like me or something.”
She scoffed. “Just stop talking.”
“You like me,” I said in a singsong. “You’re glad I teach you.”
“I regret all of this.”
I ripped open the packaging and stared down at a cheap pair of drumsticks with writing on them.
“I know you have like a million,” Cath explained, “but I signed these ones. So you know, when I’m super famous and stuff, you can be like ‘I knew her when...’” She affected an old-timey grandpa voice for the last bit. “I just thought, since I was your first student, or whatever, it’ll make you seem legit to the next kids you tutor.”
I sniffled a laugh, but the truth was the emotion had made my throat too tight to speak or even swallow. My next student? It hadn’t even occurred to me.
“Man, you’re making it weird,” she said. She tugged her hat down with both hands, almost covering her eyes as she groaned.
I cleared my throat. “You think I should tutor more drummers?”
“I guess I just assumed you’d want to keep going since you’re actually pretty good at it.”
“I thought I sucked.”
“You’re all right. Just don’t let it go to your head.”
We stood a moment in silence before I held up my fist for her to bump. “Thanks, Cath. I will treasure this forever,” I said sincerely as she bumped my knuckles.
“Yup. No biggie.” She flushed and kicked at the ground.
“Actually, I have something for you too,” I said with excitement.
Her eyebrows shot up. I turned around to yell into the house. “Yo, Vander. Come here.”
When I looked back, Cath’s eyes were wide, and she was completely still. “Don’t mess with me.”
I chuckled as, a second later, Vander came to the door.
“Cath,” he said and high-fived her.
She lifted her hands with robotic jerks to hit him back.
“Cath’s gotta head out soon, but wasn’t there something you wanted to ask her?” I asked Vander.
“Yeah?” He looked at me, and I nodded. “Cool. Yeah. The Burnouts are still working on our album after the break, but would you want to maybe jam sometime?” Vander asked.
“She’s gone Cath-atonic,” I said, grinning at my own joke.
Cath had just enough wherewithal to roll her eyes at me before she jerkily nodded at Vander.
“Yes. Sure,” she said. “Cool.”
“Rad,” he said. “We’ll work out the details. Merry Christmas.” He fist-bumped her this time before going back inside.
“Did that really just happen?” she asked, staring at the shut front door.
“It surely did.” I put my hands in my pocket, rocking back on my heels with a contented grin.
What a weird and wonderful and awesome day.
Cath’s parents shouted her name out the window. She blinked back to herself with a headshake.
A flash of worry crossed her brows. “You don’t think Miss Mitchell will mind?”
I frowned, wondering why that would be an issue. “As long as you’re not skipping school or anything, I don’t see why she would.”
She worried her lip. “It’s just not, you know, the plan.”
“It won’t get in the way. But want me to go get her?” I asked.
“No,” she said quickly, flicking a look behind me. “I really should go. Merry Christmas. And thank you. This is—” She widened her eyes with a shake of her head. “Thank you.”
“Merry Christmas, Cath.” She skipped down the steps and toward her waiting parents. “See you next year,” I teased.
She groaned loud enough for me to hear as she got in the car and waved goodbye.
Only after she was out of sight did I wonder if I should have checked with Mari first. But Mari wanted Cath to be happy, and this was an awesome opportunity. Plus, it would mean more time for Mari and me to spend together. Two birds, one scone.