15. TUESDAY AFTERNOON — THE REED LAND, NORTH CAROLINA #4
So, when I opened the front door and saw Maverick Reed standing on the porch, my jaw instantly locked.
He was holding a cardboard drink carrier with two coffees, looking uncharacteristically awkward as his eyes admired his boots.
I let him in, though, only because Silas asked me to with a silent look.
For twenty minutes, the atmosphere had been filled with an awkward silence. Maverick was in the recliner while Silas and I sat stiffly on the couch. It was obvious Maverick was here to try and apologize, but he was terrible at it. I don’t think he had a clue as to where to begin.
“I overreacted, Cal,” he finally grunted, staring into his black coffee.
“I come from a different era. One where you protect the gold and protect the business first and foremost. Finding out you two ran off and got hitched while the dirt sheets were blowing up… It threw me. But, I shouldn’t have put my hands on you. ”
“Yeah, you shouldn’t have,” I said tightly while glancing at Silas.
He sat perfectly upright, playing the stoic son, but I could see the tension in his jaw. I couldn’t sit there anymore. I was going to lose my mind. The intensity in the air was too thick. I was suffocating.
“I’m gonna go make a smoothie.”
Silas blinked. “It’s two in the afternoon.”
“So? I want a smoothie.” I walked into the kitchen.
My weight pressed heavily against the marble counter as I placed my phone face-down on the stone. I needed a minute to breathe. I dumped some frozen berries, yogurt, and protein powder into the blender before slamming it against its base.
The roar of the motor was deafening, but it was exactly what I needed to drown out all thoughts and sounds.
I stood there for two full minutes, letting the machine scream as I attempted to blend out my own anger.
When I shut it off, the sudden silence was just as intense.
Drink in hand, I took a deep breath and headed once again for the living room.
I stepped through the archway and stopped dead.
Maverick was still in the recliner, watching an old fishing show on the TV, looking completely unfazed. But right next to him, completely upside down, was Silas.
The backs of his knees were hooked over the back of the couch, his long legs dangling behind it. His head hung completely off the edge as his hair swept across the floor. His arms were crossed loosely over his chest, as he casually watched the fishing show upside down.
The two of them looked like weird, perfectly opposite copies of each other.
“Uh, baby,” I said slowly, leaning against the doorframe. “I don’t think that’s going to work for you like it does for women.”
Silas didn’t move, he just blinked slowly as his upside-down brown eyes shifted to glare at me. “You’re gross.”
Maverick didn’t even look away from the TV.
“Why the fuck are you upside down?”
“You were using the blender,” he said casually, as if that explained the universe.
“Yeah… And?”
Silas’s brow furrowed. “It helps the sound not hurt as bad. The noise from the blender causes the back of my head to feel like there’s TV static in it.
It burns and itches under my skull. If I flip upside down, the pressure pushes the static out.
” He looked at me with genuine confusion. “You don’t get like that?”
“He’s done that since he was a kid,” Maverick chimed in, and my jaw dropped. Without even turning his head, he added, “Probably should have warned you about that one.”
I looked from Maverick back to the professional wrestler hanging by his kneecaps.“Babe. I’m getting you tested.”
Silas’s brow furrowed further. “Tested? For what?”
I threw my free hand back into the kitchen. “Well, let’s see. The blender running gives you itchy static in your brain and your solution for it is to become a bat…”
“I wanted to get him tested back in ‘98,” Maverick grunted, flipping the channel. “Told Doc the boy wasn’t wired normal after he cried for two days because the new shoes I bought him sounded too loud on the dirt. Doc told me he’d outgrow it. Clearly, he didn’t.”
Silas’s eyes went wide. He whipped his head to look at the recliner, seemingly forgetting he was upside down, and ended up just staring at the coffee table leg.
“What the hell, Dad!” Silas gasped, his voice cracking. He scrambled, righting his long limbs so he was sitting properly. Static electricity now clung to his hair, causing a wild, messy disaster that he tried, but failed, to fix. “Wait. Do you guys actually think I’m autistic?”
I looked at my husband, the man who categorized his wrestling tapes by emotional distress levels. Who hated the texture of velvet and who had just hung upside down to combat the noise of a blender.
Despite the irritation I still held with Maverick, I couldn’t help the loud, helpless bark of laughter that ripped out of my chest.
“Baby.” I walked over and handed him my drink. Leaning down, I pressed a kiss to his chaotic hair. “The test would be wasted anyway. It’s painfully obvious at this point.”
Silas took a sip of the smoothie, his eyes taking on this far away thoughtful look. “ Do you think that’s why I can memorize every match I’ve ever seen?”