Chapter 5 Chris #3
“He wasn’t. He was a good guy. He still is.” I smiled a little at my cutting board. “He used to protect us.”
“Protect you?” she said. “From what?”
“Anything? Anyone. He was the oldest. He took that job very seriously. Once Xavier snuck out with his dad’s car and picked us all up.
He was fifteen, only had his permit. He crashed into a pylon at a drive-through at one a.m. Mike told Xavier’s dad that it was his idea to take the car and that he was driving.
Tony made Mike lay pipe all summer for that. ”
She shook her head. “Why did he do it?”
“Take the blame? Because Xavier’s dad was strict. It would have been worse for him. He probably would have sent him to military school.”
I watched her face go soft.
“I like that Mike did that,” she said.
I liked it too.
We finished the prep. The soup was on the stove simmering, so we went to sit on the sofa.
“There are no books here,” I said. “We have to watch TV.”
“Perfect. I have someone’s streaming password,” she said. Then she lolled her head to smile at me. “Sorry about that. My mom lacks boundaries.”
“Oh, I didn’t care,” I said honestly.
“You never came to go through those paperbacks,” she said, picking up Woofarine and putting him on her lap. “I texted you twice.”
“I got busy,” I said, not wanting to explain my real reasoning.
“Oh. Well you should come. I don’t have anyone to talk to about them. They’re so old there’s not even online reviews. I just finished this novel from the nineties about a guy in Anchorage who gets famous on one of the first reality shows. It’s so convoluted and I have nobody to complain with.”
“That does sound rough,” I said, trying to figure out the remote.
“If only there was someone who can read a book in three hours. Unless you made that three-hour book thing up.” She cocked her head.
“I didn’t make that up,” I said.
“No? Because I have the book in my purse. I already read most of it. You could read it now.”
“Is this a test?”
“It is not not a test.” She smiled.
“What are you gonna do while I’m reading?”
“Read something else on my e-reader.”
I took a dramatic breath and turned off the TV. “Fine. Give it to me.”
Two and a half hours later we were arguing.
“I don’t buy it,” she said. “You can’t convince me that he’s been living in the Alaskan woods with no running water, no toothbrush, and he gets not one but two gorgeous women to fall in love with him? He only showered once a week. I’m calling bullshit.”
“He was a homesteader,” I said. “A really good one.”
“So these women were impressed with his root cellar? Is that what I’m supposed to believe? That circumvents personal hygiene?”
“How do you know the women had good personal hygiene? Maybe they didn’t shower and brush their teeth either.”
“One was a producer on the show covering him and the other one was a model he met during the week he was in LA to film the reunion episode. I’m going to guess they both own toothbrushes.
See, this is why I can’t deal with books that try to add romance to check a box.
Half the time I can’t suspend my disbelief.
You can’t just say to the reader, ‘These two are in love.’ You have to make us believe it. ”
“I believed it,” I said.
“Then you have never fallen in love.”
I fake gasped. “That is an assumption. That is wrong.”
“Who’s the last person you were in love with?” she asked.
I made a show of thinking about it. “Kendra Watson.”
She gave me a look. “You just told me someone from grade school, didn’t you.”
I blinked at her. “How’d you know that?”
“Because you came at me with her first and last name? That is so third grade.”
“You don’t tell people you’re dating Michael Maddox?”
“No. I say ‘I’m dating a guy named Mike.’ Like a grown-up.”
“You know, technically Kendra and I are still together. We never broke up. She just ghosted me after recess one day and then I saw her wearing Liam McGillicutty’s Ring Pop at snack time. I was devastated.”
She was laughing. “Okay, so maybe you have fallen in love.”
I smiled.
Mike was still knocked out.
We’d eaten the soup an hour ago. She set some aside for him and put the rest into containers for her customers while I blew through her paperback.
She was right, it was a convoluted book. But I argued with her about it anyway just to play devil’s advocate, and because I liked debating with her for some reason.
She made a clicking sound with her throat.
I eyed her. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah, my throat’s a little itchy. I think maybe there was some peanut butter on the sponge I washed the cutting board with,” she said. “Mike makes those peanut butter banana protein shakes.”
“Your allergy’s that bad?” I asked, watching her dig in her purse for Benadryl.
“Yeah. It sucks.”
“Where’s your EpiPen?” I asked.
She handed it to me. I checked the fluid. “The soup was really good, by the way. I can see why people want to buy it,” I said, handing the medication back to her.
“Yeah. I need all the income I can get,” she said, putting the pen back in her purse. “I’m paying the minimums now on two extra credit cards I didn’t know I had.”
I stopped to look at her. “Wait… there’s more?”
“There were three,” she said. “The big one that took my tax return and two other ones for five thousand each. I found them when I ran my credit.”
I blinked at her. “Are you getting the money back?”
She drew in a deep breath. “Maybe? I filed a police report, I locked down my credit, and I disputed the charges, but he listed himself as a joint user on the accounts.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that it appears that he had permission to use the cards. So I need a lawyer, which I can’t afford. I have to at least pay the minimums while I try and figure it out so my credit doesn’t get worse than it already is. Realistically I’m probably going to end up paying the whole thing.”
I sat back into the sofa. “Damn.”
“Yeah. My dad is a very good criminal, unfortunately.”
“Has he ever gone to jail?”
“Never for as long as he should have.” She nodded toward Mike’s room. “Should we check on him?”
I looked at my watch. It was two thirty. “He’s not due for his medication for another hour and a half. I say we just let him sleep.”
“Okay.”
I studied her while she took her Benadryl. “So what should we do now?” I asked.
“Well, I could run home and get my box of books,” she said, closing her bag.
“That’s not a terrible idea.”
“Are you going to take some home?” she asked. “You have to. Seriously. We’re using your streaming services, it’s the least I can do.”
“Well, if it will make you feel better.”
She scrunched up her face. “I’m sorry if my mom sent you any more weird texts.”
“She didn’t send me anything weird.”
“Are you sure?”
“Wait, come to think of it, she asked me for my Grocery Rewards number—”
She gasped.
“I’m kidding,” I chuckled. “She’s fine.”
She smiled. “Oh! You know what else I’ll bring?”
“What?”
“The bread pudding I made from the sourdough you gave me. I froze it.”
I lit up. I loved bread pudding.
“I bet Mike can eat it too. It’s soft,” she said, getting up.
“He’s not gonna eat that,” I said.
She looked at me weird. “Why?”
“He’s more of a protein and steamed vegetables kind of guy.”
“Oh,” she said, shrugging on her jacket. “Right. The training. Okay, well, more for us, McNougat.”
“You don’t get to call me that,” I said.
“You don’t get to choose your nickname,” she said, slinging her purse over her shoulder. “That’s not how nicknames work.”
I was smiling at her and she had her hand on the knob when Mike appeared behind me in the doorway of his room.
I knew this because Larissa’s face brightened.
“Oh, hey,” she said, coming back in and setting her purse on the table.
She made her way to the doorway and slipped her arms around his waist. “How are you feeling? Are you hungry?” she asked.
“I could eat,” he said weakly.
She looked at me. “Do you think we should blend it? It’s got the beef in it. You think that might get stuck in his gums?”
“Probably.”
“Okay. I’ll puree it.”
She let him go and Mike came around the sofa and dropped onto the cushion next to me while Larissa went to the kitchen with Woofarine trailing behind her.
Mike rubbed his forehead. “Am I tripping or did Jesse get video?” he said, his voice rough.
“He did. I deleted it off his phone while he wasn’t looking.”
“Thanks.” He leaned his head back on the sofa cushion and closed his eyes. I could hear Larissa moving around in the kitchen.
“Do you know what soup she made?” he whispered. “I’m not eating anything with pasta.”
“I thought you wanted to carb load for the race,” I said quietly.
“Dick.”
I laughed dryly.
“She made it from scratch for you,” I said, my voice low. “It doesn’t have pasta, but even if it did, you should eat it.”
He groaned.
“She was cooking for over an hour. Also, it’s good.”
“Fine,” he mumbled, like he was making some huge sacrifice.
I pressed my lips together. Maybe it was just the way we were raised, but it wouldn’t even cross my mind to turn down something like that, no matter what was in it.
Mike was the only boy in his family, and Donna spoiled him.
She cooked things he liked and he didn’t eat what he didn’t.
I on the other hand, did not have parents who cooked.
Mom and Dad were a lot of things, but chef was not one of them.
They were always so busy I ate most of my meals growing up between Jesse’s, Xavier’s, or Mike’s house—mostly Mike’s.
And as a guest, you said thank you and you ate what was given to you, and you acted like you liked it, even if you didn’t. It was what was polite.
That aside, the soup was delicious. And it was thoughtful too. Larissa didn’t have to come over at all, especially because he told her not to. It’s not like they’d been dating very long, nobody expected her to step in.
I liked that she had.
I leaned over the coffee table and picked up the book Larissa and I had been reading and looked at the cover while the blender started up around the corner.
I still had a few more chapters. I was going to read them while she ran home, but suddenly I just didn’t feel up to it, like there was no point now.
The book wasn’t good. The fun part was talking about it with her.
Now that Mike was here, we couldn’t exclude him by discussing a book he hadn’t read.
So now I was a third wheel.
I stood. “Hey, I think I’m gonna cut out.”
Mike didn’t open his eyes. “Okay. Thanks, man. I appreciate you.”
“Yeah. Eat the soup,” I said.
“I will eat the soup.”
I waved goodbye to Larissa before she could turn the blender off, took my dog, and I left.