28. Chaos
twenty-eight
Chaos
T he next morning everyone is expected to help with the remodel of the old house. Dad wants it done before the new renters come in January. I’m stuck working with Jacob and his brothers, and I'm mad at two out of the three.
Nathan is tiling the backsplash in the kitchen, Jacob and Gage are painting the walls, and I’m cutting in around the trim.
Jacob and Gage aren’t speaking to each other.
I’m not speaking to Gage, and I don’t want to talk to Jacob either.
Nathan never talks, so it’s quiet even with all of us working together.
Gage keeps trying to catch my eye. He’s trying to look cute so I’ll forgive him.
It won't work this time.
I set my brush down, maybe a little too hard, on the metal roller pan. Jacob and Gage both look at me. An idea comes to me, maybe a way to get back at Gage and maybe even Jacob. I walk over to Nathan, stand close to him, and smile. “Hey Nate, do you want to do something tonight?”
Nathan looks flustered. He drops the tile he’s holding. It falls on the carpet. We both bend over, but I get it first and hand it back to him. I let my hand linger on his for a minute. “What do you say?”
He glances over at his brothers. They’re both watching us. He shrugs. “Sure. What do you want to do?”
I look Gage in the eye then turn to face Nathan, dropping my voice to match the pitch Jasmine uses when she’s flirting. “How about I surprise you?”
“Okay.” Nathan keeps turning the tile over in his hands instead of meeting my eye.
I touch his arm and smile. “Come by about seven.” I pick up my paintbrush and head outside to rinse it off. I should probably feel guilty about using Nathan to get back at his brothers, but I don’t.
I take extra time getting ready for my date with Nathan. I pulled my hair up into a sloppy bun so it falls down around my face. I’m wearing tight jeans, a blue cashmere sweater I borrowed from Jasmine, and high-heeled boots–not the ones I wore to the party with Brad.
Nathan shows up at my door right at seven.
He looks good. Nathan is one of those guys who fade into the background.
With his brothers around, I guess I didn’t realize how good-looking he is.
The sun from his Florida college has given him a deep tan and lightened his hair.
It makes his pretty blue eyes stand out.
“So, where to?” he asks when we get in the car.
“I told you, it's a surprise.” I let Nate drive and slide close to him on the seat because I know Gage is watching. “Are you up for a drive?”
Nathan nods. I direct him down a long road at the far end of town, toward the water. I point to a driveway. “Turn here. This is Jasmine’s house. They left for Mexico this morning.”
“They aren’t home? Are we going inside?” Nathan looks a little scared. I guess he’s much more of a rule follower than Gage.
“No.” I laugh at him, then feel guilty. “Just park here. I want to show you something.”
I guide him down the walkway until we reach a little path in the trees. The path gets steeper and my boots slip. He reaches to steady me. I cling to his arm and don’t let go.
A break in the trees reveals water with a full moon reflected in it. It’s almost as bright as daylight. This is one of my favorite places—a little beach at the far end of Puget Sound.
“Are you sure we should be here?” Nathan points to a sign that says the beach closes at dusk.
“It’s fine.” I tug on his hand. “C’mon, Nate, live a little.” I pull him to the edge of the water.
I sit on a gnarled log that must have drifted in a long time ago. I take off my boots and roll up my jeans. Nathan looks at me like I’m crazy. “Are you going in the water? It’s freezing out here.”
“Just a little way. It’s not that cold, Florida boy.”
He looks skeptical. “Maybe, but I’m guessing the water is full of sharp rocks and shells that you can’t see in the dark.”
“I'll be fine.” I know from experience that he’s right, but I can see the bottom pretty well in the moonlight. I wade out into the water. “You coming?”
“Naw, I’m staying where it’s warm and dry.” He picks up a rock and skips it across the water.
“You always play it safe, huh?”
He pauses with another flat rock in his hand. “Pretty much.” He throws the rock. It skips across the water, leaving ripples in the moonlight.
“You know, Nathan, you could learn a lot from your younger brother.”
“Gage?” Nathan looks at me like I’m crazy.
His reaction makes me laugh. “Okay, so he could learn volumes from you—mostly about taking things seriously and being responsible, but you could learn things from him too.”
“Like what?”
I study the water. As mad as I am at Gage, I keep thinking about how he makes me forget all the baggage I’ve been carrying around from Brad and Lexie.
He makes me feel like it's okay to have fun, to just be a dumb teenager and not worry about what everyone thinks about me.
“About having fun, taking risks, living life. About doing what you love.”
“I can’t think of anything that Gage loves except for girls and goofing off.”
I laugh again. “Good point.”
Nate’s right. The water is freezing. In a few steps my legs are numb, but I don't stop. I wade farther from shore, bend over, and watch the bottom. A little crab scurries by in the moonlight. I step to one side to avoid crushing a sand dollar. I look up at Nathan. “So, what do you love?”
He gives me a funny look. I guess it’s a strange question. He rubs a rock between his fingers. Finally he answers, “Order.”
“Order?” I resist the urge to laugh.
He pauses. “Order. Kind of like this.” He sends the stone skipping across the water.
I’m impressed. I’ve never seen a rock skip that far.
“The way the rock travels, how far it skips and when it sinks are all determined by a thousand factors—the angle it hits the water, weight, surface tension, wind speed, how hard I throw it. But it all comes down to order. Change one of the variables, and you change what happens to the rock. It’s not just random, even if it looks like it is. ”
I feel like I’m finally getting Nathan. “You’re studying to be an engineer, right?”
“Yeah. I like to figure out how things work. I like to see it all put together in my mind.”
“Like Jacob when he’s fixing cars.”
“Kind of like that.”
“And Gage is what? Chaos?”
He laughs. “Definitely the best word to describe him.”
“What about all of this?” I spread my arms to indicate the whole beach.
“Well, there’s a bit of both here—order and chaos. The moon orbits the earth. The tides change. The world spins around the sun, the seasons change. That’s order.”
“And the chaos part is what? What people introduce into it?”
“Maybe. But even nature makes mistakes.”
“No mistakes,” I counter him. “Everything happens for a reason. Everyone exists for a reason. Sometimes we just don’t see it.”
“You mean like when there are three boys in a family and two are athletic and good-looking and outgoing, and one is shy and awkward and funny looking.”
A pit forms in my stomach. I think about how we’ve been doing things without Nathan this whole time. He never seemed to want to join us, but I never asked. “I don’t know any families like that.”
He meets my eye. “Are you sure?”
I look at him, really look at him, maybe for the first time. “Positive. I know a family that has three good-looking guys in it. One is obnoxious, one thinks he has to protect the world, and one is way too serious. None of them are funny looking.”
“And you would go out with one of them because you wanted to, not just to piss off his brothers?”
I duck my head and study the water.
“I’m not stupid, Jess. And I’m used to Gage and Jake getting all the attention, especially from girls.”
I take a few steps closer to him. “I didn’t mean to.
..” But I don’t know what to say. I did mean to.
This is unfamiliar territory for me. It feels weird to be on the other side, to feel like I could hurt somebody.
I walk over, stand in front of him, and touch his arm. “I’m glad I asked you out, Nate.”
He looks up at me. Long eyelashes rim his blue eyes. “I am too. I was thinking you were still holding a grudge for all the terrible things I did to you when we were kids.”
I take a step back, smiling mischievously. “Who says I’m not? Maybe I lured you here with bad intentions.” I dig into the water and pick up a handful of wet sand. I let it slide through my fingers.
He watches it plop into the water. “Maybe. You’re a hard one to read, Jess.”
“Oh?” I say innocently.
“You were such a tough kid. You never cried, even when we were really mean. And you kept coming back for more.” He picks up another rock.
“And now you’re all grown up and pretty and.
..” He rubs the rock in his fingers, his face flaming in the moonlight.
“I don’t know. The more I get to know you, the more of a mystery you become. ”
I laugh. “Good, no one wants to be too easy to figure out.”
“So, Jess, what do you love?”
His question catches me off guard. The most honest response would probably be, “Your brother,” but know that would break some serious first-date etiquette.
“I dunno.” I’m trying to think. “Maybe just life, being young, having so much to look forward to.”
Something shimmers under the water. I reach down and pick up almost a whole moon snail shell.
I study it. Run my finger along the smooth surface.
“I figure we‘ll have enough bad days to make it worth it to enjoy the good ones, or even just the normal ones.” I look at Nathan embarrassed, “Does that sound stupid?”
“Not at all. Seize the day, huh? Sounds like a typical response from someone in high school who hasn’t had to deal with real life yet.”
I get offended, but I realize he’s teasing me. “Maybe you need to learn how to seize the day and not take life so seriously.” I drop the shell and pick up another lump of wet sand. “Or maybe you need a little chaos.” I fling the sand at him. It lands in the middle of his clean white sweatshirt.
He watches the lump slide down his chest, leaving a streak of gray-green muck. “I can’t believe you just did that.”
“It’s called being spontaneous, Nate. Live a little.”
“Oh, yeah?” He plunges into the water and comes after me.
I scream and run. His shoes are getting soaked, but he doesn’t stop.
His long legs are a serious advantage as the water gets deeper.
My foot strikes something sharp. I stumble forward, just catching myself before I end up face first in the water. “Ow.”
“I’m not falling for that trick.” Nathan reaches out and grabs me.
“No trick. I cut my foot. See.” I hold on to his arm and balance on one foot. There’s a gash on the side of my heel. Drops of red slide over my ankle and into the moonlight water.
“I told you that you were going to cut your foot. You’ll probably get some kind of horrible infection.”
So much for sympathy. “I have a first aid kit in my car. I can wash it off when we get back there.”
“A first-aid kit? How un-spontaneous is that?”
“Hey, when you’re being spontaneous, it never hurts to be prepared.”
"You're shivering." Nathan takes off his sweatshirt and holds it out to me.
"I can't take your sweatshirt. You’ll freeze to death Florida boy," I say between chattering teeth.
“I don't want you to go into shock or something. Besides, it’s ruined anyway.”
I take the sweatshirt. Nate's wet t-shirt clings to his chest. He doesn’t have the bulk either of his brothers has, but his chest is smooth and muscular. He catches me looking and looks away, his face red. "I'll get you back to shore, but I’m not carrying you up that hill.”
I put my arms around his neck and lean into his chest as he scoops me up. “How ungentlemanly of you.”
“I told you not to take your shoes off.”
Despite what he says, he carries me all the way back to the car. When he puts me down, I open my trunk and rummage through it for the first-aid kit.
“Talk about chaos.” Nathan peers into the mess.
“It’s called being prepared.” I pull out a water-bottle, the first-aid kit, and a towel. I sit on the towel and use the bottle of water to wash out the gash on my foot. “See, there’s a reason for everything.” I study the cut on my foot. “I don’t think it needs stitches.”
“Good,” Nathan replies. “I don’t want to spend tonight in the emergency room.”
He drives barefoot, his soggy shoes in the jumbled mess of my trunk. We don’t talk on the way home, but it’s a comfortable silence. I feel like I’m getting to know Nathan.
Nathan opens my door and carries me to the porch. He sets me down on the top step and stays at the bottom so our faces are about even. He smiles at me shyly. “Despite the fact that you ruined my sweatshirt and tried to freeze me to death. I had an okay time.”
“Even though you chased me until I sliced my foot, I did too.”
He glances at the house across the driveway to our rental house. A corner of the curtain lifts, just a bit. “It looks like we have an audience.”
“Gage?” I ask.
“Probably.” A mischievous look crosses Nathan’s face. “Should we give him a show?”
“What–”
He dips me backward and presses his lips to mine.
When he releases me, I step back in shock. “What was that?”
“I think it's called a kiss. Didn’t you just give me a lecture on being spontaneous?”
I take in a shaky breath. “I guess I did.”
“I hope that was okay. I should have asked.”
“It’s okay. Actually, it was... nice.” I take a breath. I don’t want to embarrass him, especially if Gage is watching. Besides, it was a very nice kiss.
“Really?” he looks happy.
“Really. Really nice.” The curtains in my front window stir. “Oops. We might have been playing to the wrong audience.”
“Your dad?” he sounds nervous.
“I hope not.”
He kisses me again, quickly, before I open the door. “Good-night,” he whispers. “Thanks again.”
“Good-night.” I whisper back.
My mom is standing inside the doorway. I can’t believe it was her behind the curtains. She’s usually a lot better at giving me my privacy.
“Did you guys have fun?” she asks.
I’m still kind of in a daze. “Uh huh.”
“It’s really late.”
“Sorry.” I head upstairs.
Mom stops me. “Maybe you can explain to me why you’re soaking wet and barefoot in the middle of winter, why you’re wearing Nathan’s sweatshirt, and why you're both covered in mud.”