8. Grant
Grant
The next day, I’m still thinking about last night’s encounter with Annabelle. Once again, I was a total dick. But this time, it wasn’t my fault. Rage rooms are loud. They just are.
I had no intention of turning down the music, but I did intend to lend her a pair of noise-canceling headphones. She stomped off before I got the chance. I left them on her welcome mat, along with a coupon for one free rage session.
This morning, both the headphones and the coupon are gone. A hand-drawn card is stuck to my door.
At first, I mistake it for a sympathy card. The lilies on the front are drawn in soft pastel colors. The caption: Sorry for your loss.
Inside, it says: …of hearing.
Annabelle signed it with, Thanks for the headphones. Don’t say “it was the least I could do.” I already know.
I’m still holding the card when I get downstairs. June is untangling a pink heart garland with Felix on the other end, pulling on it and making it worse.
In the summer tourist season, Felix overextends himself leading wilderness hikes and fishing trips seven days a week. Winter is slow for him, so he does a lot of hanging out. For some reason, he likes to hang out here.
June drops her end of the garland and unfolds a giant paper cupid. “We could ask Grant,” she says.
“The answer’s no,” I say. “You’re not decorating for Valentine’s Day.”
“Not that,” Felix says. “We want to know if you’ve seen Lumpy.”
“Cole hates it when you call him that.”
Felix shrugs. “Why do you think I do it?”
Each of us Neverly kids was born on a different holiday.
It’s our curse. The five of us argue about who got screwed the hardest, but our youngest brother Cole always wins, since the poor guy has a Christmas birthday.
At age eighteen, he started opting out of the holidays completely, and spends every December traveling to one tropical hotspot or another. This year, it was Bali.
June adds tape to the paper cupid. “I was just saying, I haven’t seen Cole for months.”
“Right?” Felix says. “He could drop by family dinner for five minutes.”
“Family dinner isn’t mandatory,” I tell him.
“No,” he says. “But it’s fun.”
Once a month, we gather at our parents’ house, where Mom cooks a main dish and Dad bakes bread. The rest of us arrive with sides that overflow the dining table and make us play fridge Tetris with the leftovers.
By the time dessert appears, we’re all too full to eat it, but we scarf down chocolate cake and lemon bars while we set up card tables and break out the euchre decks.
Alliances form, partners are assigned, and cards are dealt with the same quickness as the punchlines from family jokes. It’s loud, messy, and perfect.
But it’s not perfect for Cole. He’d rather be by himself, making his next million dollars.
“I said no,” I tell June, who’s still making tape loops on the back of the paper cupid. “Did you hear me? No decor.”
“Okay,” she says with false cheer. “I quit. Mail me my final paycheck.”
“Dammit, June, you do this to me every year.”
June tapes cupid onto the wall above the front desk. “It’s not my fault you hate Valentine’s Day.”
“It’s barely a holiday,” I say.
I’m still carrying that stupid card Annabelle made. I tuck it into the top drawer of the desk and open the booking calendar for February. The fourteenth is empty and it’s also the second Sunday of the month. Score. “Looks like I’ll be at family dinner on the fourteenth,” I tell my siblings.
June claps her hands. “If we can’t celebrate Valentine’s Day, we can at least celebrate your birthday.”
“Don’t you dare. I don’t want to see a single heart-shaped cookie and nobody’s allowed to bring a birthday cake. As far as I’m concerned, February fourteenth is just another day.”
The next afternoon, I gather all the dirty clothes in my apartment and carry an overflowing basket to the machine in the basement. But someone’s already down there. I can hear her cheerful humming before I open the door. Of course it’s Annabelle. Who else would be happy about laundry day?
She’s using the top of the dryer to fold her clothes. I freeze in the doorway, mesmerized by the way she’s making a pair of blue panties into a neat rectangle. “Washer’s free,” she says when she notices me. “The dryer still has ten minutes.”
“I’ll come back later,” I say. “I don’t want to see my landlord’s undergarments.”
“You could have seen more than that,” Annabelle mutters as she reaches into her basket.
“That was before I knew you owned my building.”
“It’s my building.”
“Which is the problem,” we say at the same time.
Annabelle grips pink lacy fabric in her hands. “We’ve got to stop doing that.”
We stare at each other as the dryer spins and the scent of detergent fills the room. We’re too close. The room is too small. Annabelle’s underwear is too enticing.
She looks away first. “Here’s what we’re going to do,” she says. “We’re going to pretend my first night in town never happened. The bar? The kiss?”
“Never happened,” I say.
“We’re going to start over. Fresh slate. And we’re going to be adults about this.”
“I can be an adult.”
Annabelle continues to fold her clothes, but she’s blushing now.
Is she thinking about adult activities? I try not to stare at the pink lacy bra that goes with the pink lacy panties.
I try not to picture it on her. Or off her.
My cock stands at attention, not caring at all what my larger head is thinking.
My small head is watching those delicate hands smooth themselves over tiny frilly undergarments.
How many of those gorgeous sets does she have?
I hold my full laundry basket at groin-level to hide my erection and do hard mental math.
Square root of seventeen point five. It’s four point one eight… three? Yes, three.
“Grant?” Annabelle asks.
I tear my gaze from her underwear, expecting a rebuke, but when my eyes meet hers, she looks…satisfied. She knows what she’s doing. And what her underwear is doing to me.
“I said, surely we can solve this little noise problem.” She picks up a red bra and takes her time straightening the straps. “Since we’re being adults.”
Ah. So this is a game to her. One she thinks she can win. “Did you get the headphones?”
“I did, but—”
“Problem solved.” I fling open the washer, dump in my clothes, and toss in a laundry pod.
“That’s your solution? Cover my ears?”
“You got a better one?” I slam the door closed and start the machine. “Also, I’m going to need those headphones back, so you’d better get your own pair.”