9. Blaze
Blaze
I’m infected with nervous energy from the moment my eyes pop open on Saturday morning.
Maybe it’s because I slept later than usual.
Last night I’d stayed up binging the wild card series highlights to catch up before today’s game.
I was half watching the highlights, half waiting around for Brooke to get home, but she must have returned after I finally went to bed since her car’s parked next to my truck and her bedroom door is closed.
I start making pancakes for my little sister because that’s something that makes me feel like myself, instead of a guy wandering around in the woods literally not knowing what to do because a man I’m too fond of might be coming over.
“What’s all this?” Brooke asks when she shuffles into the kitchen. It’s late morning, but she’s still in her pajamas. “Pancakes?”
“And Canadian bacon.” Her favorite. “I can make eggs, too, if you want.”
“What’s with the feast?” she asks, grabbing a plate and taking some bacon.
“I felt like cooking,” I say. “And I’ve barely seen you this week.
” Even though I already sampled the pancakes to make sure they came out all right, I help myself to another serving, plus a few slices of bacon and a handful of blueberries from the fridge.
A dollop of yogurt, a drizzle of local maple syrup and I’m satisfied my breakfast could compete with anything of Nolan’s—if not in style, at least in flavor.
We take our plates and sit on the couch.
The kitchen table is where we ought to be eating, but it’s currently full of books and mail and receipts—the clutter of life that neither of us is particularly good at keeping tidy.
We tend to pile everything up and then do a big organizing day every month or so.
We’re mid-process, which means nowhere to eat except off the coffee table in the living room. It feels comfortable anyway.
After Mom and Dad, it seemed important for us to eat together rather than separately in our rooms or something, so I made it a point to share dinner every night.
But instead of sitting awkwardly across the little kitchen table, we’d put on a television show and just be together with no pressure to talk.
We worked our way through a bunch of ’90s sitcoms and a few soapy dramas.
Half the time after the show and meal were finished, we’d stick around and talk about our days, anyway.
Those are some of my best memories from those hard years right after the plane crash when I was completely out of my element, scared to death of doing something wrong, not wanting to lose my sister, too.
So now, sitting next to her on the brown couch Mom got at a clearance sale at the mall in Portland, beside the battered heavy wood coffee table Dad made with his own two hands when we were little, I feel utterly at home.
“Oh my god, these pancakes are amazing,” Brooke says. “New recipe?”
“Not really. We’re low on milk, so I threw in some kefir instead.” My sister became a kefir fan in college, and I have to admit I’ve grown fond of the stuff, too.
“You’re making them this way for the rest of time,” she says.
“Done. So, I was going to ask what you’re doing after we go see the progress on the house.”
“Oh, right.” She frowns at her half-empty plate, sets it down on the table.
“Something up?”
“No, it’s just...there’s something I’ve been meaning—”
The landline rings, cutting her off.
I glance at the phone, then back to her. Whatever my sister has to say is more important than whoever’s calling, but she smiles with closed lips and gestures for me to pick up.
It’s Marika. “I wanted to check with you—I just saw Shawn Camden. He said you invited him over to watch a baseball game?”
I’m still distracted by Brooke, though she picks up her breakfast and keeps eating, which makes me feel marginally better.
“Yeah. That’s not a problem, is it?” The whole point of the retreat is getting a break from the world, and I usually embrace that.
The invitation left my mouth without thinking—I was responding to my friend, Shawn, offering him what I would to any friend.
I wasn’t thinking about him as a guest. The lines are getting blurry.
“It’s not a problem,” she says carefully. I can tell she’s debating how much to say. “Today’s your day off. But—”
She stops, and I wonder if she can see through me, not unlike a mother would.
“But?”
“Nothing, I guess,” she says finally, as if she’s not even sure herself what the issue would be, but senses something going on that she can’t put her finger on. “It seems like whatever you two have been doing has been working for him.”
I could read into her word choice, but since there’s nothing inappropriate about the “whatever” we’ve been doing, I figure she doesn’t mean anything by it.
“Bass fishing and board games will put anyone in a better mood.”
“He definitely seemed psyched to be walking over to your place.”
“That’s good,” I say, and then her words sink in. “Wait. He’s walking here now?”
“I passed him on the road a few minutes ago.”
Shawn’s on his way here. It’s not a particularly long walk. I look around the dog-hair-coated living room, the cluttered kitchen table, the pancake mess all over the kitchen counter, and down at my flour-speckled pajama pants and sleep shirt.
“I better go,” I say.
“Blaze—”
I wait, but she says nothing. “Yeah?”
“Never mind.” She obviously has something she wants to say, but I don’t have the patience to draw it out of her. Instead, I say goodbye and hang up. She’s more like family than my boss, but it is my day off after all.
And Shawn Camden’s coming over.
“Who’s walking here now?” Brooke asks, pouring syrup on her second helping of pancakes. She seems over whatever was bothering her enough to stop eating earlier.
“One of the guests. He’s on his way here, so maybe we should get dressed. Sorry for the short notice.”
Her forehead ripples like a stone tossed into the lake. “A guest? What for?”
I rack my brain and try to think of any other retreat guest I’ve had over to the house and come up empty.
“Um. Well, it’s Shawn Camden.”
“The baseball player? Didn’t you guys go hiking a few nights ago?”
“Last week, yeah. His old team’s playing today. I told him he could watch the game here.”
“So this is a work thing?” she asks suspiciously. “I thought you had today off.”
“Not exactly. We’re friendly, I guess you could say. It’s not a big deal.” I start to clear away the breakfast mess as swiftly as I can without making it seem like I’m panic cleaning before a guy comes over.
She narrows her eyes. If Marika has a sixth sense something is up, Brooke’s antennae are twitching out of control.
“I thought we were going to see the construction site,” she says, helping me with the dishes.
I glance at the clock above the sink. “Well, the game’s not for a couple of hours. We can go beforehand.”
“And then I’ll run some errands and let you boys have the TV to yourselves,” she says.
“You don’t have to leave,” I say. “You like baseball.”
“I love baseball, but I have stuff to do. Now you better change for your new baseball bestie.”
I don’t come up with a reply to her teasing because I’m honestly stressed. I throw on some jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, then a flannel, slip into my socks and boots, brush my teeth, and then I remember Brooke never finished telling me what she started to over breakfast.
But I can’t ask her about it because when I leave my room, I find she’s already changed into a similar outfit of jeans and sweatshirt. She’s also opened the door and is ushering Shawn inside. I must have missed his knock.
He’s wearing jeans, too, and the light blue crew neck sweater he wore the other day when we ran through the rain together.
He’s got on the plain baseball cap that makes his eyes look extra green.
There’s an uncomfortable buzz in my ears as he sees me and smiles.
“Hey,” he says, sounding happy to see me.
For the first time, it occurs to me I’m actually in serious trouble here.