Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Danny
? Take a yoga class
“Okay, but her top and bra were literally on the floor of the foyer.”
Charlie and I move seamlessly in the kitchen to prepare a breakfast spread: He pours batter for a pancake; I toss him a spatula; he flips the sausages on the cast iron; I drop a plate by him for the pancakes; he slides the butter dish across the counter for me to chuck some in the grits.
We fall into the dance easily, since we’ve done more than our share of co-cooking for Mom-related holidays over the years.
Mother’s Day, her birthday, her law firm anniversary, her transition-my-old-bedroom-into-her-dream-closet anniversary, Earth Day.
My mom loves the chance for each of us to be specially celebrated often, including herself.
“I did not see lady clothing on the floor, I swear,” Charlie laughs as he flips a pancake with perfect precision. “I was too focused on dragging your ass out of bed and making you tell me everything.”
Christina is currently upstairs getting dressed.
I gathered Christina’s clothes from around the house—a tingling satisfaction settling low to find them exactly where I’d tossed them.
Well, the clothes were all where I’d left them except her peacoat, which she’d hung on the hook beside my old leather jacket that she teases me about.
Why should the sight of her coat next to mine affect me so strongly?
This little dose of shared domesticity that I’ve never even considered with anyone else?
The hook is hers now, whether she uses it again or not.
“Well?” Charlie urges, throwing a handful of salt into the grits. “I obviously see where things ended, but you gotta give me a little more before she comes downstairs.”
I start peeling mandarins. “I don’t know, man. It’s gonna take me a week to process what’s happening here.”
“The sex was good?”
I huff. Sex with Christina likely caused ripples through every version of us that might exist in infinite dimensions. “Unreal, actually.”
“And she stayed the night.”
Because it felt right to her. “Yes.”
“Are either of you going to be having sex with other people in the near and/or far future?”
That I don’t know. She said she hated all of the guys she met at the bars because they weren’t me, but that was before last night, when she couldn’t stop thinking about me and watching the video of our kiss.
What if she now feels satiated and unleashed enough to follow through with her casual hookups? What if I become one in a rotation?
I’m not even sure I would say no if that’s what she offered me. Although the thought of anyone else’s hands on her twists my insides with a sharp blade.
“She wants to play things by ear.”
Charlie clicks off the stovetop for the cast iron, the perfectly browned sausages sizzling. “What does that mean?”
“I think it means we have to take it one day at a time.” I frown as I stir the grits. “But she also said we’re the opposite of casual.”
Charlie snorts. “Yeah, no shit. I’m wondering if the moon eyes you make at each other will be as dramatic in the live show as they are in the doc footage.”
Measured footsteps on the stairs alert us that Christina’s coming down.
She rounds into the kitchen in her jeans and one of my hoodies, since the slinky top she was wearing last night was more suited for the bars.
Her hair is still tousled but more purposefully so, and she smiles broadly at me. “Smells amazing.”
The nagging uncertainty about our status instantly vanishes. I’m sure I’ll toil over it later tonight, but Christina’s happiness over the breakfast we’re making her is a shot of pure dopamine.
“I wish we could give you a true Southern breakfast,” Charlie says, “but our Danny here doesn’t own a fryer.”
Her eyes flare appreciatively even as she feigns outrage. “You’re telling me there’s no home fries?”
I shake my head indulgently. “No, but I put a whole stick of butter in the grits.”
She crosses her arms. “That sausage I smell better be done in a cast iron.”
“I’d insist you kick me out of my own house if I did it any other way.”
Charlie pipes in, “We also had to go with pancakes instead of biscuits because someone thought it would take too long to make biscuits from scratch.”
Christina rounds the counter and retrieves three mugs for the coffee we brewed. “Shameful. We may as well be in Maine.”
As we laugh, she asks, “How do the Reeves boys take their coffee?”
I open my mouth to answer but she cuts me off. “Wait! Let me guess.” She analytically darts her eyes between us. “Both of you take it with a lot of whole milk and a shit ton of sugar.”
Charlie narrows his eyes at her. “How do you know that?”
She tosses her hair triumphantly. “A little birdie told me that y’all’s favorite drink is Raspberry Vodka and Sprite. You both are clearly on the sweet tooth side of things.”
Charlie finishes off the last pancake as I take the grits off the stove. “An astute inference,” he says, impressed.
“Only an amateur would think Danny takes his coffee black,” she adds with her back to us, doctoring the coffees.
Her nonchalant words slam into me. How does she see me so clearly?
Why does it feel so good to be seen by her?
I’ve only ever been a disappointment when I’m my true self with people outside of my family.
My critique of injustices in the South can be interpreted as attacks; my intensity can be interpreted as austere; my focus can be interpreted as obsessive.
She’s right: Almost any other person might guess I take my coffee black.
But I take it just as sweet as Charlie does. And somehow she knows that.
Charlie catches my eye and mouths, Opposite of casual.
When Christina turns back to us, she gasps. “Charlie! I have that exact same T-shirt!”
Charlie looks down at the recognizable butterfly logo embedded in loopy writing across the front of his tee. “It’s not Christmas without a trip to Dollywood, and it’s not a trip to Dollywood without a shit ton of merch.”
“That’s a truth that will set you free! My family used to go every Christmas too. Jesus and Dolly Parton are essentially on the same level of importance, holiday-wise.”
“Obviously,” Charlie breezes. “We’ll have to check to see if we show up in the background of each other’s old photos.”
Christina lights up. “Oh, I would give anything to find a wiry teen Danny in my pictures. But here’s the million-dollar question.” She hooks an eyebrow. “How long was his hair?”
Charlie’s laugh booms out. “You know our Danny. He settled on that hairstyle when he was about ten. Stable as a table.”
Christina turns to me with the wattage of her smile maxed out. I just drink her in. Watching her play around with my brother—watching my two favorite people in this world laughing together in my kitchen—settles a sense of calm deep in my veins.
I hear Charlie mutter something suspiciously close to moon eyes.
“Is it okay if we eat in the living room?” Christina asks me, gathering up the coffee mugs. “I want to open the windows so we can still hear the rain.”
“Of course.”
“Aren’t rainy Sundays the best?” Charlie says, balancing the plate of pancakes in one hand as he retrieves the syrup from the fridge with his other.
“Yes!” Christina squeals. “And all other rainy days are trash, yes?”
“Pure trash,” he confirms, exiting to the adjacent living room.
Christina crosses to me and rises on her toes to whisper in my ear. “I do want to listen to the rain, but I’m also pretty sure you haven’t cleaned the kitchen table yet after the debauchery it experienced last night.”
I hum sensually. “The kitchen table is very confused about its identity this morning. It no longer knows if it’s for eating or for fucking.”
“Oh, it’s for eating all sorts of things,” she whispers, then slowly pulls back to decimate me with a sultry look.
I have to take a moment to clear my head—and adjust my pants—before I follow her to the living room with the rest of the food.
We eat, and we laugh, and Christina charges Charlie with recounting every single middle school story of me he can remember.
Jesus, he remembers a lot. I have to correct a lot of overexaggerated details, but Christina is having the time of her life with every new story—whipping a shocked face to me, gripping my forearm, throwing her head on my shoulder in laughter.
She insists we would make a fortune if we started a podcast called The Reeves Boys, which is apparently her new official name for us as a set.
But Christina also asks Charlie about his marketing job, and our family dinners, and who he’s been dating lately. This isn’t Southern hospitality; she’s genuinely invested in getting to know my brother and best friend. Because he’s my brother and best friend?
I’ve got a hand on her knee or an arm over her shoulders at all times, especially since she sweetly patted the spot on the couch next to her when I was selecting my seat.
Whenever I shift, she gives me this soft expression, like she’s encouraging me to keep the physical contact.
Like it keeps us connected. Or maybe it just validates the connection that exists nonphysically.
Either way, I can’t keep my hands off of her.
The touches are mostly comforting, but a lewd drag of her nail or a sensual brush of her inner thigh slips in now and again.
Both our breathing hitches when that happens, even though we try to keep it cool in front of Charlie.
The smirks he throws me whenever Christina isn’t looking tell me we’re not exactly keeping it as cool as we think.
By the afternoon, the rain has cleared and the sun streams through the windows. Christina sighs. “I think the universe is telling us we need to film that yoga class today, especially since you already secured permissions from all the attendees and whatnot.”
“Oh right, I forgot we were supposed to do that.” I check the time on my phone. “The class is at 5:00.”
Charlie cocks his head. “What’s this? Danny Reeves of UNsweet Tea forgot about a previously scheduled shoot?”
Christina grins. “Unheard of?”
“Unheard of.”
“I think Danny boy is having as many new experiences with TJL as I am.”
I nuzzle my nose into her temple and whisper just for her, “Most definitely I am.”
She shivers.
“Let me film today,” Charlie offers. “You obviously can’t hold the selfie stick while doing yoga, and even if you have three camera angles to intercut, it’ll feel static. Yoga needs a sense of motion.”
“He has a point,” Christina says. “Although I’m just realizing I don’t have any workout clothes.”
I think for a moment. Any of my clothes would drown her, as has been evidenced. “Oh, this place actually has a nice shop attached. We can buy you what you need before class.”
“Ah, a shopping montage beforehand could actually be really great for the doc,” she considers. “Gives the whole thing more of a sense of occasion.”
She’s right. Her instincts for documentary-making are both on target and highly creative.
I wonder if she would be open to looking at the evolving TJL script with me.
I was planning on bringing her in once I had a full rough cut, but I think she could better shape the outcome if she were involved in the editing side earlier.
“Why is yoga on the list?” Charlie asks.
Christina rolls her eyes. “Because my religious background sees it as quote Hindu or Buddhist or one of those strange ones unquote.”
“Who are you quoting?”
“That’s my mother, specifically, but it’s a view shared by most in those circles. They think the widespread normalization of yoga as a form of exercise is the devil at work, sneaking sacrilege into our daily lives.”
I snort. “The devil is busy, huh?”
Charlie gapes. “How did you end up so cool growing up in all of that?”
Christina winds her fingers in mine before she answers smugly. “You’ll have to watch the documentary to find out.”