Chapter 7 #2
Luke snorted. “You find the right woman and that thinking will change.”
“We can’t all be as lucky as you, finding the love of your life in your own town.”
Rachel shot him a sidelong glance that made something in Kell go warm.
“Well, come home and try. Or meet her there and bring her here.”
“Hah! The last place I’m going to find the love of my life is in Luview, Maine.”
“Hey, man. It’s the love-liest place on Earth.”
They both groaned. Living in Love You was fine most of the time, but five years of living away from home–and one of those years in D.C.–gave Kell some perspective.
“Everything there is red and heart shaped–even the mugs at Love You Coffee. Do you have any idea how disorienting it was to move away and see circles?”
Luke chuckled. “I do. I went away for college, too. And did a year of study in Italy, remember?”
“Right. And you came back.”
“Never intended to leave for good.”
Amber came into the picture, her hand going to Harriet’s head.
The thin wisps of baby hair were finally growing in, dark like Amber’s and showing the slightest hint of curls.
Amber had a wide face, brown eyes, and thick, curling hair that was so dark, it was almost black.
Always smiling, she also had a slightly nervous affect Kell didn’t understand until he went to college and met more people.
Then he realized she wasn’t the only one.
Rachel reached over to dip a chip and nearly upset her beer, making her gasp.
“Someone there with you?” Amber asked, face closer to the screen.
“A friend.”
“Alissa?”
Kell’s stomach soured and his face must have shown it, because Amber immediately said, “What’s wrong?”
“It’s, uh–”
“Hi!” Rachel leaned in, looking at the screen, giving a little wave. “I’m Rachel. Nice to meet you.”
“Hi, Rachel!” Amber laughed. “You’re not Alissa.”
Rachel made a scoffing sound. “Uh, no. I’m definitely not.”
“Trouble in paradise?”
Kell cleared his throat. “I broke up with Alissa today.”
Amber’s eyes widened. “Whoa, you move on fast.”
“No! It’s not like that,” Rachel hurried to say.
He stopped her with a hand on her shoulder, eyes still on the screen. Might as well get this over with and face his shame.
“Alissa was using me to get a meeting with Uncle Ted.”
“WHAT?” Luke and Amber exclaimed at the same time, righteous indignation in both their voices.
“Yeah. I’m a sucker.”
“No! Kell! You’re a sweetie!” Amber exclaimed. “I’m so sorry.”
Rachel looked at him.
“She’s right. You are a sweetie.”
“I am not. I am a dedicated and highly motivated aide to prominent leaders in environmental policy and have co-authored a widely read white paper on wetlands conservation.”
“You are more than your stupid resumé summary,” Rachel said with a sigh.
“Wait a minute… are you Friend Rachel? The one Deanna was talking to during the Kiss Festival?”
Rachel’s face froze at the Friend Rachel comment, then she smiled.
“Yes?” she replied tentatively.
“Ahhh, okay! What’re you two up to?”
“Commiserating. Rachel’s the one who found out about how Alissa was just using me, and warned me. She took a job with Big Oil and didn’t tell me, and–”
“Schemed to get access to Ted for the Canada-Maine pipeline?” Luke interrupted, putting it all together fast. That’s how Luke was. Small town cop, but with a sharp eye for patterns.
Probably why he was such a good cop.
“Yep.”
“Good guess!” Rachel said as Harriet reached for the phone and began repeating “babababababababa” in increasingly frustrated tones.
“No, you can’t eat Daddy’s phone,” Luke said as he jiggled her.
Hearing Luke refer to himself as Daddy was still jarring for Kell.
Right after Harriet was born, he’d been home for a bit between graduation and starting at EEC.
He got to know her when she was an infant, which had been wonderful.
Leaving to come to D.C. was exciting, but knowing he wouldn’t be there to watch her grow up had made his choice a lot harder.
Being the uncle who came into town a few times a year would have to be enough, even if it hurt a part of him.
“I’m sorry Alissa did that to you. I assume Ted knows? Put a stop to the nonsense?” Amber asked, brushing her hair off her forehead. She was a bookkeeper at the local hospital, and Kell knew that Harriet was the first of many planned children.
Good. Let his brother give his parents all the grandchildren they wanted. It gave Kell plenty of freedom to follow his own path.
“Oh, yes. He figured it out and called me. It’s a long story.”
“I’ll bet.” Luke smiled. “But it looks like you have someone there to hang out with.”
“We’re about to watch some Nordic noir.”
Amber and Luke groaned. “You still watch those shows?”
“Those shows are the best!” Rachel chimed in, her voice excited and a little defensive. “How can you not like them?”
“Because I’m a cop in northern Maine. Cuts a little too close to home,” Luke replied.
Kell snorted. “The only murder you’ve ever had to worry about is who murdered a piece of Greta’s maple cranberry apple pie at the bakery counter.”
“I confess,” Luke joked. “Put me in handcuffs.”
Amber winked at him. “How about later?”
“GROSS!” Kell shouted, suddenly feeling like when he was fourteen and accidentally walked in on the two of them making out in Luke’s childhood bedroom, half clothed and full throttled.
Luke and Amber laughed, the sound of people in love getting horny, and Kell wondered if that sibling for Harriet wasn’t coming sooner rather than later.
“Harriet,” Kell said, the baby’s eyes suddenly looking at him. “Hi!”
“Ah!”
“Can you say Kell?”
“Ah!”
“She says Mama.”
“MAMAMAMAMAMA!” the baby said.
“And Daddy.”
“DOO DI!”
“Luke, does she call you Doodie? Because that’s what I called you, too, when we were kids. Doodie Head.”
“DOO DI!”
“It’s her version of Daddy,” Luke said, suddenly gruff. Then his face changed and he sniffed, lifting Harriet up off his lap. “Aw, man. Diaper malfunction.”
“Oh, no! Your pants!” Amber gasped, looking down at Luke’s lap.
Kell winced. Parenting was messy.
“Gotta go, bro. Nice meeting you, Rachel,” Luke said, moving off camera with the baby, a dark stain on his jeans. Amber came on the screen.
“Kell, sorry about Alissa, but I was never a fan.”
“You weren’t?”
“She was too… I don’t know.”
“Too what?”
“I’ve got Harriet,” he heard Luke say off camera. “Go for your walk.”
Amber had stepped away and was sliding her big red poncho over her head; it was her signature piece of clothing. His sister-in-law enjoyed long walks, the red coat a familiar sight on country roads, just enough like Little Red Riding Hood to get her teased.
“I’m meeting up with Dotty,” Amber called toward the phone, which she’d set in a cradle.
“You and your walks,” Kell said with a laugh. Dotty was the town librarian, an older woman with salt-and-pepper hair who had held that job since Kell could remember.
“Just stay on the sidewalks! It’s too dark for the side roads,” Luke called out to her.
Amber stuck her tongue out at the screen. “Your brother is bossy.”
“Which is why he’s a cop,” Kell said, nodding.
“HEY!” Luke shouted, but his tone was friendly.
“Bye!” Amber kissed the air in front of the screen and ended the call.
“They’re…” Rachel said, voice trailing off.
“A lot?”
“Very fun.”
“Fun? I can think of lots of words to describe my family, but fun isn’t one of them. Let’s start with overbearing.”
“Now I’ve ‘met’ your mom, your brother and sister-in-law, and your niece. They don’t seem smothering at all.”
“Then maybe I’m the one who’s the oddball.”
Rachel gave him a playful shove. “Cut it out. I like your family.”
“Alissa didn’t. She avoided any FaceTime calls. Said they were intrusive.”
“Did she go home with you to meet them?”
He shook his head. “We started dating after Christmas, and I didn’t go home for Easter. I flew home in early March, but it felt too early to invite her. Then she started pushing… I guess that was after she realized who my uncle was.”
“Oh–it sounded like they’d met her.”
“Sure. On FaceTime, twice. Exactly twice. Not Ted–he lives in Augusta–but yes, everyone else saw her.”
“How often do you have video calls with your family?”
“Three or four times a week.”
“Wow. I talk to my parents maybe once a month.”
“Is that because you’re avoiding them, or because they don’t try?”
“Such a straightforward question with such a complicated answer.”
Kell turned to her. He picked up his beer, which was now dripping with condensation, and took a sip. “Family shouldn’t be that complicated.”
“You haven’t met mine.”
“Just because your mom’s a famous actress doesn’t make it that different.”
“I don’t mean it that way!” Rachel looked flustered, the conversation taking a serious turn. “I just mean, my parents are nothing like your parents.”
“All individuals are different.”
“My family isn’t as accepting as yours.”
“Accepting?”
“Relaxed. Calm. Just… nice and easy to be around.”
“I told you earlier, you’re easy to be around.”
“I’m the only one, then. Mom is an actress and scared to get old, so she’s constantly worried about her looks–I mean constantly.
Dad has always made high-level deals, but now Hollywood is globalizing and he doesn’t have the Asian contacts he needs, so he’s stressed.
My brother just got accepted into the Air Force Academy, and all he does is study and work out.
His goal is to be an astronaut. He’s intense.
When I’m home, it’s like we’re four people living in the same house but we rarely intersect on anything other than meals.
” She frowned. “And even those are rare.”
“Wow.”
“Right? You have video calls three or four times a week. I get texts from my mother, but they’re usually selfies asking, ‘Does this filler work for those two lines around my mouth?’”
“Huh.”
“I know they love me. I just feel like I’ll never be good enough for them.”
“Of course you are!”
“I’m not thin enough for my mom.”
Kell took a long, appreciative look at her. “You’re, uh… fine. Just fine.”
“Right. I’m fine.”
“Rachel. You’re more than fine.”
“You’re just saying that because you feel bad for telling me the truth about being ‘just fine.’”
“No. I was trying not to sound like a creep by commenting on your body. A body I held in my arms while you were half naked the other day, I might add.”
“You’re never a creep, Kell.” She looked down at herself, her legs tucked under her on the couch. With her dark hair in a ponytail and a little makeup on her, but not much, Kell thought she looked fresh and real and comfortable.
But he was becoming uncomfortable in ways that made him… uncomfortable.
New feelings for Rachel were too close to spilling out, and now was not the time. He’d just dumped Alissa by text. All these responses were just some mixed-up reaction to that, nothing more.
“Thank you.”
His phone buzzed. He looked.
“Oh, no. Alissa.”
“What’s she saying?”
“I can’t believe you canceled my appointment with your uncle, you jerk! I just found out. Why would you do that?”
“She said that?” Rachel gasped. “She called you a jerk?”
“Hmph. I didn’t cancel it. Uncle Ted did.”
“She ghosts on you, then she’s super vague when you break up with her, and now she texts you to chew you out?” Rachel’s face turned red. “You really deserve someone who will love you the right way.”
“I do?”
“I’m getting really, really angry on your behalf.”
“I don’t need anyone else to be angry for me. I’ve got enough rage to run a power plant.” He tossed his phone onto a chair and picked up the remote. “Let’s watch Icelandic investigators solve a frozen death. If I’m going to focus my attention on a cold woman, let it be someone other than Alissa.”
Rachel nearly spit out her mouthful of beer.
Kell started the first episode, grabbing a red-and-white fleece blanket with the words LOVE YOU WARM printed on it. He shook it out and covered them both, settling in. Rachel set the bag of lime tortilla chips in his lap, holding the bowl of guac.
She really was perfect.