Love in the Time of Cynicism (21 page)

When Sky finally lets me look at my own hair (after taking about a thousand pictures for the job application), I’m shocked to find it a rich, gorgeous fall shade of orangey-yellow perfect for Halloween; the color is out there enough to leave me satisfied with being different but not crazy enough to anger my mom and Michael even further than dating Rhett did. It’s more
me
than the pink and blue ever were and is perfect for Halloween.

“You’re free to go,” Sky cedes once I marvel at how pretty the color is and such.

I cut a look at the wall clock (8:54) and respond, “Give me five minutes. You owe me a ride.”

“Fine.”

Sky follows me back to my house and up the stairs. She taps away on her phone while I check mine. There are two messages from Rhett. One:
last warm day; wear clothes you aren’t afraid to get messy
. Two:
bring a change of clothes for our date.
Confused and intrigued, I put in my contacts and dress in a pair of old shorts and a stained white shirt I wear when painting my room. Then, I pack what I’d originally been planning on wearing in my rucksack. I tie my hair back (Sky glares at me for ‘defiling her flawless styling’) and we’re off.

Riding in Sky’s car is perpetually unpleasant. First, she never cleans it. The floor is coated in a layer of shopping bags and college applications she’ll never fill out. Second, the music. It’s an unspoken rule that you can’t change the radio station in someone else’s car without explicit permission; I’ve been griping through excessive amounts of boy-bands and teen pop for a year without complaint. It’s loud and preppy and repetitively mind-dulling. Third, her actual driving sucks. No wonder it took her four tries to pass the test. When she stops at red lights, the car jams forward so suddenly the seat belt locks over my ribs. When she speeds up, it’s fast enough that I have to physically brace myself against the dash.

By the time we reach Rhett’s, I’m sufficiently jarred to last a week. I thank her (while attempting not to be sarcastic) for the ride and head up the path. The sun, surprisingly, is warm even at nine while it baets down on my back. The past few weeks have been cold enough to justify wearing a jacket and jeans every day but the weather people did warn me of an unexpected heat wave toward the end of the month. I didn’t take them seriously – because, honestly, who takes weathermen seriously? – until now.

Before my fist makes contact with the wood of the front door, Tannis throws it open, drags me inside, and warns me, “You arrived in the nick of time, as usual. Rhett’s trying to make breakfast for us and it isn’t going well. Please help.”

When I reach the kitchen, I’m absolutely shocked. The counters are covered in flour or pancake mix and the table’s loaded with open egg cartons and spilled milk. Rhett is wearing an apron and has flour dusted over his black hair. Evan (the blond one, I’ve figured out) is tugging at his leg and crying as Ethan runs around screeching at the top of his lungs. Sawyer barks out directions at the helpless Rhett, who looks over at me when I come in.

I laugh, “I thought you said you could handle things without me! You look like a helpless puppy.”

“I
am
handling it,” he protests.

“Oh please,” Sawyer argues as Tannis says “Yeah, right.”

“Don’t worry, I’m an expert at this.” Truthfully, I have zero experience with child care besides fixing Tannis-related emergencies, but I can make pancakes and eggs like nobody’s business. Putting on my best maternal voice, I say, “Everybody, line up.” Rhett drops the bowl he was whisking in, mumbles
thank god
, and rallies his siblings in front of me like a small army. I dish out orders, “Sawyer, you’re with me on cooking duty in the kitchen.” He pumps his fist in the air. “Tannis, you’re on cleaning.” She sighs but nods. “Rhett, it’s your job to watch the twins and keep them happy.” He scoops one brother up in each arm and carries them to the living room thankfully.

For the next new minutes, I help Tannis clean the mess her older brother’s made in the kitchen. Then, she moves to setting the table while Sawyer and I make up a massive batch of pancakes and eggs for breakfast. It’s quite a task considering his language is so precocious I can hardly understand a word out of his mouth. The first thing I comprehend him saying is when he suddenly stops whisking pancake batter and looks up at me, dead serious, while asking, “Are you in love with my brother?”

Baffled, I stop rifling through the fridge for butter and stand up straight. “Why do you ask?”

“Well,” he replies confidently while continuing to mix the batter, “from the research I’ve been conducting, I fear he’s in love with you and I wanted to make sure you reciprocated the feeling before he tells you in the near future, not that he’s said anything about that.”

“How old are you?” I laugh, take the pancake mix from his hands, and turn on the stove.

As I’m pouring batter out onto the pan, he responds, “Old enough to know more about love than most people ever will.”

“Yeah? Like what?” I’m quite interested in hearing his response.

“I know that love is what makes you smile when you’re tired and don’t have any other reason to. Love is when boys suddenly care about smelling good. Love is my dad coming home late because he stopped to buy my mom flowers for no reason.” He pauses here and furrows his eyebrows. “And love is what’s making the scars on Rhett’s arms go away. He thinks I can’t see them and even though I don’t really understand what happened, since he’s known you, no more scars have shown up. So thank you and I definitely think you should consider-”

Sawyer stops I’m standing there in the kitchen near tears. All of a sudden, there’s a hand slipping onto my waist around to my stomach and Rhett kisses the side of my head. My stomach flips and a slow smile spreads over my lips.

“Hey,” he says, “how’s everything going in here?”

I turn into his embrace and reply, “Perfect.”

“Sawyer giving you a hard time?”

“Merely putting forth the importance of love,” I tell him.

He doesn’t let go as I turn around and flip a pancake, instead resting his head on my shoulder and shooting a glance at Sawyer. My insides twist around at this intimate touch. “Is that so? Would you like to say more about that, kiddo?”

Sawyer makes a zipped lips motion and runs off.

I laugh and move the pancake to the stack. “Want to help me finish this now that you’ve successfully scared off my dutiful helper?”

“Sure.” Rhett detaches from me and I immediately miss his touch. “First though, I’d like to hear exactly what my loose-lipped little brother told you.”

“That’s for my ears only, I’m afraid,” I reply cheekily.

“Fine,” he says. “I only hope he didn’t divulge any of my plans for the day.”

“No promises.”

Rhett rolls those amber eyes and asks, “What do you need done in order to have breakfast?”

“Scramble those eggs and call everyone back to the kitchen.”

When we the six of us eat, I’m complemented profusely on my cooking skills. It’s nice having my efforts appreciated by someone who isn’t me. Normally, I make my own breakfast and pat myself on the back when finished. Today, though, there’s a continuous chain of gratitude for quite possibly the simplest meal I’ve ever made.

As Tannis and Sawyer do the dishes, I ask Rhett, “What exactly was your plan to entertain your siblings for the rest of the day?”

“A family tradition as old as time, which you will be introduced to. Thus the crap clothes.”

I feign horror and say, “
Rhett
, this tee shirt is
designer
. The paint splotches are a metaphor for the designer’s inner pain. Educate yourself.”

“Apologies,” he laughs.

Tannis pipes in here, “Can I set up outside?”

Rhett starts, “Actually, can you-”

“Go ahead,” I tell her. When she’s off and Rhett turns to me for an explanation, I say, “If you won’t tell me what the plan is, I’ll be in charge.”

“I love it when you get tough with me.” He grins widely and the fire in my stomach burns stronger. “Come help me with the twins.”

A few minutes later, it’s all set up, apparently. The sun has risen high by the time we head out, me holding Ethan and Rhett toting Evan, to the expansive backyard. I’m instantly a bit fearful when I see what Tannis has put together. There’s a Twister mat on the grass, and every red, green, blue, and yellow circle is topped with a large glob of the corresponding color paint.

We set the twins down in the grass with playdoh and blocks and join the preteen on the edge of the white mat. Tannis beams at me and says, “It’s messy Twister. Same rules, except the person with the least paint on their body when everyone falls loses. Simple. Sawyer will be the caller.”

“What’s the penalty for losing?” I ask nervously as I look over my freshly shaved, clean legs. Being coated in paint would necessitate showering before my date with Rhett, which has the potential to complicate things.

“You
lose
. Duh,” she responds like it’s the worst thing that could happen. “Ready?”

I nod hesitantly and position myself on the mat. Jesus, I haven’t played this game in years and never with paint. It’s exactly the kind of thing Rhett and his siblings would do, I suppose.

Sawyer starts off the game by calling, “Right hand, green.”

I bend forward and slide my fingers into the pile of chilly, slimy acrylic.

The enterprise ends up being entirely more ridiculous than anticipated. At first, I’m awkward and unsure of myself, slipping and catching myself every move, then I decide to go all out with the most stupid and risky moves possibly. When Sawyer says, “Left foot, yellow,” I twist over Rhett, smear my orange leg across his chest and end up practically sitting on his knee.

At the next call, Rhett laughs and says, “Your new hair is gorgeous, by the way,” right before sliding his multicolored hands over my head and arching over me to get his hand on a red spot. At this, I lift my hand vengefully, balancing wobblingly on my left, scoop a handful of cold blue up, and slap it onto his neck. The paint drips slowly down his chest and onto my shoulder. His jaw drops in surprise at my action and he reciprocates by running a hand over my less-than-appropriately angled thigh.

Sawyer complains, “The
game
, teenagers. Pay attention.” I laugh as he instructs, “Right foot, green.”

There’s no way I can make it. I’m in the position of a stopped back handspring and arched precariously over one of Tannis’s legs and Rhett’s chest. As Tannis stretches below me to touch her toe on a green space and Rhett bumps into her, she loses her balance and falls unceremoniously on her butt with a hard thud and a quiet curse, which Rhett instantly reprimands her for.

Sawyer laughs somewhat sadistically, “You’re out, Tannis; step away from the mat!”

Tannis rolls her eyes and wriggles away. She joins the twins with their playdoh and begins to make shapes and tell stories to them. It’s adorable, but I have to concentrate on the game at hand. Rhett and I are the last two left. This means war.

Rhett turns to me seriously, face about three inches from mine, features distorted by streams of muggy color, and says, “Cordelia Kane, you are proving to be a formidable opponent. Don’t worry, though, I
will
crush you.”

“Not a chance,” I reply with a smirk. “Flexibility is one of my many gifts.”

He lifts an eyebrow provocatively. “I bet.”

I nearly fall right then and have to stop myself from cursing. “Sorry; I didn’t realize how suggestive that would sound out loud. Sometimes I say things and they-”

“Come out wrong? Yeah, I know.” Rhett continues genuinely (if a bit sarcastically) and kisses the tip of my nose softly, “I know
you
, darling.”

He called me
darling
, my heart sighs at the same time Sawyer shouts, “No mushy stuff! Back to the game; this is of the utmost import.”

“Import?” Rhett chuckles, “Seriously?””

Sawyer replies, “Right hand, yellow!”

Rhett and I go for the same space and our fingers clash against each other. I can tell that I’ve scratched him with my thumb (probably hard enough to draw blood), so I move to a different space as a gesture of atonement. He jokes, “Going for the jugular, I see. Never pegged you as someone to fight dirty.”

“Oh, I’m sure you’ll that’s only the beginning of what you’ll learn about me.” I pause, shift slightly on my toes, and say, “Sorry; overly suggestive again.”

This goes on at least twenty minutes longer before we’re in a situation precarious enough that one of us might actually win. Though Rhett could easily kick my ass in, say, running a mile in less than half an hour or hopping fences, it turns out we’re relatively evenly matched in the field of Twister. That’s a skill I’m extremely proud of, thank you very much.

The game ends moments after Sawyer commands, “Right hand, red.”

I’m already perched on my toes and bent awkwardly over Rhett’s body and this motion involves reaching my arm past his head. He’s practically shaking from keeping himself bent at such a low angle for such a long time but isn’t giving up without a fight; all I have to do is press my body slightly against his during this transition and he’ll fall seconds before I do, so I’ll finally win the game.