Miss Match (38 page)

I hate ladders.

The back door jerks open and Nate and Ryan come in loudly, accompanied by cold air and sawdust.

"Wow, girls, looks great!" Nate exclaims, waving to the walls.

"Thanks!" Lexi yells back, though they are two feet apart.

"Yeah. Thanks."

"Hey, Ryan had a great idea. We're taking you two out to lunch,"
Nate yells. The boy has the biggest lungs I have ever heard. He can't
whisper to save his life.

"Aw, that's so sweet, Ryan!" Lexi squeals. "I'll call Dad."

Lexi can't whisper to save her life either.

Suddenly I find myself praying fervently that any children the two of
them have take predominantly after Dad. Or I am never babysitting.

Ever.

"Let me get my coat." I yawn, standing.

"Better not, Laur. You've got paint all over you," Ryan says.

"I do not! I was careful!"

He comes over and swipes his finger over my shoulder blade and
shows it to me. Cranberry covers his fingertip.

"Told ya."

I moan. "Lexi Holbrook Kennedy, did you paint my backside while
I was on the ladder?"

"Come on, kids, I think Nate's starving." She calmly ignores me, following her husband through the laundry room to the garage.

I send a glare her way.

Ryan smirks. "Sisterly love."

"Ah, yes."

He points. "It's on your face too."

"Well, that was my fault."

"How'd it get on your face?"

"I was pretending the brush was a microphone and it hit my
cheek."

A wrinkle appears between Ryan's eyebrows. "You were pretending the brush was a microphone and-you know what? I think I'd just
rather not know."

I smile at him. He has sawdust caked into the creases on his jeans
and filtered through his hair. He uses two fingers and pushes me toward
the garage.

I twist, trying to see the back of me. "I'll get paint on the car."

"Where does Lexi keep her paint rags?"

I frown. "I don't think she does."

"Does what?"

"Keep her paint rags."

"She buys new rags every time she needs to paint or change the oil?"
he asks incredulously.

1 bite my lip. "I don't think she does that either."

"Buys rags?"

"No, changes the oil."

He slaps his forehead, not realizing the cranberry paint on his finger
hasn't dried yet, and gets a nice bullet-looking dab up there. "Women,"
he mutters.

I grin at him. Widely.

"What?"

"When did you get shot?"

"I beg your pardon?"

I touch his forehead. "You have blood. Figured you'd been shot."

He looks at me, at his finger, back at me, and sighs.

"Does Lexi have a towel we could mess up?"

I nod. "She keeps Barbie towels in the garage to dry Muffin off after
she's had a bath."

"Barbie towels?"

I laugh at his tone. "Oh come on. It will be a new experience."

I open the garage door and find Nate spreading the aforesaid towels
all over the backseat of his Nissan.

"I wouldn't want my wife sticking to the seats." He pinches the
cream-colored back pocket on Lexi's jeans. She yelps.

"So you'd rather my rear end stick to a towel with Barbie's big-busted
figure instead?"

Nate kisses her. Probably as a way to get out of explaining his
true reason for coating the entirety of the back end of the Nissan with
towels.

Lexi pushes away. "You just don't want your precious leather
marred up."

"Aw, now, Honey, it's so cute when you're mad and use a word like
mar."

"Oh, go be smug in the driver's seat."

We pile in, girls in the back, guys in the front. Nate turns the key
and grins at Lexi in the rearview mirror. "You know what they always
say, pookums. Behind every great man is a great woman." He waves to us
in the backseat. "Physical proof, wouldn't you say?"

Lexi crosses her arms and tries unsuccessfully to bite back a smile.
"Just drive, Nathan."

He backs the car out of the garage.

"And don't ever call me pookums again."

Ryan snorts in the passenger seat and then tries to cover it with a
cough. "Uh, right, um, so where are we going?"

"Subway. Oh, and Sweetie, I called Dad and he's going to meet us
there," Lexi tells me.

I make a face. "Oh boy. I'm going to get a lecture about getting toxic
chemicals on my face."

Ryan starts laughing. "Rule twenty-one?"

I use the corner of a towel with a particularly cheeky Barbie to try to
rub the paint smear off. Nothing happens. It must have already dried.

"I'm toast!"

Lexi leans over and checks her face in the rearview mirror. "It's on my
face too, Butternut. You're not the only one in poor sorts with our father."

I'm scrubbing now, panic rising in me. "But you don't live with him."
One time I was cleaning the bathroom without gloves and Dad nearly
grounded me because of it.

"Very true," she concedes. "Here. Let me try." She licks her finger
and rubs my cheek. A little comes off on her thumb. "I'm going to run
out of saliva before I'm done."

Ryan watches us and gags. "Lexi, Lexi, Lexi. Stop, please. Look."
He grabs a water bottle from the front cup holder. "Wet the towel with
this."

"We're here," Nate announces, pulling into a parking space.

"Quick, Lexi," I fret.

She's got her bottom lip between her teeth. "I can't get the bottle
open."

"You must have really done well in Phys. Ed." Ryan grins. "First the
paint can, then the bottle." He holds out his hand and she gives it back
to him. He breaks the safety ring easily.

Nate turns off the engine and hops out. Ryan gets out and then
opens nay door.

"Let me have one of those extra towels," Ryan says. I give it to him.
He soaks the corner of it, closes the bottle, and tosses it over the car to
Nate, who stands beside Lexi's side, ready to do the same.

"Look at me," Ryan commands.

He holds my chin with one hand and drags the towel over my face
with the other. I can feel my heart starting to beat faster and I don't look
at his eyes, sure he's laughing at me.

He finishes scouring a minute later and bends down, smiling into
my eyes and tightening my bandana. "You look like a home girl."

"Thanks." I take a breath, trying to be nonchalant, but doggone
it, it's hard with him standing three inches away and tying something
around my hair.

"Heavens, woman, did you get any paint on the walls?" Nate
bursts.

I sneak another breath.

"A few flecks, I think." Lexi twists away from the towel he holds.
"You're scraping that down my face! Babe, Dad's going to think you
dragged me across the parking lot with how red my face is."

Ryan's eyes twinkle as he finishes with the bandana and moves so I
can slide out.

Air. What a marvelous thing!

"Okay, okay, okay, that is enough!" Lexi yells, pushing Nate's futile
towel away and jumping out of the car. "Dad will just have to get mad,
because I don't care anymore."

"But then he'll suspend your allowance, and what will we use to buy
the new table saw?" Nate whines.

She laughs and smacks his chest. "You are nuts! I married a
cashew!"

Ryan closes my door and leans down next to my ear. "Are they always
this crazy?"

"Since the day they were born," I whisper back. "God help their
future children."

"Amen."

I spot Dad's car in the parking lot, and he already has a table for us
when we walk in.

"Over here, kids!" he says and waves.

I step around the tables and chairs and smile at him. Dad wears a
nice but casual sweater and slacks.

The other people in the restaurant probably think he's a nice older
man who has compassion on a bunch of street hoodlums. And my bandana isn't helping matters.

"Laurie, you have paint all over you," Dad chides, his frown lines
creasing on his forehead.

"Yeah, well, blame your middle daughter for that one." I am good at
shifting blame.

He raises his eyes to his middle daughter. "Lexi?"

She is immediately running for the counter. "Uh, we should probably order before they run out of cucumbers. Can't have a good sandwich
without cucumbers, Dad."

Got to hand it to Lexi. She's a smooth one.

Dad stands. "We should save this table. The girl who works here told
me every hour on the hour a huge group from the gym next door comes
in and crowds the whole place up." He looks at his watch. "We've got
ten minutes."

"I'll stay, sir." Ryan touches my elbow. "Hey, order me a ham with
lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, onions, and cucumbers. And oil and vinegar
on six-inch wheat."

I nod. "Okay, so a turkey sandwich with cheese, jalapenos, and honey mustard on white."

He sighs.

I join the others at the counter and give our orders to the annoyingly
perky sandwich maker.

We heat the crowd by a good four minutes. Two bites into our sandwiches, the door bursts open and easily thirty people push and squeeze
their way into a semblance of a line.

Dad watches them, finishes chewing, and clears his throat. "Hmph.
Girl was right."

I glance at the clock on the dashboard as I climb out of the Tahoe. Six
forty-five.

Precariously balanced in my hands are my Bible, my notebook, and
my ever-present coffee. Ruby told me to be about fifteen minutes early for
small group on Tuesday so I can be here when the kids come in.

It is Tuesday. I'm fifteen minutes early.

I walk through the glass doors leading to the youth side of the church
and find Ruby and Nick.

Their backs are to me. His arm curls comfortably around her shoulders, and her head leans against his chest as they study a poster stapled
to the wall.

Do I interrupt? Do I clear my throat and make them see me? Or do
I try to slip past unnoticed?

I purse my lips as I debate the pros and cons, the stack in my arms
getting heavier by the moment.

Nick leans over and kisses the top of Ruby's head, then lays his
cheek there.

I am definitely going to sneak past unnoticed.

Here's what I am: A Klutz to the Kore.

I have one foot carefully around the corner, my back rubbing up
against it, when my notebook slides out from the middle of the stack and
my coffee shudders.

I knew I should have bought the texture-covered notebook. It
wouldn't have slid so easily.

I grab for the coffee and catch it.

The problem is that in the midst of catching the coffee and saving
the church a carpet cleaning bill, I drop the books and they crash to the
floor with an unearthly loud boom.

I detect an echo. And yet our church does not have a basement.

Or so I thought.

Like most churches, we have a newcomer's class for the people who
are on the church hop and trying to see what we're all about. My church
puts their pictures up on a bulletin board outside the sanctuary's door.

And yet never once have I seen any of those people around on
Sundays.

How would the apostle Paul put it?

"I became convinced that what I once thought, that the newcomers
went to a different service time, was not true; in my flesh, I assumed all
men, in particular our senior pastor, had the best interests at heart for
the newcomers, and yet now I see clearly that all men, in particular our
senior pastor, are sinful, fleshly creatures who have only their own interests in sight, not the interests of others."

In other words, I think my senior pastor is hiding the poor souls who
go to the newcomer's class in a hidden basement and making them physically act out the five points of Calvinism.

But I digress.

Nick and Ruby whirl when they hear my books.

"Laurie." Ruby breathes, hand to heart. "Good night. I thought
someone was trying to break in."

"You said to be early." I sheepishly gather my stuff.

"Yes, I did," Ruby says and nods.

I stand back up, once again precariously balanced. Nick hasn't let go
of Ruby. They've just turned in one accord, like Siamese twins.

It is cute in a disturbing way.

"Hi, Laurie," he says.

"Hey, Nick," I answer.

"Excited about tonight?"

"A little confused," I say.

"About what?" he asks.

"Why am I teaching if I'm leaving in less than two weeks?"

Ruby smiles. "Acclimation, Laur. Didn't we already cover this?"

"I wanted to hear it from Nick."

"Acclimation, Laur. Didn't you two already cover this?" He grins
cheekily.

I shake my head. "What classroom?"

"Third on the right," Nick directs while Ruby's phone starts
ringing.

She pulls it out of the pocket of her jeans, reads the caller ID, smiles,
and answers it. "Hey, Honey."

Nick shoots me a look. "Who's she talking to?"

I shrug casually. "Oh, it's probably just Trevor."

He frowns. "Who?"

"Trevor. She hasn't told you about Trevor? Old flame. Comes by
every couple of days or so."

Ruby waves her hand, glares at me, and says to the phone, "Hold
on, Sweetheart, she's right here." Passes me the phone and a doctored
Scripture: "Six things the Lord hates, seven the Lord detests: A lying
tongue being one of the top."

I take the phone from her and smile sweetly to Nick. "Hi, Honey."

"An endearment? Her true feelings come to light!" Ryan shouts.

I grin. "What's up?"

"I tried calling your cell phone."

"I turned it off, seeing as how I'm at a Bible study." A subtle way of
saying, Why are you calling me?

"Not for another thirteen minutes."

I walk into the classroom, again precariously balanced. "True," I say,
putting my Bible and notebook on the table in the middle of the classroom and sipping my coffee.

"So you leave for your fishing trip in a week and a half," Ryan
starts.

"Yeah."

"Well, before that time we should hang out." He clears his throat. "A
month is a long time."