Seventeen
Dear Calla, We have family game nights once a week. I actually don’t mind it except my sister is a TERRIBLE cheat and no one believes me! She makes up her own rules and always cries like a baby when she loses. How do I get her to stop, or at least get my parents to believe me?~Signed Always the Loser
I turn the breaded chicken over in the hot oil and jump when Cole puts a box down on the counter next to me. Glancing down at the rat poison, I look up to see him straining his neck like he’s on look out.
He taps the top of the unopened box and leans in. “Just in case you want to add some spice to my brother’s chicken.”
He leans against the counter and folds his arms, looking strangely stiff in the open kitchen. “I wouldn’t be a gentleman if I didn’t at least ask if there’s something I can help with.”
“Thank you. If you could…”
Quickly, he shakes his head and picks up an apple. “And I wouldn’t be a gentleman if I didn’t at least admit that I have no idea how to cook.”
I flip the breaded chicken in the butter and oil mixture. “You guys had a cook?”
He examines the apple and then twists the stem. “I thought he was exaggerating.”
“About what?”
“You are a snob.” He takes a bite, and apple juice splashes onto my cheek.
I consider smacking him with a raw chicken breast. “Am I lying?”
“About what?”
“About the cook?”
He shrugs and takes another bite of the apple. With the chunk of apple still in his mouth, he says, “You’re not lying. We did have a cook. Some nights it was me. Other, unfortunate nights, it was Ash, and when our Mom felt well enough, she would take a turn. Usually we trusted the palate of Chef Kraft and Chef Boyardee. Chef Oscar Meyer was one of my favorites, but Ash loved anything by Little Debbie.”
The sizzling from the pan fills the silence while I try to figure out what to say. I barely heard what he said after the quiet tone he used when he talked about his mother.
He takes another bite of his apple and then nods his chin down at the pan. “What about you? You learn how to cook from your mother?”
An image of my mother over the stove has me cackling like a witch. “Uh. No. We were a fast food family.” I’m just about to leave it there when I hear myself clarifying, “And by fast food I mean we’d go into places and steal people’s orders.”
When my parents got tired of fast food, they’d have me steal from the grocery store everything that I could fit in my Strawberry Shortcake jacket. On the few times I got caught, they would swoop in as model parents, promising to teach me a lesson when we got home.
That was the only promise they ever followed through with. I learned then never to get caught.
When I got older, they would have me test out different scams. One weekend I would offer to help the elderly to their car with their groceries. While the shopper would warm up their cars, I would put their packages in their trunks, filling my pockets with anything I could get my hands on.
Another weekend I would go door to door selling cookies for five dollars a box. Little did our neighbors know they were literally spending five dollars on a box—an empty box filled with newspaper. That particular scam made the local newspaper, so we had to move out in the middle of the night. Moving at the last minute was something we did often. It was also an excuse my parents used to use to explain why they could never get a full-time job. They considered themselves gypsies, but really they were just assholes looking to make a buck while I was just an asshole looking to escape.
I grind out a fake smile and tear off another paper towel. I pull it too hard and the roll flies off the holder and rolls across the floor, stopping at Ash’s feet. I hate how relieved I instantly feel just by him being in the room like he’s able to save me from the sting of my memories.
Ash stands there with his head cocked, looking between Cole and me with a curious look. “Everything okay?”
Cole pushes away from the counter and tosses his apple core across the kitchen. It lands right in the garbage can. His dramatic celebration would get him an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. Cole walks back to the counter and picks up the rat poison box and a salt shaker off of the stove. He steps back and unscrews the bottom of the salt. “You still like to season your foods, right, Ash?”
Just as Cole is about to the pour the poison in, Ash smacks him on the chest. “Dick.”
I turn around and add the angel hair spaghetti to the screaming, boiling water.
Ash stretches his arms overhead and then cracks his neck. “So what I miss? You guys look like you were talking about something important. Me, perhaps?”
Cole and I look at each other. Cole shakes his head and takes a long sip of his wine, but his eyes remain on me with a strange sort of glint in them. He doesn’t trust me. Confessing to a childhood as a con man probably didn't help his opinion of me. “Calla was just telling me how she learned how to cook.”
I feel the weight of Ash’s stare and when he comes over and stands between Cole and me, his expression has grown even more curious.
Clearing my throat, I try to break the weight of the silence. “We sort of ate what crossed our tables, so I had to get creative. It’s amazing how many things you can make with tuna.”
Ash’s tone seems slower, softer when he says. “You’re welcome to the tuna up in the cupboard.”
Shaking my head, I turn off the stove and turn away from him. “I won’t touch the stuff. Never again.”
Twenty minutes later, we’re sitting around the table with chicken parmesan that you can cut with a fork and wine that you can sip with a straw—evidenced by Cole actually using a straw to sip from his bottle. All caviar and class in this family.
When he’s finished, Cole leans back and pats his stomach, pretending he doesn’t have flat abs. “Whew. That was good, woman.” Cole leans over to Ash, “What do you think? You think she’s ready?”
Although Ash’s lips are pressed together, by the movement of his cheeks, he seems to be counting his teeth with his tongue. “She’s kind of judgey.”
I put my glass down and sigh, trying to play up my boredom. “Ready for what?”
Ash puts his elbows on the table and leans in. “When we were younger, we used to have family game nights. Usually they were the five cent games you could buy at a garage sale—the type of games that were missing both the instructions and most of their pieces. But bro and I are exceptional improv actors, and we always made the games interesting.”
Pushing my plate aside, I nod. “What do you got?”
Cole turns to Ash as if asking for his permission and Ash narrows his eyes. He’s back to the teeth tapping thing again while I shimmy under his inspection.
“Fine. Let’s see what this girl is made of.”
Five minutes later, I know I’ve been conned. “Monopoly? Isn’t that a bit cliché?”
“Yes, yes, it is.” Cole nods, taking out the game pieces and then putting the top back on the box.
I frown. “Wait, what about the cash?”
Ash gives me a challenging look while he shuffles the property cards. He hands out the cards and says, “Our first game didn’t come with money, so we made up our own rules. These cards are your properties. If someone lands on your property, you get to ask them a personal question. If they refuse to answer the question, they have to give you their property. If you land on your own property, you get to ask someone else a question.”
I put my wine glass down and shake my head. “Bullshit. You guys already know everything there is to know about each other. I’m going to be stuck in the hot seat the entire game.”
Cole leans back, his eyes on his brother. “Au contraire, Calla Kennedy. We haven’t played this in three years. I have tons of questions for my brother—things he’s never owned up to.”
Ash looks at the cards in his hand with a pensive stare and then quickly tries to put them back in the box. “Never mind. You’re right. Stupid game.”
“No, no, no, no,” Cole and I say together.
No longer on the hot seat, I revel in the loosening of the tension in my shoulders and scoot my chair forward. “All right. I’m in. Who starts?”
Cole takes a quick sip of his wine and motions to the die. “Highest roller goes first.”
Cole rolls a six and beats out Ash’s and my rolls. When he rolls again, he of course lands on his own property. “My question is for…” He looks up at the ceiling as if trying to decide which person he should torture first. By the way Ash covers his eyes, I’m pretty sure Cole made the decision hours ago. “Let’s go ahead and go with Ash. Rether’s wedding.”
“Shit,” Ash mumbles from behind his hands at the same time as I groan.
Cole cocks his head to the side and stares at me for a beat. “You know Rethers?”
Ash immediately jumps in. “Shawn said he tried to help Calla when…” Ash looks nervous as he fidgets with his cards. “You know…when she needed someone to help her.”
My blush is immediate so I take a long sip of the wine. While my mind fills with inappropriate adjectives I’d use to describe the son of a bitch, I’d rather forget these two are friends with the creepy asshole.
Cole doesn’t break eye contact as he lets an awkward silence fill the air. Finally, he turns to Ash and clears his throat. “Did you or did you not set Rethers’ cousin up with a few bridesmaids?”
Ash peeks out from between his fingers and seems to consider the question before lowering both of his hands and grabbing his wine glass. “Is that your final question?” He looks at me and gestures to Cole. “Jackass here has a habit of asking me one question then changing his mind midway through. He waits until I say yes or no and then changes his question.”
By the light glint in Cole’s eyes, Ash isn’t lying.
Ash nods and takes a sip of his wine. “So, what say you? Is this the one question you want to ask? In spite of the fact you may never get to ask another question the entire game?”
Cole leans back and presses his palms together in front of his mouth. He narrows his eyes like he’s mulling over the question and then nods. “Yes. I do believe this is the question I want to play.”
“Dammit,” Ash says under his breath. Instead of looking at Cole, he puts his back to him and turns to me. Putting down his glass, he holds up his hands as if in surrender. “All right, picture this. Seventeen-year-old boy, shy as all get out. Nice kid, but he couldn’t get past first base with the ladies.”
Cole interrupts in a slow tempo. “Oh. What. A. Crime.”
Ash glances over at Cole. “Right?” Quickly, he shifts back to me with a shocked expression that makes him look ten years older. “I mean we’re talking no boobage. Ever! Can you imagine going to college and having no idea what a set of boobs feels like?”
I glance at Cole to ask him if Ash is serious, and Cole simply nods with the wine bottle up to his lips. “Ladies and gentleman, my brother. The scholar.”
Ash smacks him and then snaps his fingers in front of my face. “Ignore the side show. Okay, where was I? No boobage. Right. Okay, so the bride has this friend with a set of B-cups. I figure, start the kid off with a strong, perky pair and work his way up. Well, B-cups—”
“Her name is Sybil,” Cole curtly interrupts.
Ash waves him off. “Like I said. B-cups didn’t want anything to do with this seventeen-year-old kid whose only crime was never seeing a pair of boobies. But C-cups felt so awful for him—”
“And her name is Tiffany.”
Ash clears his throat. “Right. She felt so bad that she let him play with them for a while.” Turning back to Cole, Ash shrugs. “I think the kid only missed the cake-cutting. It’s not like he missed anything major. No one wants to sit around and watch a couple feed each other cake. They just want to eat the damn cake.”
Cole takes another chug from his wine bottle, but keeps his eyes locked on me. The intensity of his stare unsettles me, and I quickly grab the die to do something with my attention. Since I rolled a four, I jump the necessary squares and land on one of Cole’s properties.
Cole releases the intensity of his expression, smiles an evil grin as he rubs his hands together. “Calla. You ready?”
I sigh. “Why don’t you just take one of my cards now? You know I’m not going to—”
He forges forward. “What is the most annoying thing about my brother?”
I snap my mouth closed, and let a smile finish out my complaint. “Annoying, you say?”
Cole nods with his eyes closed, looking utterly serene.
I turn to Ash, prepared for him to look arrogant, but instead he actually looks curious by my answer. Dammit. Arrogance is one thing. Curiosity steals all the fun out of my answer.
My voice goes flat when I mumble, “His hair.”
Ash’s eyes widen. “Gingers aren’t your type?”
I shuffle my property cards, looking smug. “Not your turn.”
Ash picks up the die and rolls. Without even looking down at the board, he mutters, “Now it is.”
I frown as I stare at his game piece. “How did—?” I glance up at Cole. “How did he know he was going to land on one of his properties?”
Cole shakes his head. “I don’t ask.”
I try out Ash’s tapping-on-the-teeth thing while I procrastinate with my answer. When I spare a quick glance at Ash, he’s not smiling like I expect him to. Instead he looks worried about my opinion. He could just be playing me, acting a part to make me uncomfortable, but even Cole looks curious.
I blow out a breath and tap my finger on the glass. “Can you please repeat the question?”
Ash shifts forward, his eyes boring into mine. At first he doesn’t say anything. He just continues to stare at me, his pupils moving around slightly as if he’s looking at every inch of my eyes. His Adam’s apple moves on a deep swallow when he softens his voice and asks, “Redheads aren’t your type?”
I could lie. I could dig my way out of this tense moment by deflecting. Maybe even spill my wine all over the board to ruin any chance of telling the truth. But for some reason I don’t want to. I don’t want to look away from him.
Instead, I take a sip of my wine and then hand the die to Cole. “They’re my favorite type.”