Chapter 6
Sunday was chore day at Yellowfield House. Lovable control freak as always, Darah had added the list of chores and everyone got their fair share, including a rotational schedule so no one had to do the same thing over and over. The funny thing was that they all followed it without question. Like she was their mom and giving out gold stars and higher allowances for each one they completed.
“I figured you’d need another week to settle in, but next week you’re on the list,” Darah said, as if she was offering me a plate of those amazing snickerdoodles.
“Great,” I said with a smile that was totally forced. Not that I wanted to be a mooch, but they seemed to have everything in hand. I kept my room and bathroom clean and helped with the dishes. They kept trying to integrate me into the machine of the house, and I didn’t want to be a part of it. I wasn’t a part of it, not really.
They were all helping pay for the house. I was just an inconvenience that had been pushed on them. The annoying kid sister.
By late morning all the chores were done, and the already-spotless house was even more spotless. I did my first load of laundry, and everyone settled into their own activities. Renee was having a “Call of Duty” tournament with a few of Hunter and Mase’s friends, Dev and Sean, and Darah was catching up on homework and Taylor was reading some vampire book on her e-reader while Hunter played his guitar.
Renee had told me he was some kind of musical genius who could play practically any song. At the moment he was playing anything that Taylor yelled out, including Taylor Swift, Bruno Mars, Seal and Matchbox Twenty.
I changed my laundry over to the dryer and was about to sit back down and watch the “Call of Duty” battle when we all heard the doorbell ring.
“Got it,” Hunter said, getting up and rushing to the door as if he was trying to beat everyone else. No one else had even gotten up. Weird.
“Hey, man, you know you don’t have to ring the bell. It’s always open.” He stepped aside to let the person in, and I glanced at the doorway.
“I know, but I have this thing for doorbells,” a familiar voice said before a familiar person walked through the door. Dusty.
I was surprised to see him, but he didn’t seem surprised at all.
“Red,” he said, giving me a little bow. “Nice to see you again.” I looked at Hunter, who was trying not to look at me. Something clicked in my brain. Dusty had said he’d see Hunter tomorrow. Well, that day was today. Hmm, Hunter hadn’t said anything about Dusty coming over. Wonder why that was?
“Hey, Sharp!” Mase yelled as something exploded and Dev groaned and threw his controller.
“Hey,” Dusty said, coming in and sitting down on the couch as if he’d done it a million times before. He was also sitting in my spot. “‘Call of Duty’ again? How bad are you losing?”
Mase grumbled as I looked at Hunter. He stepped around me and went to sit back on the recliner. I had no choice but to go and lean against the arm of the couch.
“Oh, Dusty, this is my sister Jos,” Renee said, barely glancing up from the game. She had a one-track mind when she was playing.
“We’ve met,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at me and then back to the game.
“When?” Renee said, moving her whole body as she moved the controller, as if that would make some difference. I’d always threatened to video her while she was doing it for future blackmail use.
“I can’t quite recall. Where was it that we met?” I couldn’t glare at him with everyone watching, so I had to settle for clenching my teeth. He knew very well where we had met. He was totally screwing with me in front of everyone. Oh, two could play that game. I wasn’t a redhead for nothing.
“That’s right. It was at the hospital, and you needed to know the way to the pharmacy. Has the itching on your junk finally gone away?” I stage-whispered the last part and motioned in the general area.
Dusty’s eyes went wide for just a second before they narrowed and a grin spread across his face. Everyone else started laughing nervously, wondering if I was being serious or not. They didn’t know me well enough yet. Of course Renee just rolled her eyes.
“TMI, dude,” Mase said, shaking his head, and Dev tried to slide away from Dusty on the couch.
“Well played, Red. Well played.” He started a slow clap while he laughed. “Yes, my junk is now itch-free.” He shifted on the couch, adjusting his pants. Seriously, how did his pants stay up? It was one of those mysteries science had yet to solve. Like where your missing socks went when you put them in the dryer. He cleared his throat when he caught me staring at his pants. Jesus, he probably thought I was trying to check out his junk. Not that I could even see it...
“On that note,” Hunter said, clearing his throat and giving me a look before grabbing his guitar again. “Okay, requests are now open from anyone but Taylor.”
“Hey!” she protested, glancing up from her book.
“Sorry, Miss, it’s time for someone else to abuse my musical genius.”
“Fine,” she said, going back to her e-reader, but she gave him a little wink before she did it. Everyone else seemed too wrapped up in what they were doing, or was busy trying to think of a song.
“‘Sunday Morning,’” I blurted out. It was the first thing that came to mind.
Hunter looked up from the guitar. “Maroon 5?”
“Yeah.” He smiled and looked over at Dusty. “Can you give me a beat on that?” Dusty nodded and sat up. After thinking for a second, he started making sounds with his mouth. Not just sounds. Beat boxing. Hunter listened for a second and then started strumming as Dusty layered on more sounds until it was like he was creating an entire percussion section for the song with only his mouth.
I couldn’t stop my eyebrows from rising, but no one else seemed surprised. Dusty turned his head, and I made my face neutral, but he still sort of grinned at me anyway. Cocky much? Hunter started singing, and I tried to find a comfortable way to lean on the arm of the couch while also pretending to be interested in the explosions and chaos happening on the television. I would rather set my hair on fire than ask Dusty for his seat, or give him the satisfaction of going to the dining room to get a chair. Should have just stayed in my cave.
Okay, so Dusty was really good at beat boxing, not that I was an expert, by any means. He made sounds with his mouth that I didn’t know a human could make. So what? There were a million people online who could do the same thing. It wasn’t anything special. It wasn’t anything to swoon over. He wasn’t anything to swoon over.
They finished the song, and Dusty did a fancy noise that sounded like a cymbal crash and reverberation.
“Good enough for you?” Dusty said, turning to face me.
“Meh,” I said, shrugging one shoulder and turning back to the television as Renee screamed and jumped up and down and all the guys groaned and threw their controllers down.
“Take that, bitches,” Renee said, pointing at them. “In your face.” She started doing a dance that was somewhere between slutty club dancing and a weird touchdown dance hybrid. The guys all booed and threw things at her. I just shook my head. That was my sister.
“I’m hoping those moves are genetic,” said a voice so close that I slid off my perch on the arm of the couch. Luckily, I was able to catch myself before my butt hit the floor. Everyone else was too distracted by Renee’s victory dance.
“You know it’s rude to sneak up behind people,” I said, turning to face Dusty, who had somehow managed to get off the couch and creep up behind me.
“You know it’s rude to tell everyone that a fellow has a rash on his dick when he doesn’t.” He crossed his arms and leaned down, challenging me. “So what do you have to say to that, Red?”
Yeah, should have stayed in my cave.
“Nothing. I have nothing to say to you.”
Fortunately, Mase interrupted us.
“Little Ne, you want to take a turn?” The video-game-master gene seemed to have skipped me and just been concentrated in Renee. I turned away from Dusty. Hunter was watching us with fascination. Ugh, that was the last thing I needed.
“No, I’m good,” I said, stepping around Dusty and taking the seat he’d vacated on the couch and claiming it as mine. I shot him a smile, and he just pretended to clap again before going to the kitchen and dragging in one of the dining room chairs.
* * *
Renee was still kicking ass when my phone rang with a call from Mom. Just what I needed. I got up from the couch and headed for my cave. No way I was talking to her in front of everyone.
“Hey, Mom.” I heard screaming in the background, but that was par for the course. Mom always called me when she was doing a million other things.
“Hey, Jos.” Her voice was tense, but less tense than it had been earlier in the week. We’d somehow made our way onto less-shaky ground, but that didn’t mean she was any less pissed at me. “You ready to start classes tomorrow?” A shriek meant that she was probably taking something away from one of the twins.
“As I’ll ever be.” I didn’t have a choice. They wouldn’t even let me drop out when I’d suggested it as a potential solution to my academic implosion. I could get a place and a job and then they’d get off my back. I wouldn’t waste their money—or the government’s. Win-win situation. Or so I’d thought. Mom had acted like I’d just told her I’d brutally slaughtered a bunch of people, and Dad just hung up on me when I pitched it to him after striking out with her. And Renee had threatened to strangle me for even mentioning it.
“Well, I want a full report when you get back, you hear? I swear, if I get a call from your sister telling me that you’ve skipped, there will be hell to pay.”
“I know, I know.”
“Okay, then. No, you cannot have cookies for dinner. How many times do I have to tell you that?” I waited for her to be done yelling at whichever of my siblings had the audacity to want cookies for dinner.
“Listen, I’ve got a tantrum brewing here, and Chuck is working late, so I’m on my own. Can I call you later?”
“Yeah, sure.” She never would.
“’Bye, Jos. Say goodbye to Jos, everybody!” She must have held the phone up, and I heard a chorus of my siblings saying goodbye.
“’Bye, everybody,” I yelled back. Then the chaos resumed and then the call died. So much for that. I put my phone back in my pocket and went up the stairs.
Hunter and Dusty were going crazy with a rendition of “Everybody Talks” by Neon Trees. Dusty was also banging out the rhythm on his chair. The video game had been abandoned, and everyone else was humming along, including Renee. I stood back and hovered, not wanting to bust into the musical bubble. The song ended and Renee gave me a look. She probably wanted a play-by-play of the conversation with Mom. It wasn’t really anything earth-shattering, so I just sat back down on the couch as they finished the song.
“Okay, my turn. ‘Scream,’ Usher. Go,” Dusty said before starting a set of vocal gymnastics that were even more impressive than what I’d heard already. Okay, okay, you’re talented. We get the message. As soon as Hunter started singing, Mase jumped up and started dancing. Dev hopped up and they somehow managed to dance in the small space without breaking anything. I would have thought Darah would have been tweaking out about the possibility of one of the carefully arranged pictures or vases or any of the other really nice things being smashed by her boyfriend’s sick dance moves, but she just smiled and watched with her chin in her hands. Idiots. They were all idiots.
The singing went on for a while and then someone mentioned food and then that was all anyone could talk about, so the group reached a consensus that a night out was in order.
“Yeah, we never got to celebrate the new member of the Yellowfield House family,” Taylor said while everyone yelled out suggestions. That made everyone turn to me, including Dusty.
“So, you get to pick the place,” Taylor said. Even though she was not that much older than me, when she talked everyone seemed to listen. She was the shortest one, too.
“Um, I don’t even know what’s around here.” I’d wanted to go out and see what was around Bangor, but Renee had been totally down on that. I might actually have fun, and that was definitely against the rules.
And then they all started talking at once, each pitching for their favorite place, telling me which had the best steaks or pizza or bread sticks. Jesus, they were loud.
“Whoa, hold up,” I said. “I can’t think straight when you’re all yelling at me. We need to, like, do this democratically.”
Darah piped up.
“How about everyone writes their choices on pieces of paper and then Jos will pick one?”
That made everyone but Dusty burst into raucous laughter.
“Yeah, because it worked out so well before,” Taylor said, poking Hunter in the chest. He just grabbed her hand and kissed it.
“Pretty swell, I’d say.”
I gave Dusty a look, because he was the only other person who wasn’t enjoying the inside joke.
“Okay, then,” Dusty said, ripping a piece of notebook paper out of one that someone had been doing homework in earlier. “My choice is Sea Dog. Who’s next?” He wrote down everyone’s choices and then tore the slips in equal pieces, folded them up and tossed them in one of Mase’s hats.
“Do the honors, Red,” Dusty said, bowing and holding the hat out as if he was bestowing a great gift.
They all waited with anticipation like I was choosing something that would affect the rest of their lives. I grasped a piece of paper, unfolded it and read it out.
“Sea Dog it is.” Dusty winked at me. Of course I’d picked his choice. Everyone else agreed that it was a nice place and started to get their stuff together.
“Need a ride, Red?” He’d sidled up behind me again as I’d gotten my coat.
“I swear, one of these times you’re going to get a faceful of my fist if you sneak up on me, Dustin.”
“You coming, Jos?” Renee said as Paul helped her on with her coat and everyone else piled into their cars. I decided to seize my opportunity to get out from under her radar, even if I’d have to spend a few minutes with Dusty.
“I’m going to ride with Dusty.” He looked surprised for a second but then smiled. Did he just...smile all the time? Was it a reflex?
Renee looked like she was going to protest and then Paul said something in her ear. They had a quick argument and Renee threw up her hands.
“Fine. See you there.” I didn’t know what she was making such a big deal about. The restaurant was just down the road.
“Ladies first,” Dusty said, pointing toward a black VW Golf that had more than a few dings. “By the way, I wrote Sea Dog on all of them,” he whispered.
Of course he did.
“Wow, sneaky,” I said, pretending to sound impressed. He shut the door for me, and I resisted the urge to call him out on it. Matt, my ex, was big on door opening, and I’d always liked it. Yeah, I knew that it was against feminism or whatever, but it was still nice. Matt was big on things like that. Flowers on holidays and pulling chairs out and wearing ties.
His ambition was to be president, and he always said if you wanted to be president the first step was looking like one. Granted, I’d also dressed very differently then. Yes, I’d had skirts and blazers and pumps and even brooches for my neck scarves. I’d boxed all of it up and left it at Mom’s house when I’d moved into my dorm room this year. No need for any of that anymore. I’d quit all the clubs I’d been in, even Student Council, much to the dismay of nearly everyone there. Mostly because I kept the minutes and no one else wanted to do it.
“So what’s your story, Joscelyn Archer?” Dusty said as he pulled out behind Taylor’s Charger. “Have you always had that chip on your shoulder, or is it new?”
Why the hell did he care?
“What’s your story, Dustin Sharp? Renee’s never mentioned you before.” Instead of turning on the radio, he made his own music by tapping on the steering wheel and making snare drum sounds with his mouth. I was beginning to think he had ADHD. It would explain a lot.
“I bet yours is more interesting than mine,” he said, turning to look at me. I stared out the window, pretending to be fascinated with the houses that passed by.
“Okay, fine. You win,” he said when I didn’t answer. “Let’s just say I wasn’t always this good-looking and talented. I, uh, got myself into a lot of trouble when I was younger, if you can believe that.” Could I? You bet.
“And I screwed up a lot and then something happened to me to...yeah, this part sounds lame, but something happened to put things in perspective, you know? And I stopped screwing around, and I started actually giving a shit about what I wanted to do with my life.”
“And how did you become buddies with Hunter?” That was what I was most curious about.
“I met Hunter in one of my classes, and, for lack of a better, more masculine term, we formed a bromance. We see each other all the time now, since he changed his major. So, yeah. That’s my rambling and completely weird story.”
It wasn’t what I’d expected, but before I could answer he was pulling into the parking lot.
“So, on the way back it’s your turn, Red.”
This time I opened the door myself before he could get around the car.