Ten
As far as Viola was concerned, there was little in the world more tragic and depressing than being a math major, which was why one of the things she hated most in life was waking Milo up. Especially when he looked as peaceful as he did right then. If he didn’t still smell like puke mixed with morning breath—creating a rank cocktail that had permeated the guest bedroom and was turning her stomach—she’d almost mistake him for an angel. A trail of drool dripped from his full pink lips, contorted against the pillow, and stained the white linen. His eyes were serenely closed and his breathing deep, like he was dreaming the sweetest dream.
With a heavy sigh, Viola shook him again, with a little more “love”. The shake pulled a groan from his lips, but then he was in a deep sleep once more. She took hold of his shoulders and shook him again, harder this time, enough to make the metal bed frame squeak. To make the entire mattress shift.
He didn’t budge. He even started to snore. As if her jostles had done nothing more than submerge him deeper into his slumber.
Cursing under her breath, she left the room with a huff and followed the scent of breakfast food down the stairs to the first level. The muffled voices of Milo’s family could be heard from the bottom floor, and she couldn’t help a smile when she made it down and found Betty, Jackson, Robert, and Beau sitting at the dining room table. From the clanks and clatters ringing in from around the corner—not to mention the mouthwatering aroma— she guessed Mary was in the kitchen.
“Viola!” Jackson’s face lit up, and he bounded out of his chair, racing across the room and engulfing her in a bone-crushing hug that nearly took her off her feet.
Stumbling backward, she caught herself moments before his buoyant embrace took her out, moaning around the hug while chuckling softly. She patted his bare back since he only wore red plaid pajama pants, noting that his skin was baby soft. She remembered being his age. The feeling she got when she saw a friend she’d just had the time of her life partying with the night before. The deep, inherent connection that was impossible to explain when she saw them in the light of day for the first time. Like she’d just laid eyes on the only person alive who could ever understand her. Being the only two non-celebrities trying to hold their shit together during the festivities the night before had fostered a bond between her and Jackson that she knew would be forever unbreakable.
She hugged him back with just as much vigor, still smiling when he pulled away.
“Last night was so awesome,” His blue eyes shone.
“Still pinching myself.”
With a smile and a thrilled hop, Jackson made his way back to his seat, but he’d barely sat back down before Robert cringed at him from the head of the table.
“Go put some clothes on, will you? We’ve got company.” Robert motioned to the stairs.
Jackson looked down at his bare chest, still slightly bony and slim, lingering in that phase between boyish and manly. As if the sight of his own chest on display left him with zero argument, Jackson pushed himself up from his seat with a huff and began toward the stairs. Regardless of his father’s admonishments, the night before still left a pep in his step, and he gave Viola a bop of the arm and a secret grin as he passed her. She turned to watch him as he bounded up the stairs, his stomps loud enough to make her worry the staircase might cave in under him.
As the stairs creaked and moaned under Jackson’s weight, Beau craned his entire body sideways in his high chair and pointed at Viola with a snaggletooth smile. “You’s has ‘gina!”
“Yes, Beau, I still have a vagina,” Viola said, making her way toward the table. “As it turns out, I’m stuck with it for life. Just like you’re stuck with your penis.”
Beau gave a grinning shrug before going back to the red toy car he’d been rolling around on top of his high chair. A moment later, he lifted it up and offered it to her, his thick glasses amplifying the pride in his eyes at his charitable gift.
“Great car,” she laughed. “But you hold onto it, okay?”
He did just that, continuing to roll it back and forth on his table top, making vroom vroom sound with his pursed lips.
“Viola.” Robert raised an eyebrow from the head of the table. “You look lovely this morning.”
With his scowling face from the night before still fresh in her mind, Viola was taken aback by Robert’s congenial tone. She looked down at her black jeans, beige sweater, and matching beige thigh-high boots—the boots Milo often told her made her look like a streetwalker—and realized only at that moment that his uber-religious family probably felt the same way. Bad choice of attire for their supposedly religious son’s first girlfriend. When she looked back up, she found Betty studying her boots as well, silently. A silence louder than any scream.
“Thanks,” Viola rubbed her clammy hands down her thighs.
“Just as skinny as you wanna be,” Betty noted, proving she wasn’t thinking about Viola’s hooker boots at all, patting the chair next to her. “Come sit on down at this table, baby girl, so I can fix you two plates. Gotta get some hips on you if you’re gonna pop out Milo’s beautiful babies. You know he wants five babies right?”
Unable to decide which part of Betty’s rant was the most terrifying, Viola found herself silent as she took a hesitant step towards the table, racking her brain for an appropriate response.
Jackson bounded back down the stairs before she could find one, wearing a fresh white t-shirt and jeans.
Viola froze in mid-step as he passed her, her eyes widening when he re-took his seat at the table. “Actually, Jackson? Do you mind coming upstairs with me? I need your…” Her eyes flew to Robert and Betty. “Help with something.”
“Milo still trashed?” Jackson smirked.
“Well, I was trying not to put him on blast but… yeah. I can’t get him to wake up. Need a little more elbow grease to rip him out of his coma.”
“Trashed?” Betty blinked rapidly, eyes moving back and forth between Viola and Jackson.
“Jon carried him in here on his shoulder last night, drunk as a skunk,” Robert said. “Completely passed out.”
“Heavens!” Betty gasped, her eyes cartoonishly big as she looked at Viola.
“It’s a miracle he hasn’t choked to death on his own vomit,” Robert said. “I hope you guys put him on his stomach last night.”
“Of course we did,” Viola chirped, recalling the night before when she and Jon had watched as Milo collapsed right onto his back, neither of them moving to roll him onto his belly. “I mean… we’re not idiots.”
Robert raised an eyebrow again.
“Heavens, I knew moving to New York would put the Devil in that boy. He needs Jesus in his life.”
Viola nodded along with Betty, whose voice was high pitched and alarmed, as if she’d just been told Milo had spent all night fucking hookers raw, shooting up with dirty needles, and flipping off the heaven’s while taking Jesus’ name in vain.
“Will you be joining us in church this morning, Viola?” Betty asked.
“I’d love to, but I promised my mom that I’d drive down to spend the day with her. She runs her own business, lives and breathes it really, and it’s the only day for the entire break that she’ll be free from work. My only chance to see her. Milo was supposed to take me, which is why I almost dislocated my arm a minute ago trying to shake him awake.”
“We could always call Jon and have him pick you up, dear,” Mary said, entering the kitchen with two platters full of breakfast food and setting them on the table. “He’s meeting with his realtor for the open house today, so he’s headed that way anyway.”
“But it’s a two and a half hour drive, and that’s only if you’re speeding. He’d have to drive me all the way there and all the way back,” Viola said. “I couldn’t trouble him like that.”
“Sweetie, it’s no trouble. Jon wouldn’t hesitate.” Mary blushed with pride. “He’s a gentleman.”
“Yeah, a real gentleman,” Robert said, frowning. “A gentleman who’s never coming back.”
“He isn't?”
Every head in the room flew towards the staircase at the unexpected voice just as Jon appeared around the corner and came up behind Viola.
The silence that fell was deafening, and Viola did nothing to remedy it, too busy running his body with her mouth agape. Apparently Jackson hadn’t been the only Moore who’d decided to forgo a t-shirt that morning, but of course the sight of Jon sans-shirt was somewhat of a different experience in Viola’s world as she found herself short of breath, dizzy enough to make the entire room spin, and suddenly so hot that she felt like her wobbly legs were seconds from liquefying in her boots. She couldn’t stop her widened eyes from tracing every deep line in his tanned skin, chiseled to perfection, not a single line on his body crooked or out of place. As if it were her clammy fingers caressing his skin and not her hungry eyes, his every muscle seemed to contract the moment her gaze hit it. His biceps involuntarily flexed as she drank them in, noticing that if she wrapped both of her hands around the massive boulder, her fingers still wouldn’t touch. His abs flexed and contorted as her eyes studied all six of them. Even the deep V at his hips, which she wasn’t even aware was capable of moving, tensed up as her gaze locked on it. She licked her lips as her eyes kept falling, moving past the waistband of his black pajama pants as if she could see the treasures that were living below that as well. Once her eyes were done taking their excursion, his stomach was heaving just as wildly as hers, which only served to tighten his belly even more than it already was by nature.
She clenched her fists when they twitched with the need to reach out and stroke his skin. To see if it was as soft and smooth as it looked. If his muscles were as rock hard. She knew they were. Every inch of her ached to feel those long limbs wrapped around her, pulling her in until they were flush.
Her eyes rose regretfully to his, but sometime during her perverse leering he’d looked away from her completely, opting instead to stare across the room at his father.
If Jon was aware of every wide eye in the room trained right at him from the moment he’d appeared, he didn’t show it. Not even Mary’s soft gasp was enough to pull his eyes away from his father.
“You’ve been here the whole time?” Betty smiled widely.
“Slept in Beau’s room,” Jon said. “On the floor.”
“Lord, how did I miss you when I went to get him?” Betty tittered. “Well, we’re all just happy you’re still here, right baby?” She reached over to squeeze Robert’s shoulder.
“Thought it’d be another ten years before we saw your face again,” Robert said.
Surprised at the unexpected softness in Robert’s voice, Viola looked over her shoulder at Jon.
Jon lifted his chin, eyes falling to Viola. “Guess I had a change of heart.”
She held her breath.
“Change of heart?” Robert’s jaw clenched. “How long this time?”
“I was thinking… all three weeks.” Jon searched Viola’s eyes as if he couldn’t hear the earth-shattering scream his mother emitted the moment those words left his lips, loud enough to crack the dining room windows. Jon didn’t even acknowledge Mary when she raced to his side and cupped his face, his blue orbs cutting Viola to the core as Mary pressed two slobbery kisses on both of his cheeks.
“Oh, baby, all three weeks? Do you mean it? Christmas and New Years?” Mary begged.
Jon finally looked at her. “All three, Mom.”
“Will your, uh… charming bandmates be joining us, as well?”
“They flew back to LA a few hours ago, Grandma. Charming as they are, you’re stuck with me this time.”
“Oh, I’m so happy.” Mary embraced him again. “You just made my whole day. You just made my life.” She clapped her hands together with a gasp. “And now that we know we’ve got plenty of time with you… all the more reason for you to drive Viola to go and see her mother today. It’s her only chance to see her for Christmas. Milo’s in no condition, apparently.”
Jon and Mary’s heads snapped toward Viola at the same time. The difference in their expressions was stark. Pity in Mary’s eyes, disdain in Jon’s.
Viola sputtered. “Actually, you know what? I almost forgot. There’s a Greyhound that runs to Glendale twice a day. If I hurry, I could make the morning bus.”
“That’s ridiculous…” Mary paused as if waiting for Viola to get to the punch line of what surely had to be a joke. “Do you honestly think we’d let you take a three-hour bus ride by yourself? Never. Jon’s taking you, and that’s final. Right, Jon?”
Jon’s jaw clenched. “Yeah, I’ll take her.”
“I really don’t mind the bus.”
“We do,” Robert said. “The stories I could tell you about women alone on the bus…” He drew in a sharp breath. “Unless it’s me behind the wheel, you’re not getting on any Greyhound by yourself, and I don’t want to hear another word about it.”
Viola was surprised at the warmth that flooded her heart. “Never had a father chastise me. Even when it’s someone else’s father…” She lowered her eyes, embarrassed when she felt tears burning them. It felt… nice.
“Well, Milo loves you, and if he loves you, we love you,” Robert said. “Even if he is upstairs in a coma right now, he wouldn’t want you alone on the bus.”
Jon waited for Viola’s eyes to come back to him before he pointed his thumb toward the staircase. “Just let me throw on a shirt…”
Shirts are so overrated. Why not just leave it off? It’s only fifty degrees outside. That’s practically summer. Viola wondered if every tortuous thought she could barely contain had somehow manifested themselves into text form in her eyes. Because the way he watched her with the corner of his mouth slightly upturned, she swore he could read every thought.
“Give me five minutes.” He rolled his eyes and turned away.
Mary called up the stairs after him. “And promise me you’re not going to put her on the back of that miserable death-o-cycle. She’d be safer on the bus!”