Quick! Somebody call 9-1-1 ’cause you just took my breath away.
—NONIE S.M.
I spent the next few days getting even less sleep than I normally did. On Wednesday, I woke up exhausted, my head aching.
Iris frowned when she saw me. “You look awful. Worse than usual, even.”
“I didn’t sleep well,” I mumbled as I shuffled to the kitchen and the coffee.
“Seriously.” Her face scrunched in concern. “Maybe you should stay home.”
“I’ll be fine.” And that’s exactly what I kept telling myself as I dressed and dragged myself to the library. But by eleven, the headache had gotten so bad I felt nauseated and sapped of energy. I canceled story time and seriously considered laying in front of the 200s (Religion) and dying.
My phone buzzed.
Dreamboat: Hey, sweet cheeks, wanna meet up for lunch. Just Me-N-U. Get it. Menu. Me-N-U.
Me: Ugh.
Dreamboat: That’s all you got? I’m disappointed.
Instead of replying, I buried my face in my arms on the counter. A minute later, the phone rang.
“Why are you calling?”
“I was worried,” Chris said. “You didn’t insult me. I thought you might be in danger and trying to tell me you needed help.”
“Sorry to disappoint you. Just not feeling well.”
There was a pause. “You sound terrible.”
“Your pickup lines are getting better and better.”
“No, really. What’s wrong?” he asked, and I could hear the concern in his voice which was kind of nice.
“I think I’m going to go home and crawl under the covers and cry myself to sleep.” That sounded like a great plan.
“I never imagined you as a crier,” he said. It was weird to think he’d thought about that. Had he thought other things about me? Was I taking up a tiny little space in his brain? If I were honest (with just myself), he was in my head a little too much.
I cleared my throat. “Excuse me, I broke my arm in the sixth grade. I cried.”
“Thank God, you are human. I was starting to wonder.”
“I’m hanging up now.”
“One last thing. Don’t die. Funerals are so depressing.”
The house was empty when I got home, a rarity. But Mama had a couple of back-to-back doctor appointments at the medical center in Houston. Then she and Sue were making a day of it with lunch and shopping at the Galleria.
I tracked down some pain reliever and took a hot shower. Kevin kindly made some space for me on my bed, and I was half asleep when a knock on the front door came. I ignored it and snuggled down under the covers, unwilling, and possibly unable, to move. But the knocking continued.
“Go away,” I muttered, not that whoever the intruder was could hear me.
They did not go away.
With a dramatic sigh, I wrapped myself in a blanket and stumbled to the front door. I was expecting a delivery guy, a Jehovah’s Witness, a guy trying to sell me steaks from his trunk, but nope, it was worse.
“Wow. You do look like you feel bad,” Chris said.
“Again, how are these pickup lines working for you?”
He held up a plastic sack. “I brought you soup.”
“Soup?”
“Yeah, Ollie sent it over.”
“Ollie sent me soup? It’s Wednesday. It’s not soup day.”
It was never soup day.
Chris shrugged. “I guess he likes you.”
“How do you even know where I live?” Pulling my blanket tighter, I eyed him skeptically. “Are you stalking me?”
“Yes, I am. The soup is all part of my plan to lull you into a false sense of security.”
“Soup is the best you could do?”
“Also, I saw Ali at the café, and she asked me to check on you. She would have done it herself but she, and I’m quoting here, can’t stand you when you’re sick.”
My eyes narrowed. Ali and I would be discussing this later.
“I didn’t have anything else to do.” He jiggled the bag. “Can I come in?”
“Why?”
“Because you don’t feel good, and I brought you soup.”
Crossing my arms, I leaned against the doorjamb. “I appreciate the offer but… no.”
His smile deflated as he handed over the bag. “I get it. I thought you might want some company, but I understand. Hope you feel better. I’ll see you later.”
Shoving his hands in his pockets, he turned and headed down the porch steps. Shoulders slumped, he walked slowly, stopping to kick a rock. He looked like he’d discovered someone had stolen his new puppy, his best friend was moving away, and no one remembered his birthday all at once.
“You’re pathetic.” Without turning around, he shrugged in response. I sighed loudly. “Fine. I guess you can come in.”
With a grin, his long legs carried him back to the door. “It works like a charm every time.”
Of course it did. “Before I let you in, remember we don’t have any filthy rich football players living here. Please adjust your expectations accordingly.”
“I see being sick hasn’t made you any less sarcastic.”
I stepped aside for him to pass and watched him give a cursory look around. Our home was clean but small and stuck firmly in the early 1990s, baby-blue carpet and fake wood paneling included.
Chris took two steps inside and stopped. “This is a lot of rabbits.”
He was right; there were a lot of rabbits. Granny didn’t do things by half. There were hundreds, lining shelves, tucked into crevices, covering tables. Rabbits were painted on the magazine rack and stenciled around the room as a border. There was framed rabbit art and a footstool Granny had covered in the same rabbit-themed fabric she’d made the curtains in.
“My grandma liked them,” I said, my voice a tad defensive.
“I’m not judging. Just observing.” He held his hand out. “Give me the soup.”
“I’m fine. You don’t even know where the kitch—”
“You look like a drowned kitten and about as strong as one. You sit.” He pointed to the couch. “I’ll get you soup.”
I scowled; he scowled right back. But his was scarier. If that’s what his opponents saw on game day, I bet they just tossed him the ball and walked off the field. I handed him the soup.
“I can find the kitchen. Sit.”
I sat.
When he returned, it was with two bowls of soup and a glass of water. He found the TV trays Granny had used religiously and set one up in front of me.
“Eat up.” He stared at me while I took a slurp of soup before he sat and tucked into his meal.
After a long stretch of silence, I set my spoon down. “This is weird.”
His forehead wrinkled. “What? Is it the soup? Is it warm enough?”
“No, I mean, it’s weird you’re here.”
He shrugged. “Got nothing better to do.”
“Your concern is touching.”
“You’re welcome.” He ate a spoonful of soup, but his eyes were busy taking in the living room, the floral couch and loveseat, TV, coffee table. More rabbits. He picked up one of the throw pillows next to him. It featured bunnies playing baseball. “Rabbits are kind of creepy. If you look at them close enough, they sort of look like giant rats. You know they sleep with their eyes open?”
“I did not.” Despite Granny’s obsession, we’d never had a pet rabbit. “Let me guess, another Scout badge?”
“Nah.” He picked up a framed photo of Granny, Mom and us girls that was sitting on the little table next to the couch. In it, I was about fifteen and sullen and very not-smiling. “Future Farmers of America. I raised rabbits one year.”
I hummed and took another spoonful of soup; it was good. I tried to remember if I’d even eaten anything today. Maybe that made it taste even better.
“This is your mom and sister and grandma?” Chris tapped the photo.
“Yes. Granny passed away my last year of college. Cancer. I miss her.” I frowned, hearing the sadness in my words. Why in the world was I telling him this?
Chris, perhaps sensing my mood, was polite enough not to offer empty platitudes. “Who is this very angry teenager?”
I tried, and failed, to snatch the photo from his stupidly long arm. “It was a phase.”
“You’re kind of intense here. I wouldn’t have wanted to get on your bad side.”
“Thank you. Exactly what I was going for.”
Back then, I’d been angry at my father, Mama, life, the world. I bet Chris had been popular and upbeat and came from a nice family which did not include a felon. We would never, in a million years, have been friends.
He stared at the photo a beat longer before putting it down. When I finished my soup, he took our bowls in the kitchen and I heard the water run. Then, “Why is there duct tape on your dishwasher?”
“To keep the door shut, obviously.”
He paused at the entrance to the living room, hands on his hips. “That’s not how dishwashers work.”
“That’s how they work here.” In a house with three women on a very limited budget, that is. I wasn’t completely useless, and I’d tried to fix it after watching forty-three YouTube videos and reading several how-to articles. But I’d run into a problem without having the right tool, and I was worried I’d break something else in the process.
Anyway. The duct tape worked fine, thank you very much.
Chris shook his head and sat back on the couch. “Wanna watch something?”
“I guess?”
He found the remote and started flipping through channels before coming to a stop. “Gilmore Girls. This is a good episode, too.”
I scoffed. “Oh, right. I’m supposed to believe you watch Gilmore Girls.”
“I told you, four sisters. They had marathon weekends all the time and I guess I got roped into the story.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Okay. Name one character.”
“I’ll name you two: Luke and Lorelai.”
“Really?”
“Sure. I liked how he was sort of mad all the time and she was optimistic. Somehow, they worked.”
“Ah, the grumpy/sunshine trope.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s a theme you find in stories, especially romances. Grumpy/sunshine is a big one.”
He rubbed a thumb across his bottom lip while he mulled this over. Maybe I watched a little too closely. He had a very nice… thumb. Thumbs don’t get enough credit. They are opposable, after all.
With a smirk, he slid down and flung an arm over the back of the couch. The tips of his fingers grazed my shoulder. “I guess in our friendship, I’d be the sunshine and you’d be the grump.”
“Excuse me?”
He gestured with a hand between us. “You’re the grumpy, and I’m the sunshine. You know, the whole cat/dog thing.”
Then, like they’d secretly met earlier and planned this whole elaborate setup, Kevin sauntered into the room and stood before the couch, surveying his choice of humans. He hopped into the space between us and then regarded me with narrowed yellow eyes before waltzing himself right over to Chris and settling in his lap.
Kevin. The cat who hissed at me this morning because I touched the pillow he was laying on. The same cat who had once so terrified the air conditioner repairman by jumping on his back and clawing his way down that the man had refused to come back. The very one who was at least seventeen years old and so set in his ways he’d been known to sit directly on my face if I was late to get him breakfast.
“I can’t believe you chose him, you furball.”
“Stop. He’ll hear you.” Chris covered Kevin’s ears with his hands. “So grumpy.”
“I’m not grumpy. I am tired.”
Chris arched one dark eyebrow, a cheek dimpling. “Sure.”
“Oh, shut up.” With a huff, I wrapped a blanket around me, ignoring the warm, rankling sound of his laughter.
