CHAPTER 18

IT WAS MAGIC hour. Judas was officiating the wedding. He stood with Jonathan and Chris atop the high dive, speaking loudly into a plastic lifeguard megaphone. The rest of the party sat down on the pool deck in those blue-and-white chairs by the well.

“. . . And by the power vested in me,” Judas said in his best brotivational speaker voice, “by the online course I took earlier this afternoon, and the great County of Yellow, I now pronounce you husband and wife.”

Jonathan and Chris kissed, passionately, for a while, like get-a-room-already long. When they finished, Chris kept her lips close to Jonathan’s ear.

“I know that you wish that Bill could be here,” she said quietly.

“Yeah,” Jonathan agreed.

“And your dad,” Chris said.

Jonathan nodded.

Chris continued, “But now you have two dads too.”

Jonathan looked down from their perch atop the high dive and saw Chris’s dads. They were holding each other, caught up in the moment. Jonathan smiled, his eyes wet.

“Ladies and gentleman,” Judas orated, “It is with GREAT pleasure that I present to you, Jonathan and Christmas Poole-Partee. Mr. and Mrs. Poole-Partee, you may do your first cannonball as husband and wife.”

Roheed leaned over to Charlie. “Did you know Chris’s full name is Christmas?”

“No I did not,” Charlie replied. “Christmas Partee, what a badass name.”

Roheed agreed.

Jonathan and Chris smiled, clasped hands, and did a wicked double cannonball off the high dive, splashing their guests in their chairs. Everyone cheered.

Music started playing over the PA again and Jonathan and Chris went to go change into dry clothes and everyone of age started drinking and celebrating.

A little later, Jonathan and Chris hightailed it to the shuffleboard court that had been MacGrubered into a dance floor. They looked across the way and nodded to Chris’s dads, who were cutting a rug themselves. Judas danced with Shannon Twinsley, who kept looking longingly across the pool deck to Channan, who was dancing with their mom, June. The creepy twins wanted to dance with each other in a not-so-familial way.

Roheed caught Florence’s eye. She walked over and met him by the waterslide. They looked out over the softly shimmering pool. Light danced in the water’s reflection.

“This is incredible,” Roheed said. Now that Florence was close, he couldn’t make his eyes meet hers.

Florence nodded. “All it took was a couple of phone calls and some elbow grease. Turns out a lot of people really love Jonathan and Chris.”

It was Roheed’s turn to nod. There was an awkward silence for a few moments. Florence looked down at the concrete.

“I’m really sorry about what I said earlier,” Roheed broke the silence. Florence looked up at him. Finally, their eyes met. Roheed continued, “I want to be with you, but I don’t want to be with you and apart from you.”

“I understand,” Florence said. She did; she agreed, and she felt it, too.

“I need to be on the West Coast until next summer, when my app launches, so I suppose that we must take a break or break up,” Roheed said sadly.

“We don’t,” Florence answered, her face looking like it had been harboring a rogue smile for several seconds.

“We don’t?” Roheed said, shocked.

Florence let her smile free and gushed. “Jerd McKinley just sold a new Rich B Words show, Rich B Words of Orange County. They’re moving the entire original cast to Laguna Beach! They’re hoping it’s going to be bigger than that one reality show that was filmed in Laguna Beach—I forget what it was called right now.”

“That’s incredible!” Roheed said, feeling like his life had been doomed but a last-minute call from the governor had sprung him.

“We’ll be a quick plane ride away, and I’m sure my shooting schedule won’t be too intense. I can stay with you whenever we’re not filming.”

Roheed couldn’t contain himself. “May I kiss you?” he asked.

Florence rolled her eyes and smiled. “You don’t need to ask me that every time.” She hardly got the word “time” out because Roheed planted a big sloppy one right on her smackeroonie. Roheed cupped the back of Florence’s neck in his surprisingly strong hand and the whole thing was pretty hot.

“Wow!” Roheed needed to catch his breath after that one. Then he remembered, “Hey, speaking of Jerd, you need to talk to Charlie about In Sheep’s Clothing.”

“Jerd told me that Charlie was taken care of,” Florence said. Roheed shook his head. Florence immediately took out her phone and walked away from the pool to make the call. Roheed let her leave, still looking wistfully at the pool’s gentle water. Then he decided to head up to the snack bar.

Charlie manned—personned as he called it—the grill, sweating, flipping burgers, and rolling dogs. He was setting up large trays of snack bar food to cater the wedding. Roheed entered the bar.

“Glad to see you buddy,” Charlie said. “I have wieners that need bunning.”

Roheed slid into his sidekick role effortlessly. He put hot dogs into lightly toasted hot dog buns.

“Did you talk to Jill?” Roheed asked.

Charlie shook his head.

“You should probably straighten things out with her,” Roheed said. “There’s a high probability that she wasn’t working as Scott’s wheelperson in a planned arson.”

“No, I know,” Charlie said. “I already talked about everything with Scott. He came and apologized and offered to help so I gave him a pretty terrible job.”

Scott appeared from around the corner, a poorly made chicken quesadilla on a plate in his hand. “They’re so hard to make,” he griped.

“That one’s not good enough, Scott,” Charlie barked, “Start over. And make sure all of the fifty chicken quesadillas we need for this party are perfect!”

“But there aren’t even fifty people here,” Scott complained.

For once Charlie gave Scott the evil eye. Scott grumbled.

“And he’s going to turn himself in for burning down the chapel,” Charlie said to Roheed, and then turned. “Right, Scott?”

“I’d rather face the Yellow County sheriff than my mom,” Scott assured Roheed.

Roheed nodded. He was sure that June could be a big B word when she wanted to, and also when she didn’t want to, and also always.

Charlie took off his Kiss the Cook . . . Please!!!?! apron and hung it around Roheed’s neck. “Show him how it’s done,” he told Roheed.

Roheed regarded the apron with reverence, then turned to Scott and began the chicken quesadilla-making tutorial to end all chicken quesadilla-making tutorials. Like, if you were to search “chicken quesadilla-making tutorial” on YouTube, you would want the chicken quesadilla-making tutorial that Roheed gave to Scott.

Jill sat on the pool deck, her feet dangling in the water. Charlie sat next to her. Jill’s heart was racing; she had been nervous about this conversation all day. Her words flowed like an inner-city fire hydrant on a hot day. “It wasn’t what it looked like. I was scared.”

Charlie stopped her. “I talked to Scott, I know everything,” he said, and he kissed her and the soft music kept playing over the PA and people were dancing. All of the sudden, Judas popped champagne and there was cheering as he drank it straight from the bottle and jumped off the high dive. Fireworks erupted from the sand volleyball court, lighting up the sky in the shapes of doggies and ducks and dolphins, their reflections dancing on the pool’s surface.

Charlie and Jill stopped kissing momentarily, “Did you know Chris was short for Christmas?” Charlie asked.

“Nope,” Jill smiled. “It’s cute, though.”

“Totally,” Charlie agreed, and they went back to making out, Charlie’s webbed toes swaying in the water next to Jill’s petite footsies. The waves their feet made spread out across the pool and turned into ripples that eventually turned into nothing.