Zach woke Camila — his girlfriend — by testing her volume control. After he made her come with his mouth — Camila tugging on his hair in lieu of screaming — she tapped the top of his head and sighed, “Snooze button.”
Now he was in the kitchen adding blueberries to the waffle mix and trying not to burn the bacon.
“No, Ack!” Irene had entered the kitchen. “I told you I didn’t want to eat pigs anymore. Didn’t you see the video I sent you of the pig taking a bath?” Irene asked, sneaking past him to sprinkle cinnamon into the batter.
Zach grabbed a strip off a plate and took a remorseless bite. “I got seitan bacon,” he said, offering his sister the other half. “No pigs were harmed in the making of this breakfast protein.” The video of the bathing pig had been extremely cute.
Camila wandered out into the kitchen, her hair now in a high ponytail instead of the satin bonnet. “Good morning. That smells incredible. Is there —”
“Yes, there is,” Irene interrupted. She pulled three mugs out of the cupboard and filled them with coffee. “How do you take it?” she asked.
“Do you have any Splenda? Sugar is fine, too.”
Apologetic, Zach said, “We just have sugar. I’ll put it on the shopping list.”
Her shy smile gave him more of a buzz than the coffee ever could.
“Irene, I love your pajamas!”
The teen turned and posed to better show off the pants, which were a collage of famous paintings. “Aren’t they amazing?” She turned and pointed at her left butt cheek. “This one is my favorite. “Bird Bath, by Leonora Carrington.”
Zach knew the painting she was talking about, a macabre image of two darkly robed figures, one spraying paint on a bird.
“Oh, that’s the same woman who did that cool giantess painting, right?” Camila asked.
“Yes!” Irene said. “Do you like surrealists?”
Mouth full of seitan bacon, Camila answered with her hand covering her mouth. “I can’t say I know anything about art or understand it, but I love it. I just kind of vibe off paintings. What do you like about the bird bath one?”
Irene thought about it. “Honestly? The vibe.”
The pair sat around the kitchen island, sipping coffee and showing each other paintings they liked on their phones while Zach tended to the waffle maker. It was so sweet, so normal. A morning of food and happy conversations after a night devoid of yelling and broken glass. Had this kitchen ever known so much cheer? Had he?
He set a waffle in front of each of them as Camila was asking, “So do you want to study art in school, if you plan to go to school?”
Irene was already drowning her waffle in syrup. “Ideally, yes. Of course, my father is trying to bribe me to study something more ‘practical,’ like business or marketing. He always does this, tries to pull our strings from afar when he offers financial help.”
“It’s a pretty effective bribe considering how expensive college has gotten,” Camila said. “What if you compromised and took some ‘practical’ electives? I took so many random classes, especially before I decided what I wanted to study for real.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” Zach said, sitting down with his plate across from them.
“Maybe,” Irene said. “I guess I’ll have a chance to talk to him about it in person soon.”
“Irene is going to L.A. to visit our dad for a few weeks before school starts at the end of August.”
“Yeah, I leave next weekend. I would rather scoop out my eyes and eat them like cherries, but, you know. Only living parent and all that.”
“L.A. has some cool art stuff, though, like the LACMA. Might help the conversation with your dad if you both share something you’re passionate about?”
“I feel like he’d be more persuaded by a PowerPoint,” Irene said. “But it’s worth a shot.”
“Let me know if you want help,” Camila said. “I can PowerPoint like a motherfucker.”
* * *
Later, they sat on the couch snuggling and scrolling through their phones after Irene had left for a short shift. “So I was thinking,” Zach said, “with Irene in California, I will have to pick up more shifts at the shop, but I was thinking of going to the cabin one of these weekends, if you’re interested.”
“Cabin?” Camila asked.
“I thought I’d told you about this? Family cabin about two hours from here. It was jointly owned by my mom and her siblings. It’s not fancy, it’s a tiny old thing they bought and renovated when property was cheap. So now it’s sort of mine.”
“Just like the shop is sort of yours,” she said.
“Just like that. It’s not anything fancy, seriously, and it’s in the middle of nowhere. But it’s really pretty there. There’s a lake and a pedal kayak, and a hot tub.”
“A hot tub? Say less. Let’s go right now.”
Zach laughed and massaged her foot. “Not so fast. I’ve gotta plan this out and make sure the shop is covered. Next weekend would be better.”
“Oh, that reminds me, you’re going to get an invitation to Seth and Era’s joint bachelor/bachelorette party. It’s in two weeks.”
“Isn’t the wedding in like a month?”
“Yup, two weeks after. They wanted to space things out so they weren’t away from their respective jobs more than a few days at a time.” She rolled her eyes. “It’s not like I’m on the verge of complete system collapse from the stress of planning or anything.”
He pulled up his phone calendar and cringed. “I’m sorry, I can’t go to the party. I’m going to be in California for a few days.”
“Oh,” Camila said, looking disappointed. “But you’re still coming to the wedding, right?”
“Of course,” he said. “So, lake next weekend, then I’m away the weekend after that, and then wedding two weeks after that. I’ll have to work a bunch of Jack’s weekday shifts to make it happen, but I can do it.”
Camila squealed and crawled into his lap, covering his face and neck with kisses. “I’m so excited. My bridesmaid dress is so pretty. My bachelorette party dress, oh my god, you are not prepared. So, about this lake trip,” she said.
“Yes?” he said, feeling drunk as a reflex when her voice got husky like that.
His collarbone flared with heat where she trailed her fingers, outlining it with a pointed, red fingernail. “Should we do another photo shoot?”