We decided not to go out with the girls from the pool after all and instead watched Star Wars at Grandma Brandon’s timeshare. The next day we all three piled into the GTO after a decent night’s rest. Kai sat in the back again.
“You can have shotgun,” I’d told Kai.
“No, I don’t believe I could,” Kai had cryptically told me.
We barreled down Interstate 75 after stopping for gas, which Ezra again refused to let me help pay for, which irked me, but he refused to argue, so I was forced to give him the silent treatment, but when I give the silent treatment, it only lasts five minutes because I don’t have the willpower.
I turned to talk to Kai, but he was asleep with his mouth open. I took a picture for future extortion purposes.
“That was evil,” Ezra said quietly, but his smirk was present, so I didn’t think he actually thought it was all that evil.
“Not evil. No. It’s, uh, a bargaining chip of sorts.”
“Ah, blackmail fodder.”
“Precisely.”
We were quiet for a moment.
“How are your legs?” I asked.
He shifted. “Fine,” he said.
“You don’t have to be afraid to talk about it,” I told him.
“What if I don’t want to talk about it?” he asked.
“Well, then I won’t force you.”
We rode for five minutes in silence.
“They only hurt when I’ve been sitting for long periods of time,” he said, shocking me a little. I checked my excitement.
“Well, that’s only natural,” I told him.
“I, uh, I hate taking medicine for them because I’m afraid I’ll get addicted, so I just work through the pain instead.”
I shifted my body toward him. “That sucks, Ezra.”
He looked at me briefly before looking back onto the road. “It’s not that bad, really. I just have to make sure I move them so they don’t get stiff is all.” He was deflecting, but I wasn’t about to call him on it. Pride was a big thing for Ezra Brandon. I was discovering this.
It’s why I hadn’t offered to drive. He’d insisted on doing all the driving, as if giving up the reins meant he was less of a man or something.
“What happened that day?” I asked him.
I counted the breaths he took and with each one, he exhaled his thoughts. I could see them floating in the air around him, those worried, anxious thoughts. He didn’t like to admit a weakness. He loathed it. I could tell. I could see him working up the nerve to tell me when we both heard a grating, scratching noise from behind us.
We turned just in time to see Kai sparking a lighter to light up a joint.
“What the hell, Kai!” Ezra yelled.
“Kai, are you insane?” I shouted, echoing Ezra’s outrage.
Ezra pulled over on the shoulder in the middle of nowhere. There wasn’t a car or town to be seen for miles. We both jumped out. Ezra met my side, reached in through my window, grabbed the joint from Kai’s mouth, and flicked it into the field next to the GTO.
“What the hell, Kai?” he roared. “I told you, you weren’t allowed to do this shit on our road trip! I told you you had to quit if you wanted to come, and you promised!”
“Chill, man,” Kai said, placing the palms of his hands on Ezra’s shoulders, but Ezra shrugged them off.
“No, I can’t afford to get caught with this shit in my car, Kai!”
“Damn, dude, fine. Sorry. I won’t light up another in your car again,” he said, attempting to appease Ezra.
“Damn right you won’t,” Ezra said, marching to the trunk of his GTO and opening it with his keys. He pulled out Kai’s bag and started to toss out all his belongings onto the gravel below.
Kai’s hands went to his head. “You’ve lost it, dude! That’s all my stuff, man!”
“Ezra, let’s talk about this,” I said as calmly as I could.
“Don’t worry,” he told me. “I’m just going through it to find whatever else he might be hiding in here so I can toss it as well.”
“Aw, man, that’s harsh,” Kai said, folding his arms like a little kid and kicking at the gravel.
I rolled my eyes. “Bad, Kai,” I mocked, shaking my finger at him. “This is very bad, Kai!”
Kai fought a smile. “Oh, shut up, Jupiter.”
“Ha! Should have respected your cousin, man.”
“I didn’t think he was serious.”
Ezra stopped searching his bags for a moment to stare at him.
“Ooh, boy, you better run,” I teased.
“Where is it?” Ezra asked, gesturing toward Kai’s luggage.
“There,” Kai grumbled, pointing at a pocket on the outside of his case.
Ezra dug his hands inside the outside pocket and pulled out a bag of Cannabis sativa. He dumped it into the grass, surprising me, and Kai groaned.
“Don’t worry, Kai. In just a few weeks, you should have a full plant here soon,” I teased.
Ezra looked up at me as if I’d lost my head.
I shrugged my shoulders. “What?”
“You’re not helping,” he told me.
I bit my lip to keep from laughing.
“I can’t even believe this,” Kai moaned. “I’m not gonna be able to smoke again until Chicago!”
“Kai.” Ezra sighed in exasperation and made a move to put Kai’s stuff back but stopped. He looked up, his face serious. He sniffed. “You smell that?” he asked.
Both of us stopped, raised our noses in the air, because, you know, those few inches make all the difference in the world.
“What is that?” I asked, smelling something smoky and sweet.
“The field,” Ezra said eerily quietly with a raised finger.
Kai and I turned toward the ten feet worth of grass between the road and the long stretches of pine trees lining the highway.
“It’s on fire!” Kai said, panicking.
“The joint,” I whispered, catching Ezra’s eyes.
All three of us ran toward the building fire.
“Think that blanket in the car could smother it?” I asked Ezra.
“Let’s see how bad it is first,” he panted as we rushed toward the smoke. “Maybe it will be a simple fix.”
Kai reached it first. “It’s not that bad!” he screamed toward us, and instant alleviation flooded through me until he reared his foot back.
“No!” Ezra and I shouted, but it was too late.
Kai kicked the fire. Kicked it. Like an asshole.
Ezra and I were forced to watch red burning embers fly through the air and hit dry grass in a ten-foot radius. Kai realized his mistake too late.
“Oh shit!” he yelled as if in slow motion.
“You’re supposed to stomp it, dumb ass!” Ezra hollered.
Frantically, we ran from burning fire to burning fire, wildly trying to tame the spreading flames, but as soon as we were done with one, we’d turn only to find another. Soon, the patches engulfed got bigger and bigger, but Ezra refused to give up. He repeatedly stomped and pounded, striding across the fire’s boundary edges. Kai and I kept pace with him. I was inhaling smoke, making me choke and cough, but I kept going.
“Get that moving blanket in the trunk of the GTO!” Ezra yelled at me over the roar of the fire.
I nodded and ran as fast I could, my legs weak from the effort of stomping. I reached the back of the car and rummaged around until I found the blanket then ran back. Ezra spread the blanket over a big patch of flames, hoping to cut off its oxygen enough that we could stamp it out.
To my utter relief, we were able to put the fire out more quickly than it could spread, and we dragged that blanket all over the embankment, smothering flames and preventing them from licking at the trees that lined the road. That would have proved disastrous, to say the least, because we’d be screwed with no orange juice as they would have likely driven up and out.
Ezra put out the last burning ember, and we all three collapsed to the burnt grass in severe exhaustion, but free from our fear of the forest catching.
I gulped in air at a dangerous rate.
“Slow down, Jupiter,” Ezra whispered, winded.
I tried to slow my breaths. I inhaled through my nose and out my mouth, but they both burned from the new cool air.
“It’s the smoke,” he said, sitting up. “You’ll be okay,” he said, grabbing my hands.
I batted them away. “Just let me die,” I whined, swallowing air in faster than Frankie inhaled popcorn on free refill night at The Galaxy.
Ezra laughed and yanked me up anyway. “Not a chance in hell,” he said.
He made me stand against the side of the car as he reached into a cooler in the trunk for a water and cracked the lid open. He thrust it in my face.
“Drink,” he ordered, still heaving.
I took it from him but was unable to drink because I was wheezing so hard. I gulped before bringing my shaking hands up to my lips and swallowing water. It felt so unbelievably good sliding down my chafed throat. I watched as Ezra took a swig of water, swished it around his mouth then spit, so I copied him. We both drank until we were no longer panting.
Ezra took a bottle of water over to Kai, who still laid in the grass.
“I’m quitting the ganja. Today,” he wheezed.
“Let’s go,” Ezra said, leading me to my side of the car.
He opened the door for me so I sat. I tried to lift my legs, but they ached with fatigue. Ezra noticed and bent, though I know it was probably painful for him, and lifted them into the car for me. His hands scorched the backs of my knees. I practically hissed at the electric currents they caused as they ran up and down the length before settling in my stomach.
“Thank you,” I whispered, unable to make eye contact.
Please don’t let him notice my reaction to him, I thought.
Ezra closed my door for me before swinging around the front of the GTO. I watched him, covered in black soot from head to toe, and a side-splitting guffaw left my lips. I looked down at myself and discovered I looked the same. Kai popped up in my side-view mirror for a brief moment then headed for Ezra’s side of the car. Ezra opened the door for him and Kai plopped into the backseat, dead tired, and covered in black soot and grit.
Ezra got in and closed his door. The three of us looked ridiculous.
“’Ello govna!” I exclaimed with the goofiest smile I could muster. “Chim chimney! Chim, chim, cher-oo!”
The car quieted a moment before both of them laughed. When things stilled down again, Ezra started the engine and pulled back out onto the highway.
“We’re freaking covered.” Ezra sighed.
“You have a nice laugh,” I told him.
Ezra smiled at me, actually smiled, and I inwardly swooned.
“Thanks,” he said.
“What should we do now?” I asked, gesturing my hands down my smoking body. Tsst! Yeah, I did that.
“Well,” Ezra sighed again, “I’m thirsty as hell, and hungry, and I just want to sit down and eat.”
“Agreed,” I said. “What do you think, idiot?” I asked Kai, turning around.
“I could eat,” he answered, his voice muffled by the seat, and shrugged.
Ezra pulled into a little aluminum bedazzled roadside diner a few miles down from where the fire had been. We all three got out and started walking the gravel path toward the entrance. Ezra opened the door for me and once we’d all piled inside, the din of the diner, busy with passing truckers and families on last-minute summer road trips hushed, turning to stare at us. A woman sitting at the register, fitting every diner-waitress stereotype known to man with her beehive, button nose, scalloped apron, and smacking gum, gawked at us.
“Your finest table!” I announced, making Ezra choke.
“This way,” she said, tossing an arm at a booth in the middle of the diner.
I slid into the booth first, my heart lurching when Ezra chose to sit next to me. Kai sat, spreading out his arms in his usual manner, and the waitress slapped plastic menus down for us.
“Can I get ya anythin’ to drink?” she drawled.
“Water,” we all croaked at once.
She eyed us like we were three people sitting in a diner in the middle of the most rural county in Georgia mysteriously covered in black soot… Wait a minute.
“Be right back,” she told us, smacking her gum again.
I looked around the diner and out the glass window onto the highway before noticing the tables had those old-fashioned mini jukeboxes on them. “Got a dime?” I asked Ezra.
“Sure,” he said, reaching into his pocket and tossing it my direction.
I caught it and put it into the little slot, winding the little metal knob until it clicked and you could hear the clink of the dime tumbling throughout the little machine.
“B-four,” I whispered, clicking the buttons.
We waited but it didn’t work.
“Aw, man,” I fussed. “Too bad.”
“You owe me a dime. Or a song,” Ezra teased.
“No way, José. Who carries a dime around with them?”
“Uh, I do,” he answered, acting offended.
I ignored him. “I do have a lovely singing voice, though.”
“Really?” Ezra asked, leaning back in the booth.
“Yeah, people have told me I have a similar sound to Charo. I sing a mean Cuchi Cuchi Coo, if you’re interested.”
Ezra’s face broke into an ear-splitting grin. “There’s that smile again,” I observed.
He shook his head, burying his chin in his chest as if he was embarrassed, and my heart grew two sizes at how charming that was. I could eat him up.
My hands flew to the table, searching. “Why are there never any spoons when you need them?”
“What are you talkin—” he began, but stopped when the waitress laid three glasses of water down as well as a full pitcher.
“Somethin’ told me you’d be needin’ it, darlins,” she said and winked. She’d gotten over the initial shock, it seemed. “Be right back to take your orders.”
We perused our menus. “Wonder if I could get this gravy on the side,” I said to no one.
Someone turned up the television.
“We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming to bring you this breaking news—” a woman drawled.
“I don’t think I want anything this heavy, though.” I sighed, remarking upon the greasy chicken fried steak.
“—of a grass fire off Interstate 75 in Crisp County that has spiraled out of control—”
“But then again, who knows when we’ll be stopping again and I don’t want to be hungry later.”
“—encroaching on the forested area and heading south toward—”
I slammed my menu down. “I don’t care! I’m getting the chicken fried steak,” I declared.
“Dance, Dance, Dance” by The Beach Boys flared through the diner’s speakers.
I gasped, sitting up. “My song!”
Ezra whipped me from my seat so fast my next sentence blurred in the wind.
“What’s everyone staring at?” I asked the stunned diners.
He threw me over his shoulder, his warm hand splayed against my backside, and my cheeks turned beet red. I could feel it.
“Ezra!”
With the diner patrons hot on our heels, he pushed the door open with his free hand, and followed Kai out to the GTO with me bouncing over his shoulder.
“The keys!” Kai yelled at Ezra.
I felt more than saw him toss them at Kai. A moment later the unmistakable rumble of the engine sounded and I was shoved into the backseat of the GTO. Ezra fell on top of me as Kai tore out of the parking lot, gravel kicking up behind our tires, the passenger-side door swinging as the car fishtailed onto the on-ramp.
Ezra pushed up, leaning over the back of the front seat and pulled the door closed.
“What was that?” I asked.
“The fire,” Ezra wheezed.
“What fire?” I asked.
Ezra and Kai both gave me a deadpan stare.
I cleared my throat. “Oh, uh, that fire.”
“We should have stayed longer to make sure,” Ezra huffed.
It got quiet before Kai whispered, “We’re fugitives.”
Ezra settled in next to me, looked over, and rolled his eyes.
“Turn on the radio,” Ezra said.
We both sat up and leaned against the front seats as Kai flipped through station after station to get any kind of news about the fire, but we couldn’t find any. Apparently it wasn’t news enough for the bigger stations.
“What should we do?” Kai gulped, visibly nervous.
“I don’t know, Cheech. Maybe you should consult Chong?” Ezra asked.
I looked at Ezra, my mouth agape. “Who is this?” I asked him.
His signature smirk appeared and I almost fell over. I want your babies! Or, well, maybe not your babies. Um, eventually your babies, like, in ten years or something. Maybe we could just adopt a rescue dog or something first! You know, feel things out! I screamed. Well, in my head I screamed, because, as you know, doing so out loud would have been highly inappropriate. That, and since I had almost two weeks left with Ezra, things would have been awkward if I had, and awkward Jupiter was an overall bad look on me.
“It never would have happened if you hadn’t thrown it into the grass, dude.”
“Dude, it never would have happened if you’d never lit up in the first place!”
They began shouting back and forth, hurling insults.
“Boys! Stop!” I chimed in, and they both looked at me. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t actually think you’d stop. Continue.”
“Kai, drive through this godforsaken county, find a motel, and we’ll hole up for a few hours, check the news,” Ezra ordered.
“Yeah,” I said, puckering my lips. “Runnin’ from the law. Shufflin’ the pigs. Dodgin’ the 5-0. Giv’n the bacon the ol’ slip!”
“Jupiter,” Ezra said, sounding exasperated. He ran a hand down his face. I swear I saw him fight a slight smile, though. I wouldn’t bet my life on it or anything. Maybe Frankie’s. There’s a possibility I’d bet Frankie’s.
“Got it, sarge,” I said, saluting him.
We drove in silence for almost two hours, desperate to get as far away as possible from our crime scene. A state trooper passed by us, and we all threw on our best Martha Stewart postures. I plastered what I thought was a very genuine smile, but Ezra told me I looked like one of those dog memes where someone has Photoshopped human teeth on them, which I thought was very rude.
Kai turned into an ancient motel called Huckleberry Inn. It had one of those signs from the 1950s, that at the time, probably seemed cheery and sweet, but now looked like the panning entrance shot of a film where cheerleaders yield chainsaws while chanting, “Gimme a D! Gimme an E! Gimme an A! Gimme a D! What’s that spell? You! That’s what it spells!” Then they move at a snail’s pace to come hack at you, but for some reason you’ve forgotten you have legs, so you sit there screaming with your hands up.
“I don’t know about this,” Ezra said warily.
“Yes. Yes, it will do just fine,” I told him.
“You want to sleep here?” Ezra asked, obviously bewildered.
“Sleep? Oh no. No, I meant murdered. This will be the perfect place to be murdered.”
“Kai, turn around. Keep driving.”
“This is just as good a place as any, Ezra. We need to shower, clean the car out, and all that. We can’t keep going because we run the risk of running into police.”
Ezra sighed. “Fine then. I’ll get us a room.”
“Wait,” I said. “Pull over to the side of the building. You need to change your sooty clothing and maybe run some water over your face.”
Ezra nodded. “Good idea.”
Kai pulled around and we all got out, meeting at the back of the GTO. I leaned in for the cooler and started to yank out a water bottle but stopped when I noticed a water hose stuck to the side near a pool pump.
“There’s a water hose,” I said, pointing it out.
“Oh cool,” Ezra said, yanking his T-shirt over his head in the way boys took off their shirts that made girls drool.
I wiped at my mouth. Ezra was built. Brick by brick, that boy was stacked. Someone call a docta, I’m feelin’ faint! I felt my mouth fall open and was powerless to close it. He strode over to the hose like the director of an Abercrombie shoot was nearby. I almost keeled over.
“Careful,” Kai whispered in my ear, startling me.
It was the motivation I needed. I cleared my throat. Act cool. “I wasn’t looking!” I shouted at him. #Facepalm
His smile was wide when he winked. “Jupiter, your Great Red Spot is showing.”
I covered my face, mortified.
“Kai, please don’t say anything to him.”
“Oh, I’m going to say something.”
“Kai!” I yelled, clutching his shirt and bringing him in close, eye to eye. “Hell hath no fury, Kai,” I gritted.
Kai paled and swallowed. “Okay, okay!” He backed away, straightening his clothing, and put some distance between us. He looked off into the parking lot behind me. “I think… Yeah, I think I saw my life just flash before my eyes.” I held up two fingers at my eyes then jabbed them toward him. “Gah! I promise. I promise. Just please go back to the old Jupiter.” I smiled prettily at him and he looked horrified. “That isn’t… That’s just not normal,” he muttered to himself. He walked off toward the courtyard at the back of the motel.
I turned my attention back to Ezra and sighed in ecstasy. He was bent over to keep the water from dousing his jeans and shoes. It ran over his hair, face, and neck as he scrubbed the black soot away. Oh my gato. He was so flipping beautiful. When he was done, he turned off the water and stood; rivulets of water sliced down his chest and abdomen. I bit my bottom lip, because that was what Ezra Brandon did. He made me bite my lip like some sex-crazed lunatic in one of those period romance dramas.
He walked toward me, the water cutting over his shoulders. He smirked at me, and my hands covered my eyes.
“Too much,” I told the air in front of me. “It’s just too much for one girl to endure.”
When he reached me, he pulled my hands down. “Are you okay?” he asked, looking concerned.
“Yes,” I squeaked, averting my eyes. “Here you go,” I said, noticing a housekeeping cart a few rooms down. I ran toward it and picked up a towel, bringing it back to him.
“Gee, thanks,” he told me, drying off his hair, face, and neck.
Gee? Gee! Don’t say adorable things like gee, Ezra, or I won’t be held responsible for the utterly psychotic reaction I would inevitably have, which would probably involve me licking the water sliding down your neck right now. My tongue darted, and I knew I had to get out of there. I sprinted toward the GTO and approached his bag.
“You need a shirt,” I squawked, channeling the Mad Hatter.
I could feel the heat from Ezra’s body at my side. I lifted the lid to his case to get him a T-shirt, but he slammed the case shut, shocking me.
“I was just going to get you a T-shirt,” I told him.
He leaned over me. “I’ve got it,” he breathed silkily.
“Oh, okay.” I shivered.
Ezra kept my gaze, reached in quickly, retrieved a tee, and let the lid fall before zipping it closed. Never breaking our stare, he pulled on the T-shirt. There was a strange intimacy to the act, and I felt my throat go dry. Okay, now I really do need that water shifting down his neck. Don’t get distracted; he’s hiding something.
I smiled at him and he smiled back.
“What’s in the bag, Ezra?” I asked. I could see my question surprised him.
“I have a dead body in there.”
“Cool. Let me see it.”
“Uh, well, I’m not really comfortable showing you my dead bodies so…”
“What’s in the bag, Ezra?”
“An extensive collection of celebrity hair.”
“That’s disgusting. What’s in the bag, Ezra?”
“My Pokémon memorabilia. It’s a little embarrassing.”
“Just a little?” I smiled, reaching for the lid.
Ezra startled, reaching for my hand. “Jupiter,” he sang.
“Ezra,” I sang back, landing on the zipper.
He started to laugh. “Jupiter, don’t,” he told me when I began unzipping the case.
His hand stopped mine, and there was a zap of electricity between us, warming me up from the inside. It swam up my arm, coiled in my belly, and took up a happy residence there. I began to inch the zipper back.
“You know, I like this playful Ezra,” I told him, slowly making progress with the zipper.
He didn’t stop me but he kept his hand on mine, sending a thrill up and down my spine.
“I’ve always been playful,” he said.
“You were playful before the accident but not after.”
It was the wrong thing to say. He yanked his hand back, taking mine with it, and slammed the trunk closed, locking it with his keys. I didn’t know how to keep a good thing going. It was as if we were made of this colorful ink, but my words came down in a downpour, washing all our wonderful, bright paint down at our feet, never to be brought back to life in that moment.
Color me Cecilia Giménez.*
*Cecilia Giménez is that cracked-out old Spanish woman in her eighties who attempted to “restore” a priceless nineteenth-century fresco of Jesus and royally messed up. #SMDH
“I’ll get us a room,” he said, turning and walking toward the motel office.
I sighed, strolling the direction I’d seen Kai walk, and followed the line of the building toward the back courtyard with its ancient but well-kept pool and retro aluminum umbrellas under tables lining the pool itself.
The place literally hadn’t made a single update since 1956, it seemed. A tall, elderly man with horn-rimmed glasses walked by, a towel draped over his arm.
“Buddy Holly? Is that you?”
He stopped. “Huh?”
“Nothing.”
I walked around the pool and courtyard area but didn’t find Kai anywhere. I circled the entire building looking for him, but he never came into view. I skirted past the front, back to the GTO, and found Ezra there.
“Get the room?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said, dangling an actual key in front of me.
“Good God, that’s a key. To an actual lock.”
“Quite the detective.”
“Hey! I— well— you—” I stuttered.
“Good one,” he zinged.
I huffed and crossed my arms. “You’re a punk. And an ass. You’re a punk ass.”
“Come on,” he said, opening the trunk and yanking bags out of the back. He looked around me. “Where’s Kai?”
“How should I know?”
Ezra took his phone out and texted presumably Kai. “Room four thirteen,” he said, throwing his head toward the corner room closest to the car. He stuck the key ring between his teeth, picked up both our cases, and barreled his way to our room. I followed, scrambling to catch up.
“I can carry my own bag, Ezra.”
“Nnngghhhgg aaa woooogggnntt rrrr rrr.”
“How could I negate an argument like that?” I oozed.
He stood at the door, so I took the keys from his mouth, grazing stubble when I did, and ignored the restless tumbling in my stomach because of it. I opened the door and held it open for him. He dropped the bags on the bed and I walked in after him. The room had wood floors that creaked underneath our feet, creeping me the flip out. The beds were updated with modern comforters, but they were about the only modern thing in the room. The fixtures and furniture hadn’t been moved in sixty years, I could tell, though, I admit, it was all very clean.
I peeked my head into the bathroom and it was very, uh, pink. Pink tile on the floor and walls, pink tub, pink toilet, pink sink. Pink.
“We’ve got a Pepto-Bismol situation up in here,” I said, before realizing the double meaning in that. My face grew hot. “I mean, uh, you know, like, not me or anything. I mean, I don’t have a Pepto-Bismol situation.” My hands gestured toward the bathroom in a circular motion. “The bathroom itself has a Pepto situation. You know, ’cause it’s pink.” Ezra stood at the end of the bed looking baffled. “Yeah, so, uh, I suppose I’ll go look for Kai then,” I said, making my way toward the door. Again.
“Jupiter,” Ezra said softly, catching my forearm in a warm palm, “stay. Shower. I’ll go look for Kai.”
“Oh, okay, yeah, that’s a good idea,” I said, flustered by his touching me.
Anytime his skin touched mine, my stomach plummeted at my feet. It felt like that time Frankie and I rode Space Mountain, but, you know, without all the puking. I told her chili dogs were a bad idea.
When the door closed behind him, I ran to my case and whipped out my soaps and stuff, a new set of unmentionables, another pair of cutoffs, and my T-shirt that read You’re suffering from a lack of Vitamin Me. I practically skipped to Pepto and started the water, waiting until it got hot before switching on the shower. I stripped down and jumped in.
Since I was alone, I started to sing “YOLO” by The Lonely Island, because that was my go-to jam in the shower. The song was a cautionary tale of the dangers of a careless life. It included sage advice about investing in real estate with a low interest rate and sauna habits. It also had a dope beat. You really do only live once.
I washed my hair and even cleaned between my toes, something I never really did, if I was being honest. The water ran black for several minutes, so I rewashed every little nook and cranny until it ran clear. I turned off the water and kept singing at the top of my lungs while I dressed and dried my hair. I opened the door to let out the steam and leaned against the sink to do my makeup.
I rapped Kendrick’s part while applying my mascara, but it didn’t quite translate right since I always form an “O” with my lips to open my eyes better. I dug through my makeup bag and pulled out my vanilla extract. I wasn’t allowed to wear perfumes because, you know, my parents, but my mom did let me wear vanilla extract, so I carried a bottle around with me.
I put a small dab of coconut oil in my hand and spread it over my palms to run throughout the length of my blonde curls to keep them in order. I flipped my head over to get the back then danced out of the room ass first and right into something solid. That something solid grunted. I stood abruptly, my blood racing.
Slowly I turned around to meet this intruder. It was Ezra. Of course it was Ezra. I closed my eyes, desperate to ignore the heat growing in my face, and looked up toward the ceiling.
“What fresh hell is this?”
Ezra leaned against the wall outside the bathroom, a small smile on his mouth. “Enjoying yourself?”
I felt my face flush again. “How long have you been listening?”
“Oh, right about the start of the second chorus, I believe… The first time.”
“But you said you were going to go look for Kai!”
“I did!”
“Did you find him?”
“I did.”
I buried my face in my hands.
“Kai?” I mumbled through fingers.
“Hello, Pavarotti,” Kai answered from somewhere in the room.
“Somebody, please kill me.”
“And deprive ourselves the pleasure of your lovely voice?” Ezra asked. “Never.” I let my hands fall at my sides. “You sound nothing like Charo, by the way,” he told me, entering the bathroom and closing the door.
I fell on the bed next to a very dirty Kai. “This is your bed,” I told him, my voice muffled in the comforter.
“Okay by me. You can just share with Ezra then.”
I sat up. “Don’t do this,” I begged.
“Do what?” he asked, feigning innocence.
“This,” I said, gesturing to his whole body with rapid hand movements. “Dig in to me now that you know what I feel for Ezra.”
Kai smiled in answer at me, letting me know he was definitely going to be digging in, then placed a hand behind his head as he flipped on the television with the remote with his other. The news started and my stomach fell a little. I’d forgotten about the fire.
“Have you heard anything?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said, flipping the channel. “They got it out. Nobody got hurt. Only a few trees fell. It’s already old news.”
I breathed a sigh of relief, flipping onto my back. My head laid near Kai’s feet, his socks a shocking bright white in comparison to the rest of him. I crossed my bare feet on the headboard and let my hands fall toward the edge of the bed.
“This bed is kinda comfy,” I said, bouncing up and down a little bit.
“You’re a dork.”
“I know.”
“I’m starving,” Kai said.
“Maybe after you shower we can all go grab something to eat.”
“Sounds like a plan, Stan,” he said, picking up his charging phone and messing with an app or something.
“I really like him,” I whispered.
Kai sat up and threw himself beside me, tucking his hands beneath his chin. “Oh my God, like, tell me all about it.”
“Shut up!” I couldn’t stop laughing. Kai sat back against the headboard and picked up his phone again.
“So what? Lots of girls like Ezra,” Kai said, shrugging.
I giggled a little bit. “Are you jealous of your cousin?” I asked him.
Kai signaled toward his admittedly pretty magnificent body, one that didn’t look much different than his cousin’s, by the way. “Does it look like I need to be jealous of Ezra?”
“Have you looked in the mirror today?”
He shook his head. “When I am showered and shaved, I am a beast, Jupiter.”
“I concede the point, though you could use a little spoonful of humility,” I told him.
Kai smiled. “Humility is for punks.”
I laughed, but the laughter died slowly, much like the murdering clowns in my nightmares.
“I know lots of girls like Ezra.”
Kai set his phone on the nightstand and looked at me. “Ezra is a different breed, though. He doesn’t care about that stuff. He’s a focused individual. He got his heart broken once and it changed him, kind of changed the way he handles stuff. I don’t know. This shit is too deep for me.”
“He’s still hung up on Jessica then?”
“No, he’s over her for sure, but I also know he told me it was pretty hard to get over her. Ezra seems to love people deeper than they love him.”
Don’t tell me stuff like that!
“And so he’s done?”
Kai smiled, his eyes crinkled with the gesture. “No, not done, extremely selective.”
I nodded.
Well, that rules me out then. Damn.
Seems I was going to be spending my time getting over Ezra Brandon on the trip instead of the opposite. You know, heh, heh, getting under him. <—I’m a grown-up. ’Cause that’s the opposite. The opposite of over is under. I’m a punny genius. Not that I’d had any intention of getting under Ezra Brandon or anything. I mean, I was about as virginal as you could get. If it were two hundred years in the past, I’d have been first to be pushed in the sacrificial volcano. I wouldn’t have even argued. That’s how much of a virgin I was. Anyway, I just killed my pun. Shot it dead. In the street. Like a dog. He even did that thing that all bad puns do where they squirm on the ground in a fake seizure. That’s how dead my pun is. Dead.