Bowl Full of Cherries (10 page)

“I don’t even know what to say to you.”

“Just someone who isn’t a roided-out jock. Why do you always try to make me sound like such an asshole, Averell?”

“Don’t need to. You excel all on your own.”

B
Y
THE
time the brothers reached the airport, neither was speaking to the other. Every once in a while, Tyler would change the album, cycling through a new set of indie music. They sat in icy silence when normally they would sing together. When Tyler called Sondra to tell her that they were outside of her terminal, his voice came out croaky from disuse.

They idled in the passenger loading/unloading zone, pointedly ignoring each other.

Finally, Tyler said, “I wasn’t calling him
fat
.”

“You weren’t
not
calling him fat, either.”

Sondra came bounding out of the airport, her bags slung over her shoulder, bright purple bug-eye shades covering half of her face. She looked as fresh-faced as if she’d stepped out of a five-star hotel, not off an eight-hour flight. But then, Sondra always flew first class.

A gust of freezing air swirled through the car as Sondra flung open the door.

“Cousins!” she said brightly, and not noticing (or not caring about) the frostiness between the Lang twins, she flung herself between seats and squeezed them all together in a group hug.

“Sondra,” Rell said. Man, his voice sounded awful too.

Tyler struggled, finally giving in when his floundering only made her squeeze harder. Giving a satisfied “Ahh!” like she’d just drunk something tasty, Sondra fell back in her seat.

“I have missed you guys!”

“Missed you too, Sondra,” Tyler told her, dusting snow transfer off his shoulder.

“I’ve got the best presents this year,” she said with a smile. “You won’t even guess.”

“I bet it comes from France,” Rell said dryly.

“
Gruyère
,
Pélardon
,
Selles-sur-Cher
!”

“Oh, God, those better be wines,” Rell moaned.

“They’re cheeses,
imbécile
,” Tyler said loftily.

“
Parlez-vous français
, Tyler?” Sondra asked brightly and Tyler puffed up a little.

“I will give you both a million dollars if you will stop talking in French. All insults must be in English. Or Russian.” And then Rell asked, “How the hell did you get cheese into the country anyway, Sondra? At Customs—”

She laughed lightly and then in her best not-all-together-bright voice she said. “‘What do you mean did I bring anything back, sir? Like my clothes? I brought my
clothes
…. And some souvenirs. Like Eiffel-tower key chains and stuff. Oh? Food? Just the peanuts from the plane.’ I’ve done it like a million times. No big.”

Rell shook his head.

“Oh, please don’t be upset, Relly,” Sondra said and Tyler snorted. “We’re going to have so much fun while I’m here. Tonight, the Livery! And then I want to go out and take pictures and—”

“I’m
not
posing nude for you, Sondra.”

He caught her little smirk in the rearview mirror as she said, “Not
all
of my pictures are nudes. Though I’m working on this awesome new collection called
The Beautiful Body Experiment
and—”

“I think we’ll be good sticking to family portraits, Sondra.”

“Only if we’re all wearing ugly Christmas sweaters. I want to send it in to
I Can’t Believe We’re Related Dot Com
,” Tyler said.

Sondra let out an incredibly long sigh. “You guys are so limiting.”

“Not in the car ten minutes and we’re already limiting?” Rell joked.

As they headed back to the house, they all sang along with
I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas
.

“I’
M
SORRY
I left you alone with this idiot for so long,” Tyler told Crowley later that evening.

“Thanks for that, Tyler, real nice,” Rell sniffed

Tyler was driving their mother’s SUV and Crowley sat in the front seat. It was dark but the city was awash with color—tiny microbursts of Christmas cheer, along with the streetlights, neon signs, and glow of restaurant windows. It was alive and beautiful.

They were heading out of the quaint downtown and over toward the newer part of the area. “It’s got a great club scene,” Tyler had said.

“What are you doing here anyway?” Tyler tossed over his shoulder at his brother. Rell started to speak and then slumped back.

“Just thought it sounded like… something to do.”

Crowley glanced back at Rell and smiled.

He’d spent most of the day playing with Jes’s kids, which was actually a lot of fun. It reminded him of home, but was dissimilar enough that he could enjoy himself without aching for his own family. Besides, there wasn’t time to ache with a ten-year-old, an eight-year-old, and a seven-year-old leading the charge. They’d been playing cards when Rell had popped his head around the entryway. He smiled. Crowley melted.

“I’m driving out to Hooper Bay to get Tyler and then we’re going to the airport to pick up our cousin Sondra. Kinda the family chauffeur now, I guess.” When Rell smiled, he smiled with teeth. It was a confident, happy smile, one Crowley liked
a lot
. Memories of the night before had flooded his mind. “It’s part of my punishment.”

“P-punishment?”

“Go, Crowley!” Charley bossed, and Crowley picked up a card off the deck.

“Unfairly punished,” Rell promised with a wink. “Remember I said that I’m my mother’s indentured servant? It would all be a lot easier to take if I have you to bring along. Wow, that sounded….”

Almost like flirting
, Crowley thought. He was a novice flirter, though, so he couldn’t be sure. It could have just been friendly. His mind went back to the night before and the bathroom, and the intimate stroking motion of Rell’s hand. He’d dreamed about that hand last night. He didn’t remember the specifics, just that it had been Rell’s hand and it was on him and it had felt wonderful.

“You want to come along, Owl?”

God, yes. But he really shouldn’t. He couldn’t even make his lips and tongue work properly around Rell. Hours alone in the car? Unless they sang the whole way, Crowley was certain he wouldn’t be able to talk like a normal human being.

“I’m… okay here,” he managed.

“We’re playing cards,” Andy told Rell without looking up. “And Mom said we can play in the snow after lunch. And Crowley’s going to throw us in the snow.”

“You’re going to throw them in the snow?”

This was news to him. “If it’s deep enough, I guess.”

Rell’s handsome smile lit his face once more. “You want to go do something tonight when I get back?” He scrunched up his face and said, “I mean, Tyler wants to go to a club. It’s going to be—” Crowley hated clubs. He never fit in.
Ever
. And he didn’t know how to dance, and he didn’t drink enough to make it fun. But if Rell Lang was going to the club, Crowley wanted to go, too. A club was large enough and noisy enough that he could hide his awkwardness while still being near Rell.

“Sure.” His attempt to sound casual came out a little too bright. He tried to play it down. “I mean, if everyone else is.”

“Really?” Rell blinked.

“Yeah, that sounds like fun.”

“Well… okay then.”

That had been in the early afternoon. After Rell left, and Jack won two of their three card games, Crowley and the kids had gone out into the spacious back yard with the intention of building a snowman. This turned into a snow family and then into a snow fort.

“I always wanted to try to make a snow fort,” Crowley told Andy, who was the self-proclaimed architect for the project. It was clear from the start that their snow fort was a doomed one, that the space was not structurally sound. Heck, they had a labor dispute within the first ten minutes, with Charley taking Jack’s bucket and Jack striking until he got it back.

At first, Crowley had tried to butt in with some adult wisdom and experience, but none of the children were very interested in listening to him. He was there to lift things for them. But they were nothing if not flexible, and when the fort collapsed in on them, they leaped up through the snow, shouting with delight. The project started all over again.

By the time Jes came out to collect her kids, they were frozen through. All of them, red-faced, laughing, and covered in snow (though the child-tossing never occurred). Crowley’s fingers were numb and his hair wet from, yes, crawling into the fort which then collapsed on him. Jes quirked an eyebrow at him.

While everyone was eating lunch, Crowley warmed himself by the fire and Katie let him hold the baby who turned and snuggled against his chest, struggling to keep his little eyes open. The infant soon gave in to the warmth and the gentle rocking.

He helped Mrs. Lang with the dishes, despite her half-hearted protests, and she asked him if he’d gotten enough to eat, missing entirely that he’d skipped out on her buffet. He nodded yes and plunged his hands into the sudsy water.

When there were no more chores to distract, he went back up to the room he was sharing with Rell, and he logged on to the computer and played a little bit of
Rain Queen
, making sure to send
Averellstar90
a friend request.

When Rell had returned that evening with Tyler and the tattoo-covered Sondra in tow, he said, “Hey, uh… so I told Tyler I’m gonna go with you guys to the Livery.”

“Yeah?” Crowley asked, brightening. He told himself he’d gotten his crush under control, which definitely wasn’t true, but he was ready to go out. Ready to stand near Rell and make words again.

“I don’t usually like clubs much—”

“Me neither,” Crowley insisted enthusiastically, glad they agreed on this point.

“What? You love Pop & Cork,” Tyler argued and Crowley grimaced. His roommate frowned, his eyebrows disappearing behind his thick-rimmed glasses. “Don’t you?”

“I like
you
, Tyler, so I like to, y’know, do what you want to do and….”

“Oh em gee, Crowley Fredericks. How can you not like Pop & Cork?”

“I have a few thoughts,” Rell said, shifting.

“Well, you’ll love the Livery,” Tyler promised.

“I’m going to freshen up, give my Mom and CeCe a hug, then I’m ready to roll,” Sondra said. “Nice to meet you, Crowley. Let’s talk about the world and such in the car, okay?”

Tyler stretched. “I guess I could change clothes.”

“I’m not going to,” Rell said.

His brother gave him a head-to-toe once-over and sighed. “Of course you aren’t.”

When it was just he and Rell in the hallway, Crowley said, “I’m glad you’re coming.”

“Yeah, but if you don’t want to—”

“No, I’m sure it’s ‘phamasgoric’ or whatever.” He smiled brightly. “And I don’t want to be that guy, ya know, killing everyone’s buzz.”

“Rell!” Katie called. “Are you guys going out? I need diapers!”

“Sisters,” Rell said. And then with a smile that twisted Crowley’s stomach into knots, he said, “I doubt you ever kill anyone’s buzz, Owl.”

T
HEY
PULLED
up outside of the Livery, which was packed despite the freezing temperatures and the holiday season. Sondra, true to her word, had engaged him in conversations about the world, asking his opinions on
everything
. What did he think about dolphins? Did he like hang drums? Where did he stand on the two-party system? And every time he answered her, she just made a little noise and asked him something new. She didn’t give her own opinion, though sometimes she probed deeper. He wondered if he was secretly being interviewed.

“You didn’t say The Emporium Sound was playing,” Rell accused his brother as they waited in line to get into the club. Music spilled out of the doorway, full of upbeat, frenetic energy. It sounded sort of 80s New Wave.

As Crowley followed his group into the club, he immersed himself in the wailing of the lead singer who hammered away at the keyboard. The band was equal parts girls and guys, two each. One of the girls hummed along and dragged her bow across a beautiful violin. The sight of it got Crowley’s blood pumping.

They were playing holiday music, and taking requests from drunken hipsters. Everything from traditional carols to rousing new classics like “Fairytale of New York,” random pub songs and even “Africa”—which didn’t even have a Christmas twist. The Emporium Sound also performed some new songs—catchy stuff they said they’d written on the road—and he and Rell were singing along by the second chorus. The people in the club went nuts and danced and sang and spilled drinks on each other.

Crowley smiled shyly when he caught Rell looking at him through the flickering red and green lights. Rell camped up the chorus to a song called “Jingle, Jingle, Jangle
.
”

“Have you ever thought about getting a tattoo?” Sondra shouted over the noise of the club as she came up next to him. More of her random questions. She’d just thrown back a shot of something electric blue.