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It was my dad’s idea to invite our boyfriends
over to
help him with yard work. When I had
asked Jett he seemed to be okay about it but when he got to our
house Saturday morning, dropped off by his father at the top of our
driveway; he looked like he was in a
baaad
mood. I was waiting
anxiously for him to come over today, but when I saw his face
getting out of the car, I was ready to run the other way. I watched
him closely from the bottom of the driveway. I started walking
slowly toward him, giving his dad a wave as he left, he probably
couldn’t wait to get out of here. I mean he really looked cranky,
in a horribly rotten mood, although he still looked hot as all
hell. He had on a white tank top that fit him with a t-shirt flung
over his shoulder. His tan broad muscular shoulders stuck out, I
wanted to touch them and run my hand down his arm. He had on
painter jeans that were baggy but no matter what he wore they still
showed his very nice butt. He also had on work boots to complete
the bad boy look.

Jett met me half way down
the driveway and I leaned in to give him a kiss but from the scowl
on his face I decided to plant it on his cheek. He didn’t
reciprocate and he didn’t say anything. His face was cold and
rigid, what did I do now? I guess I'll have to figure it out
because I'm not asking him. In any case, he was in
a mood
.

We walked down to the bottom
of the driveway in complete silence where Tori and Alec were
standing, I think the birds even stopped chirping afraid they’d rub
him the wrong way. Alec was cute but not my type at all, my sister
and I don't have the same taste in boys, thank god but at least he
was in a good mood. I wondered if she wanted to switch for the day;
I looked at Jett again and laughed I knew she wouldn’t nor would
anybody else for that matter. Alec was holding a beer, he was 18 so
he was legal to drink.

Jett looked perplexed and
spoke rigidly, “Alec did you drive?”

“No” he said and laughed.
“My parents dropped me off. Mr. Gellar said he’d drive us home,
this way we can drink and not have to worry about driving. Do you
want a beer?” He said with a chuckle, meaning dude have a beer. He
could tell Jett was in a mood, everyone could.

Jett looked at me with mean
little eyes and I said “Dude, it can’t make your mood any worse,
but if it’ll get you in a better frame of mind please drink.” And
Alec tossed Jett a beer. He chugged it in no time but still didn’t
say a word.

My dad came around from the
front. He's an intimidating looking type of guy, at least my
friends tell me so. He has broad shoulders and a belly but it
doesn’t distract you from his masculinity. He exudes great
confidence and talks with it as well, making him come off very
daunting. All of our friends and any kid in general were quiet
around him and tended to listen to him intently.

My dad said “Boys, you’re
going to help me take down some trees today. Obviously, my girls
don’t have the strength it needs, so I recruited you – actually I
forced my girls to ask you for your help.” He laughed and slapped,
then rubbed his belly “We have beer, sodas, chips and sandwiches in
the cooler, help yourselves. The bathroom is just inside the
garage, you don’t have to take off your shoes. The first thing I
need done is to have the big old birch tree near the road dug
up.” He pointed to the street up the hill where the birch
rested, he handed the boys gloves, Jett turned around, still
agitated, and walked off toward the tree taking very large steps up
the hill. I hustled behind him but struggled to keep up without
running. “What is wrong with you, are you mad at me?”

“No!” Jett said giving his
encrypted answers again.

“Do you want to go home?” I
asked.

“Grrrrr.”

“Leave if you want, I don’t
care. My dad thinks this stuff is fun to do and if you're gonna be
all pissy, it's going to make it much worse.”

“He wants this damn tree
out! I'll take it out, but it's going to be a pain because it's
still alive.”

“No it’s not. Go do
something else – go away. Do you want me to get my mom to drive you
home?” He didn't respond.

He stood on the street side,
pulled his gloves on and tossed his shirt to the ground. He took
one of the tree trunks and grasped it with both hands, pulled back
and forth and heaved up on it the whole while I could see every
muscle ripple and his face turned brick red, until we heard a loud
crack. He looked up at me and said “I told you it was still alive.”
It sure looked that way, where it cracked at the base it looked
healthy. He let the huge branch fall partially into the street,
part of the roots were up-heaved from the ground. I could hear my
sister and Alec mumbling with laughter from behind as they walked
up next to me to see what Jett had done.

Jett took the tree trunk by
one end and rolled it onto our yard.

“You couldn't wait for
everyone else? It's more fun to do it in a group, and easier,
that’s why my dad asked for your help” Tori exclaimed. I looked at
Tori and Alec and in a hushed mumble I told them I had already
mentioned that to him, and shrugged.

He looked at us and walked
around the other side of the tree. He kept his eyes on me, not
saying a word. He raised his arms higher than his shoulders and
pulled his arms down hard fast into the barely
disturbed
ground. Then pulled up, gritted his teeth, veins
popped on his face and neck. He repeated that motion again and
again, until he had pulled up the rest of the ball of roots. Some
of them held fast to the ground and deterred him from pulling it
more than knee high. He let it plunge to the ground. I gazed at
him; he looked bigger, his tank was messy but also stretched across
him like it didn’t fit. I couldn’t look away, his muscles gleamed
with sweat.

Alec, behind me, started
laughing – Jett stomped on the remaining trunk that was still
partially intact, and it too, collapsed to the ground. There was a
long long pause, no one said a word. We stood in astonishment for a
while.

Tori said “Impressive Jett.
Let's get that man a beer.” Alec ran to the cooler parked on the
sidewalk, charged back up the hill and tossed Jett a beer. Jett
opened it and chugged it faster than the first one.

"Do you feel better now?”
Tori asked.

Jett walked up to Alec
slowly they held each other’s gaze silently, Jett reached over
slowly took Alec's beer from his hand , opened it and took a swig,
the two of them started to laugh. Jett took his tank off and I
could see his “V” the
transverse abdominal muscles, his
lines were beautiful, his abs incredible and his
chiseled chest smooth.

I was definitely staring, my
mouth must have been open because Tori commented sarcastically
“Addie you’re drooling – use his shirt to wipe your mouth.” I
turned to her embarrassed, still not closing my mouth and said “No
thanks, I’ll use yours” and pulled her shirt and pretended to wipe
my mouth. Everyone laughed. Jett tossed me his shirt and actually
smiled at me – as the shirt flew into my hands I could smell the
scent of him on it – he definitely wasn’t getting this shirt
back.

Jett and Alec pulled the
tree into the yard. My dad came up with chain saws, pics and
shovels in his wheel barrow; the boys smiled at that, my dad stared
in wonderment. "I guess we won't need the shovels. How did you two
do that?” My dad asked bewildered. They both just looked at him and
smiled, Alec pointed to Jett.

My dad ordered Tori to get
three beers. They cut the tree up and tossed the good parts into
one wheelbarrow and bad parts in another. We had two fireplaces in
our house so the wood would go to good use, Tori and I stacked it
onto our wood pile and we dumped the bad onto our compost pile in
the back.

Alec peeled his shirt off
too – I think it was a guy thing – and although he had a nice
physique I was not as impressed. He was really white and had to
catch up on his tan to look as hot as Jett.

It didn’t take long to
finish, Jett went up to my dad with the chain saw resting on one
shoulder and said “What's next Mr. Gellar?” My dad grabbed his
shoulder and explained “The next one will take some doing and
pointed to the largest tree on our lot, it also had four trunks but
each of them were very large, the whole tree had to be over forty
feet high, it was a lot taller than our house.

Jett looked back at him and
said “Do you have some rope? We’ll have to use it to make sure it
doesn’t hit the house”.

My dad replied “Well,
all right then.” And Jett followed him over to the cooler where my
dad handed him a sandwich, got one for himself and they paced down
toward the garage for some rope. Alec, Tori and I continued to
wheel barrow and stock the rest of the wood.

All three of them got along
very well, and they included Kit whenever they could. They ate all
the sandwiches by noon, so my mom made an early dinner for
everyone. We ate at the picnic table in the grass rather than on
the deck. The boys enjoyed another beer and Jett asked me “Aren’t
you going to have a beer?”

I replied “I’m not 18
yet."

"Still, jailbait” my dad
retorted “...and don’t forget that son.”

“Absolutely sir.” Jett
replied, which made us all laugh.

My mom set a beer in front
of me and my sister and said “That’s the only one you’re getting,
and you don’t have to drink the whole thing either.” I smiled at my
mom and took a sip.

When we were done eating
Jett and I went inside to the downstairs family room and sat down
on our old orange leather couch from the 60’s, it was built so
rock solid it just wouldn’t fall apart. Mom said she was going to
re-upholster it someday, but the leather wasn’t worn in the least
bit. The TV I clicked on was really old I couldn’t believe it still
worked but my parents always said things were built to
last.

The couch was cool to the
touch which felt good after being outside all day. We hadn’t had a
conversation to ourselves all day. “I’m glad to see you’re feeling
better. Is there something you want to talk about? Are you or were
you upset with me?”

He looked at me oddly and
said “No.” That was it, another one liner, although he didn’t look
mad or anything and I didn’t want push it but I needed to know
where I stood.

“Hey, if you don't let me
know what’s up I won’t be able to stop myself from ticking you off
again. I thought we were friends. Friends are supposed to talk and
help each other out.” There was a long pause I just waited and
waited. He said nothing I could feel him thinking so I laid down
and put my head in his lap and stared at the ceiling.

It wasn’t a comfortable
silence but it wasn’t totally uncomfortable either, somewhere in
the middle. So I laid there thinking what it would be like if Jett
liked me as much as I liked him, but that I was happy to be with
him. He started to shift so I lifted up my head and he pulled me up
and over so I was sitting on his lap.

Sarcastic me said “So what
are you so excited about?” I don’t even know if he was, but he
smiled and laughed and asked me “So do you like me or
what?”

I froze and looked into his
eyes. He scooted over on the couch so my back was against the arm
of the sofa, my butt slid off his lap and hit the cushion, my legs
still crossed his – I didn’t know what to say. He said “Well” and I
said “What’s not to like...” He moved his face closer to mine, I
didn’t move, he moved in even closer until he brushed his soft warm
lips across mine. He pressed a little deeper and our lips parted…we
stopped.

I said “…Besides your
horrible mood swings.” Jett swung his legs out from under mine
so he was vertical on the couch and pulled me down so I was laying
on it and he was on top of me kissing me again. He was very
good at this, I wanted to know if he practiced that move, he did it
fast and smooth. Is he a player? I stopped kissing him back and
squinted my eyes at him and said “Are you playing with
me?”

My dad yelled down the
stairs “Are you ready for dessert?” Faster than he had said it Jett
was off of me and onto the floor with one arm propped on the couch
pretending to watch TV.

I heard the door shut and
looked down at Jett and said “What are you doing” He pulled me off
the couch on top of him and we started where we left
off.

When we finally came up for
air I said “I need pie, how about you?”

He asked “With ice
cream?”

“Is there any other way to
eat it?”

“I like you Addie, a
lot.”

“Good because I'm having
your baby.”

He had to do a double take,
the look on his face was priceless. Of course, we hadn’t but it
took him a minute to register. “Psych” I replied.

“You
are
so sarcastic, but it’s all good” he gave me a hand up off the
floor.

“I'm glad you think so. And
by the way I'm having twins!” He chased me up the
stairs.

Jett was a little tipsy by the end of the
night. I had to help him into bed, Kit offered up his room for him.
He was like a big fluffy teddy bear – without much control either.
I tucked him in.... I couldn’t believe my parents asked him to
sleep over and that he actually did, it could have been because he
lived 40 minutes out, in any case I was excited about the whole
ordeal.