Love to Love Her YAC (21 page)

“Well, you’re more than welcome to sleep on
the futon in Rhiannon’s old room,” she says. “The girls have been
sleeping together in Tawny’s room, so it’s open. Or we could put
you on the bed in the basement.”

“Oh, that’s really nice of you,” he replies.
“I don’t mean to impose though. I checked out a Best Western on my
way in that seems decent.”

“There’s no sense in you paying for a hotel
when we have plenty of room here,” Dad says. I’m more than a little
surprised to hear him weighing in on the matter – he’s normally so
stoic.

“I certainly appreciate that,” Blake replies.
He turns to give me a pleading look – he wants to be sure I’m okay
with him staying here.

“Of course, you should stay,” I say quietly.
At least having my family nearby will preclude us doing anything
inappropriate. Considering our mutual track record at abysmal
self-control, I always have my doubts. I can feel eyes on me, and I
turn my head to see Tawny grinning at me tauntingly while she
chews.

“Can you still drive me to the fair tonight?”
she asks, glancing between Blake and me as if he may have suddenly
impacted my ability to safely operate a vehicle. “I told Becca I’d
meet her there at seven.”

“Yep, I can,” I tell her. I turn to address
Blake. “The county fair is on. It’s just a few rides and games and
things. You’re welcome to ride along if you want.”

He nods, smiling. “I’d like that.”

The conversation turns to the NFL and whether
Peyton Manning will take Denver to the Super Bowl this year. My
parents are big Broncos fans, so Tawny and I have grown up learning
to love the orange and blue.

Once we’re finished Mom pushes back from the
table and begins clearing dishes. “Why don’t the three of you run
along?” she says. “Your dad and I will handle the dishes tonight.”
This is highly uncharacteristic of her. I eye her dubiously, but
she just grins and shoos us along. “I don’t want Tawny to be late
meeting up with her friends,” she says by way of an explanation.
Tawny looks at me with a wide-eyed expression, and all I can do is
shrug.

“Um… Okay, thanks, Mom. I’ll just…go change,”
I say before I slip from the room.

Blake – 7:00 PM

R
hiannon looks crazy
beautiful in the bright, ambient lighting from the food stands and
fair rides. She looks much closer to her regular size now in a pair
of skinny jeans and a tight black cable knit sweater. Her sister is
pretty, too, if perhaps a bit scrawny—she’ll be a real heartbreaker
someday soon. She talked nonstop the entire way here, and Rhiannon
kept darting smiles full of laughter at me as I struggled to keep
up with the steady stream of conversation. She seems like a good
kid; you’d never really guess she’s sick.

I paid our way into the fair (a bargain at
three bucks apiece), and we walked with Tawny to the Ferris wheel
where a slightly chubby girl with brown hair stood waiting for us.
The two girls headed off to buy tickets for the rides, and now here
we stand, just the two of us.

Rhiannon’s head is still turned in the
direction her sister just ran off, but her eyes cut back toward me,
and the corners of her mouth twitch up into a grin. “So, do you
like carnival rides?” she asks.

I take a sideways step so I can look at her
head-on and can’t help smiling. She is the picture of perfection
with fair skin flushed pink from the chill in the air. “I do like
carnival rides,” I tell her.

“Well then let’s ride some,” she says. “And
then you can impress me by playing one of those ring toss games and
winning me a ridiculously huge stuffed animal.”

I follow her to a ticket booth and nudge her
out of the way with my hip, handing over a twenty to buy unlimited
ride wristbands for the both of us. “You didn’t have to buy mine,
crazy,” she says as we walk away in the direction of the bumper
cars.

“Consider it my payment for room and board
this weekend,” I reply. “Besides, I’m gainfully employed, remember?
I’m practically rich.”

She grins and rolls her eyes. “Well in that
case, I have many plans for you, sir.” She positions herself in
front of me and tugs on my elbow, dragging me along with her toward
the fun house blasting 70s disco music.

8:30 PM

I
t’s eight-thirty,
and Rhiannon and I have managed to partake of every single ride
here save for one. The Fireball is a giant hoop of steel with a
track fitted to the inside. A metal cage with a row of eight pairs
of seats is loaded at the bottom of the hoop and then shoots around
the track, pausing at the top for the passengers to hang upside
down for a few seconds before they’re blasted back to the bottom.
This is repeated several times before the ride ends and the riders
stumble off, drunk off endorphins and adrenaline.

Rhiannon is shaking her head vehemently. I’ve
managed to persuade her to stand in line with me, but she looks as
if she might chicken out at any moment. “I just don’t think I can
do upside down,” she says as she stares up at it. She looks
horrified at the shrieking riders dangling from their seats. The
mustachioed ride operator barks a maniacal gut-busting laugh before
jerking the lever that brings the cage crashing back down.

I slip my hands around her waist and position
her so she’s looking into my eyes. “You can do this,” I tell her.
“I happen to know that Fireball-related mortality is extremely low.
It’s even lower than being eaten by a shark or…trampled by a yak.
Statistically speaking, of course.”

She snorts. “Trampled by a yak? How did you
come by this statistic, hmm? Do they teach that in social worker
school?”

I nod gravely as I pretend to cross myself
with the truth. “First week of class, I swear. You won’t die.”

She bites her lip temptingly, gazing at me
while she thinks about it. “Even if the carnie is sadistic?” she
asks.

“
Especially
if the carnie is
sadistic,” I correct her. “That just drops the odds of death even
further. It’s paradoxical, but true.”

The line inches forward as the passengers
from the last ride exit, and suddenly it’s our turn to board. I
keep my hands planted on Rhiannon’s waist, all but pushing her as I
guide her forward. The man responsible for operating the ride
slides open one of the gates on the tramcar and beckons her toward
it. “This way, sweetheart,” he says before he spits a brown stream
of tobacco juice over the side of the loading platform.

“Come on, Rhiannon,” I whisper in her ear.
She hesitates, then lunges forward, sliding swiftly into the far
seat. I clamor in beside her, and the gate drops, trapping us in.
It’s a tight space, and our legs are aligned in the middle of the
seat. One look tells me Rhiannon is petrified. The color has
drained from her face, her eyes are squeezed shut and her hands are
balled into fists in her lap. I work to loosen her right hand and
flatten it against my leg before covering it with my own. “Breathe,
baby,” I tell her just as the car jerks forward and begins its
ascent up the side of the hoop.

We have to rock up and back down, back and
forth, for a couple of minutes to get our momentum going. The first
time we make it all the way to the top, Rhiannon gasps and clutches
my hand so tight her fingernails dig small crescents into my palm.
We pause, then continue down the opposite side before shooting back
up the again. By the time we reach our third go-around she’s
relaxed enough to let up on the vice grip she’s kept on my hand,
and she begins giggling. The sound of her uncontained glee causes
something to unravel inside of me, and soon I’m laughing so hard my
abdomen hurts.

When the ride stops I jump out of the tram
and reach back to help Rhiannon out. Her face is wet with tears,
and the shit-eating grin on her face is heart-stopping
gorgeous.

“I can’t believe you made me do that, you
asshole!” she says as we descend the steps back to solid
ground.

“Don’t try to pretend that wasn’t the most
fun you’ve had all week,” I say, crossing my arms over my
chest.

Her ersatz frown turns to a bashful smile.
“Dammit, you’re right,” she breathes as she braces herself against
a trashcan overflowing with paper cups and remnants of funnel cakes
and corndogs. She glances at her watch, and her eyes widen. “Shit,
we were supposed to meet Tawny like ten minutes ago.”

I jog with her back to the Ferris wheel,
where Tawny and her friend are sitting on a bench. Tawny is bent
over with her head in her hands, and her friend is rubbing her
back, a worried look on her face. “What’s the matter?” Rhiannon
asks as she squats on the ground next to her sister.

Tawny looks up, and her miserable expression
transforms into one of relief when she sees Rhiannon. “She has a
headache,” offers the friend.

“Oh honey, I’m so sorry,” says Rhiannon. “We
were on a ride, and the time got away from me. How long have you
been waiting here?”

“Just about twenty minutes,” says the girl.
She turns to look at Tawny. “Are you okay if I go now? My mom’s
waiting for me out in the parking lot.”

“Yeah sure, I’m sorry if I made you late,”
says Tawny. “Thanks for sitting with me.”

“Yeah, thanks, Becca,” says Rhiannon. “Tell
your mom hi for me.”

Becca runs past the row of food vendors
toward the parking area, and I move to help Tawny stand up off the
bench.

“Come on, sweetie, let’s go home,” says
Rhiannon. “Do you think you can walk back to the car from here?”
Tawny seems uncertain.

“How about if I give you a ride?” I offer. I
turn and crouch in front of Tawny. “Hop on,” I tell her, peering
back over my shoulder. Tawny and Rhiannon exchange glances, then
Tawny climbs on. She fastens her arms around my neck and wraps her
legs around my waist. “You good?” I call up to her.

“Yeah,” she says softly, an amused trill
causing her voice to falter.

I look at Rhiannon, whose gaze slides from
Tawny down to me. “Let’s go,” she says, smiling.

Rhiannon
–
10:00 PM

I
got Tawny a cold
cloth to place on her forehead and put her to bed as soon as we got
home. She was sound asleep within minutes. I shut her door quietly
behind me and creep back down the hall to the kitchen. Mom leans
against the sink in her housecoat and slippers sipping a glass of
orange juice, while Blake sits sideways in one of the chairs, his
arm draped over its back.

“Is she okay?” he asks.

I nod. “She was out like a light, almost the
minute her head hit the pillow,” I whisper.

“Good,” says Mom. “I hope she didn’t overdo
it tonight. I worry about her sometimes.”

I rub her arm through her terrycloth robe. “I
know. Me, too.”

Mom sighs. She had fallen asleep on the couch
when we came in, and she looks exhausted. “Blake, I made up your
bed on the futon down the hall across from Tawny’s room,” she
says.

“Thank you, Mrs. Read.”

“Sleep tight, both of you.”

“Goodnight, Mom,” I tell her. She goes to the
set of French doors off the dining room that lead into the bedroom
she shares with my dad, leaving Blake and me behind.

He looks at me, then stands and walks toward
me. He stands only inches from me and tucks a tendril of hair
behind my ear. “She’ll be fine,” he says softly. “Don’t worry.”

I peer up at him warily. “I wish it were that
easy.”

“I know,” he whispers before dropping his
mouth to kiss the side of my head. “You should try to get some
rest.”

I nod. “Yeah. Come on, I’ll show you were
you’re staying.”

I lead the way down the hall to the room that
used to be mine. Mom has boxed up most of my stuff over time and
moved it to the basement, but the walls are still painted the pale
shade of lavender I picked out when I was six years old, and my old
dream catcher hangs in the window to ward off evil spirits. Mom has
converted the futon to a bed and fitted it with white cotton sheets
and a faded old comforter.

Blake stops in the doorway, his body angled
toward mine. I regard him carefully through a fog of fatigue. “You
know, at some point you’re going to have to tell me why you’re
here,” I say.

He nods his head once and gives me a half
smile. “I will,” he murmurs. He lifts up my hand and presses his
lips to the back of it. “Goodnight, Rhiannon.”

“Goodnight, Blake.”

Rhiannon – 9:45 AM

I
’m sitting at the
breakfast bar eating Honey Nut Cheerios and studying my Reading
Foundations text book when Blake appears, scratching the stubble on
his face and squinting through the warm golden light that streams
in through the sliding doors. He’s barefoot in a pair of dark green
sweatpants and a gray t-shirt, and his hair is sticking up in a
million different directions: he looks ridiculously sexy.

“Did you save me some breakfast?” he asks
through a protracted yawn as he rounds the bar. He lightly pinches
my hip as he passes, and I squirm away from his tickling.

“We don’t serve lazy bums in this house,” I
tell him, trying hard not to smile.

“Well, shit,” he says. He leans one hip into
the counter and crosses his arms over his toned chest as he looks
at me. A grin pulls at his mouth. “I didn’t know you wore
glasses.”

I reach behind my right ear and push on the
piece of plastic hooked over my ear to waggle my glasses at him.
“You like that, don’t you?” I ask teasingly. “You’re into the
bookish look.”

He bites his lip through his smile. “Not on
just anyone. But I think you may have something going for you
there.” He winks at me.

I chuckle. “Bowls are in the cabinet above
the toaster; cereal is in the pantry. Help yourself.” I glance back
down at my book. I’m determined to make it through this chapter so
I can finish writing the paper I have due by the end of the day.
I’m trying not to think about the fact having Blake here could make
this infinitely more difficult to accomplish.