The Enemy of Time, page 10
“Why do you carry both a lighter and a match? Isn’t that redundant?” Kayla hopped on the bed next to me, the springs squeaking slightly as she bounced her legs.
Lucas huffed. “Because a lighter can break or run out of fluid. You know what? You two will thank me if we’re ever on a plane together and it crashes, leaving us stranded atop a mountain.”
“Wow …” Kayla glanced at me with shock and a hint of concern.
“Oh, that’s nothing. In sophomore year, he made us practice earthquake drills every weekend after California had that 7.4 scare.”
Her eyes flicked back to Lucas. “You do realize we live in Massachusetts, right?
“Sue me for being prepared.” Lucas let out a frustrated breath.
I shifted my hands back and forth as if they were plates of a scale, “Prepared ... paranoid—”
“Fine!” Lucas cut the end of my word off as he plunged his fingers into his pocket and smacked the warm metal lighter onto the palm of my hand. “Here, you can have it if it will finally shut you up.”
I stretched my smile from ear to ear. “Oh, we both know I can’t make that promise.”
I patted the edge of the bed. “Come on, live a little before you die.”
Lucas let out a long exhale as he clenched his teeth and shifted his eyes, looking like a child trying to decide which path to take in a haunted house. No matter which way he went, he knew there would be a zombie with a chainsaw waiting for him behind one of the doors.
“Nope.”
“Your loss.” I shook my head as I twirled the joint in my fingers. Not that Lucas would ever have admitted it, but that boy was lucky to have me as a sister. Without my somewhat questionable influence, he would have stayed home every Friday night, playing with his action figures and going to bed by 8:30 p.m.
I turned to Kayla and handed her the key to sweet, sweet bliss. “Want to do the honors?”
She took the rolled-up paper out of my hand. “I thought you’d never ask.”
The flick of the lighter echoed as the flame cast a muted glow over Kayla’s lips. The sizzle of the crackle accompanied the deep, sour aroma of the weed as wisps of smoke cut the air. Kayla exhaled in a long, drawn-out breath. She stared at Lucas, who still refused to sit on the bed. His towering presence stared down at us like a judgmental parent.
“Okay, Lucas, you’re first, Truth or Dare.”
“Do we have to do this?” he whined.
I leaned my weight on the back of my palms. “Yup.” I showed him my teeth with glee. “Your choice: Truth, Dare, or Smoke?”
“Fine, Truth,” he said, finally admitting defeat. He shuffled over to the side of the bed before sitting down, causing my poor mattress to dip and sway underneath. I could have sworn I heard the bed frame cry for help.
“Of course you picked Truth.” I scoffed.
“Are you Truth or Dare shaming me?”
“Yes. Yes, I am.” Kayla passed the joint back to me. I pinched the end and brought it to my lips. The warm inhale of dead plants strangled by white paper filled my lungs like a hot air balloon, lifting me into the sky and parting the clouds. Just as the musty, skunk-like smell penetrated my nose and scratched at my eyes, the perfect Truth lit up my brain like a dingy lightbulb.
Lucas didn’t have secrets. No, let me rephrase that. Lucas couldn’t have secrets. They burned a hole in his stomach like acid and physically made him sick. One time, we had to take him to the hospital with a 104 fever after I begged him not to tell Mom and Dad that Kayla and I skipped school to go to the mall.
My lips curled into a sly grin, the kind that only appeared when I knew I was about to make Lucas squirm. “I got a truth.” I locked my eyes with my brother’s concerned ones. “Why don’t you tell Kayla what happened that Christmas when you made dinner for everyone in our sophomore year?”
Lucas’s eyes widened in pure panic, his pupils dilating like a deer caught in the headlights. His hands clenched my comforter as a nervous quiver danced across his bottom lip. “Alex, please don’t.”
Kayla sat up, curiosity lighting up her face. “Wait, what happened? I think I buried that night in my memory.”
Lucas’s face turned crimson. “It’s not a big deal.”
I shot him a knowing smile. “Oh, it’s a big deal. Go ahead, Lucas. Tell her how you almost set her hair on fire.”
Kayla gasped, her eyes darting between us. “What?!”
Lucas groaned and rubbed his face. “It wasn’t like that—”
“Oh, it was exactly like that.” I cut him off with a laugh.
“Lucas winced. “Jamie put it out before you noticed.”
Kayla threw her hands up. “Unbelievable. Yet another reason that dinner was a disaster.”
I leaned forward with a sly smile at Lucas, holding the blunt in my hand again. “So … Truth, Dare, or Smoke?”
“I answered a Truth! And you realize this is peer pressure, right?” Lucas ran his fingers through his hair, lightly gripping the strands as they reached the nape of his neck.
“That doesn’t count.” I shook him off. What’s it going to be?”
Lucas’s brows knitted together, his eyes fixating on the choice in front of him. A distinct frown formed on his face, and his inner tension was evident in the lines across his forehead. His fingers drummed nervously on the edge of my bed until they finally jetted forward.
“Give me that before my better senses kick me in the brain.”
“Attaboy.” I grinned.
It’s funny. I hadn’t thought about that Christmas Day in years. Though it was funny now, Kayla would never have let Lucas live that incident down if she’d known in the moment. Some secrets are better kept between siblings and friends who casually save you from going up in flames.
Sometimes, it's safer to stay in the dark.
Chapter twelve
Sometimes love is the antidote,
And sometimes it’s the poison.
December 24, 2014: (PART 1)
It was the best and worst Christmas of my life. We were in our sophomore year of high school. Jamie and I were still best friends. Kayla and Lucas were still obsessive overachievers who profusely denied their feelings for each other, and all of us still spent a codependent amount of time together. On the surface, everything was exactly as it had always been, but beneath all the late-night study dates and movie marathons lay a silent tear, a muscle strained past its limits, a constant ache reminding me that something just wasn’t quite right.
Since that first day of freshman year, Jamie earned the title of ‘brooding burnout.’ Everything had changed. He spent half the day high and the other half getting wasted with the Donahue brothers. He still always made sure to stay somewhat coherent when he was with us, but you can’t live in two worlds without crumbling.
No matter how many times I tried saving Jamie, every day would start and end the same, with him breaking and my heart shattering.
Freshman year was tough, but nothing could have prepared me for sophomore year. Jamie skipped all his classes and vanished without a trace during the first week. When he returned, I was livid and yelled so hard that I scratched my vocal cords, leaving me sounding like an elderly smoker for a week. I wasn't angry that he left; I was hurt that he didn't take me with him. Aiden and Dallas needed his help with a delivery to New Hampshire. Jamie may have hung with the Donahues, but he wasn't one of them until that night, and I didn’t know if Jamie, my Jamie, would ever return.
That was, until Christmas Eve.
It was 5:00 p.m., and I had undercooked, overcooked, and lit three batches of Christmas cookies on fire in under thirty minutes. All the while, Lucas and Kayla meticulously prepared gluttonous amounts of food. Lucas had spent over a week preparing and prepping after convincing Mom to let him take over cooking that year. He mumbled something about responsibilities and wanted to help out more, but I knew that was a pretty little lie wrapped in a tongue-tied bow. The truth was that Lucas was a perfectionist, and he couldn’t stand the thought of another year with Mom’s dry-ass turkey and burnt stuffing.
“Why are there chunks of carrots in this batch?” Lucas questioned as he inspected the graveyard of cookie corpses to my right.
“Because you cut carrots for your satanic stuffing on the same counter I rolled my dough out on!” I barked back.
He cocked his head at me. “How is it my fault you didn’t wipe the counter? And my stuffing is heavenly, thank you very much.”
Kayla stirred an excessive amount of brown gravy in a lightly tarnished pot. “I second that. You’re stuffing is a religious experience.”
“Dude!” I threw my flour-covered hands to my hips. “Don’t inflate his already enormous ego!”
Kayla tossed her palms in the air in defense. “Sorry, sorry.”
I locked my eyes back on Lucas. “The carrots for your stuffing poisoned my only batch of cookies that didn’t burn or turn into mush, so yes, it will forever be satanic stuffing in my mind, and I will hold a grudge against that mushy bread until I am six feet under.”
Lucas moved to pick up a knife so big it could fillet a fish and an arm. “Issues. You have issues!” He waved the knife at me with each syllable.
Down the hall came shuffling footsteps.
“Hey,” Jamie said, leaning against the arch that bridged the hallway and kitchen.
He looked good—really good. And not in an “OMG, he’s so dreamy” kind of way, but like a functioning human being. His hair was actually washed and combed, his clothes matched—from the oversized leather jacket to his favorite worn-in boots—and his eyes were open and bright, like he’d just woken up from a Disney sleeping spell.
I dashed from the counter and lunged at him, throwing my arms around him and squeezing until he let out a strained laugh. God, he smells good. Over the last two months, he had started shaving, claiming it was needed despite having exactly two hairs that occasionally poked through his tanned skin. But the best part about Jamie’s need to be a man was the aftershave. Julian got it for him after Jamie’s first attempt at shaving left him with a face full of little dots of dried blood. It smelled better than freshly brewed coffee on a fall day.
“What’s all this affection for?” My hair muffled Jamie’s chuckle as I squished the air out of his lungs.
“You look good,” I whispered into the collar of his black button-down shirt. “I miss this.”
He lightly pulled away, his hands traveling down my sides and landing on my hips. “Oh, come on, with these cheekbones, we both know I look good daily.” His smile was cocky, but his cheeks were flushed red.
“You know what I mean,” I said back. “You look … I don’t know … sober?” He lowered his head and bit his lip as if I had embarrassed him. I placed my finger under his chin and tilted his gaze back to mine. “I just like seeing you like this. That’s all.”
Jamie pulled me closer, oblivious to Lucas and Kayla's eavesdropping.
“I figured your parents wouldn’t appreciate me slurring my words through dinner.” His dark eyes locked with mine as the corners of his lips morphed into a cheesy smile that sent butterflies from my chest to my toes. “And I know that Christmas Eve is your favorite day of the year.” He tucked a piece of hair behind my ear. “I guess I just didn’t want to miss any part of it.” His eyes moved to my cheek and then my chin before stopping on my neck. “Why do you look like you lost a fight with a baker?”
I had completely forgotten that I was covered in flour and egg. “Lucas is forcing me to bake the cookies this year.”
Jamie grimaced at Lucas as he retracted his hands from my waist and put them in his pockets. “Lucas, I thought you said you wanted this dinner to be perfect?”
I gasped. “Hey!”
Lucas removed the turkey from the oven and sucked up a substantial amount of dark liquid from the roasting pan into a syringe before inserting it into the turkey’s thigh. “I am trying to cook Christmas Eve dinner for six notoriously picky eaters. The potatoes are not boiling, the stuffing isn’t crisping, the sweet potatoes that Kayla insisted on are not sweet enough, apparently, and Dad's loaded French Fries are not cheesy enough, according to him. I am making four different kinds of potatoes for you tyrants!” He sucked up another syringe of over-salted turkey water and plunged it into the bird’s other leg. “All I asked was for Alex to take over the cookies so that I could concentrate on the main course while Kayla worked on the sides, but no, that was apparently too much responsibility, and thus, now I’m left with babysitting a cookie killer!” The volume of his voice grew with each word as the tone heightened to a pitch I swear only dogs could hear.
“Okay, okay, dude, I hear you. I’ll help Alex with the cookies. But you need to breathe before that vein on your forehead explodes.”
Jamie followed me to my slaughter table and began pouring new flour into a giant blue bowl. “You do realize that cookies are only like four ingredients? How in the world did you manage to burn through three dozen?” His eyes glazed over the mounds of misshapen sugar.
I lightly pushed his shoulder. “Less judging, more working.”
“Yes, ma’am. Or should I call you Betty Crocker since you’re such an expert at this?” His cheeks were decorated with a slap-worthy grin.
“You think you’re so cute, don’t you?” I playfully rolled my eyes as I retrieved the eggs from the fridge.
“I think I’m adorable,” Jamie corrected.
Ignoring Jamie’s remarks, I lifted the egg to the rim of the blue bowl, feeling the cold shell against my fingertips. I tapped the egg on the side and peered inward to watch as the yolk slid out of the shell and landed in the flour. Jamie reached over and grabbed the tin measuring cup filled with white sugar, and with a quick flick of the wrist, he dumped it into our mixture. The sweet aroma filled the air as he poured in milk and a dash of vanilla extract.
“Time for mixing.” I rolled up my sleeves.
Jamie moved his arm over the bowl to stop me. “Wait, you have to add baking powder.”
“Why?”
There was a loud gasp behind me that sounded like my overdramatic brother, “You weren’t adding baking powder to the cookies!?”
“Why would I need baking powder? What even is that?” This is just one of many examples as to why Lucas should never have put me in charge!
Lucas threw down the baster he was using to coat the potatoes in a thick layer of melted butter. “You are the reason I have migraines.”
I gave him a thumbs up covered in flour. “Love you too, bro.” It wouldn’t be Christmas Eve without it ending with Lucas wanting to kill me.
Jamie poured a tablespoon of baking powder into the mixture and plunged his hands into the unmixed dough, combining all the ingredients until it formed a single, giant ball of ooey, gooey cookie dough.
“Grab a baking sheet and butter the surface so the dough doesn’t stick.”
“Aye, aye, captain.”
He glanced at me over his shoulder as he crouched to the lowest cabinet on the left; smiling sweetly, he quickly darted his face back to the bowl when he noticed I caught him staring. I unwrapped the giant stick of butter and smeared it all over the pan’s surface. Jamie began to roll the dough into small balls and placed them onto the pan’s surface. Each ball was the perfect size, one and a half inches, convincing me he had some magic cookie-dough ruler built into him. Once he had arranged them perfectly in six rows and three columns, Jamie placed the pan into the oven below where the turkey was cooking. He then twisted the round, white timer, which was resting near Kayla, who was opening a can of green beans.
“What are you doing?” Lucas barked at Kayla.
“I am helping you make your dinner. Thank you very much, Gordon Ramsay.” Kayla waved the can opener at him.
Lucas grasped the handle of the potato masher in his left hand. “Why are there canned green beans in my kitchen?”
“Because three days ago, you told me not to forget the green beans on my way over here, so I didn’t forget the green beans!” The red ribbons tied to the ends of her two boxer braids bounced as she jabbed her finger into my brother’s chest.
“I didn’t mean canned green beans, I meant fresh green beans from the vegetable aisle!”
“And there’s a difference?” she taunted him.
“Yes!”
“Well, it’s too late now. Looks like it’s a canned green bean Christmas.”
Lucas chewed on his back molars. “Over my dead body.”
Jamie hopped in the middle of the two of them. “You guys are fighting over a waxy vegetable that nobody likes unless smothered in heavy cream.” He looked at Lucas. “Alex and I are done with the cookies; if you guys can take them out when the timer goes off, we can drive to the grocery store and get some green beans.”
“Fine.” Lucas released the breath he had been holding. He marched over to the fridge and opened it wide to pull out the ham that Julian wanted instead of the turkey. “Alex, where’s the ham?” He shot his head back at me.
“It’s in the freezer.”
“Why would the cooked ham be in the freezer?!?”
I slipped my right arm into my jacket, readying myself for a quick exit. “Because it’s not cooked …”
Yep, that vein on his forehead is going to explode. “What do you mean, it’s not cooked?”
“You told me to go to the store and get a ham, so I got a ham from the frozen meats department.”
His mouth opened and closed as his right hand clenched his chest as if he were having a heart attack. “No, I told you to get a cooked ham from the deli! I have a turkey cooking in one oven and everything else cooking in the second. We don’t own a third oven, and thus, I needed an already-cooked ham!” He slammed the refrigerator door and began pacing like an alcoholic outside a closed liquor store.
Jamie hopped in front of Lucas and placed his hands on Lucas’s shoulders. “Dude, breathe, we’re going to the store. We will get the ham and the green beans; everything is going to be okay.”
