Chicken (23 page)

I laugh. “Okay. I mean not okay. Something else.”

“Anything else.”

“I don’t know. Bacon.”

“Bacon. I like it. Bacon will be our okay.”

I go to the stairwell and for one horrible second, I think the door has closed on top of us, but then I realize it’s just that dark outside now. Goose bumps prickle my arms and my neck. 

“You’ve got five minutes, bacon?”

“Bacon, darlin’.”

Four minutes later, Brant locks the door behind him and plops down on the couch, slinging one arm across the back and dangling the other over the armrest. His boots land on the table with a heavy thud. “What’d you pick?”

“Couldn’t decide.” I use my foot to shove his off the table. “Don’t be rude.”

He grins, dimples blazing. “So we’re gonna do that old married couple thing?”

I roll my eyes. “No, we’re gonna do that civilized human being thing.”

“Now that’s what I call barking up the wrong tree.” But he leans over and unlaces his boots, tossing them one by one toward the door, accidentally-on-purpose knocking mine over. He peels his socks off and swings his feet into my lap. They smell like ass, but I cup a hand around one of his arches. He doesn’t flinch like a normal person would because the soles of his feet are tough as turtle shells. 

“I know they’re weird.” Brant pulls them from my lap, folding his knees up to his chest. “I was just seeing if you could handle me. You don’t have to touch ’em ’til we’re like forty-three.”

I bite down on the grin that comes from thinking about me and Brant together in our forties. 

He shuffles his feet on the couch, making a loud, unpleasant scratching sound. “Come on, come on, I never get to watch a movie with anyone.”

I open the folder again, and he leans forward, nuzzling his shoulder against mine. I look at him and he looks at me. We start kissing. 

“Mmph, hey, wait.” I push him away. “Why’d you go down there anyway?”

He blushes and ducks his head, scratching roughly at the back of his neck. “Ah, well, I thought—”

“You’re not a serial killer, are you? That’s not your workshop?”

“Stop it. I was just going to get some weed.”

I grin. “Brant Mitchell wants to share his stash?”

“Yeah.” He grins, but it looks wrinkly on the edges like he might cry. “But I can’t.”

“Oh.” 

“Don’t sound so disappointed.”

“But I am disappointed.”

He takes my hand, caressing it like he’s found a lost kitten. “Listen. I know how I act about it, but that’s not how it really is. I mean, it’s not fun for me. I need it. There are things—reasons I get angry. It keeps me from just totally losing it, you know?” 

I nod, trying to look less disappointed than I did a minute ago, but I’m still a little disappointed because it was something I wanted to share with him.

He smiles and squeezes my hand. “But I’m not angry right now. And I just want to feel that. All of it. As long as it lasts.”

All my disappointment drains away. I mean, like every disappointment I’ve ever had. This one disappointment vanishes with such powerful suction it takes every other disappointment I’ve ever known with it. There’s nothing left inside me but a vast, delirious happy. We do some more kissing. 

After a few minutes, he pulls back, red-chinned and breathless. “But seriously, I want to watch a movie. Like normal people do. Like you and—you know who.”

I swipe the back of my hand across my mouth, straighten my shirt. “I don’t know where you’re getting your information, sir, but I have never watched a movie with Lord Voldemort.”

He flattens his eyebrows and growls. 

I put my hands up. “Bacon, bacon, bacon! We’ll watch a movie!”

He leans over the DVD folder. “You know, you only have to replace okay with bacon in certain contexts, right? It’s really only for when we’re like saying goodbye and can’t bear it.”

“I don’t understand, but bacon, whatever you say.”

He flops against the back of the couch. “Just pick a movie!”

“I did a long time ago, but you’re gonna think I’m a dork.”

“I knew you were a dork when I kissed you. You’re the dork I want to snuggle and watch movies with. Just choose.”

I flip to the middle of the folder and point to my choice. He narrows his eyes at me, “Seriously? If this has anything to do with that mountain lion—”

“It didn’t even cross my mind, I swear. It’s just, well—” 

And then I tell Brant Mitchell the story of my parents’ first date, which turns into the story of their postcards, which turns into the story of me. When it’s over, meaning when I’ve been conceived and my parents have decided to get married, Brant slides The Lion King 2 out of its sleeve and carries it over to the TV. 

The menu screen appears and the familiar music fills the room. Brant comes back and crawls over the arm of the couch, stretching out on his stomach with his feet hooked over the armrest and his head in my lap. I pull his forelock behind his ear but it falls right back across his eyes. He brushes it the other direction, tucks it between my thighs. I bite my lip and think about cartoon lions, which doesn’t really help because Disney draws their shoulders too sexy.

Two thirds of the movie later, after Simba’s daughter has convinced her exiled boyfriend to return to the Pridelands and their stupid song about triumphant love has made me cry, Brant rolls over on his back. The edges of his nose are wet.

“Dammit, Casper. Why couldn’t you just pick Star Wars?”

SATURDAY, JULY 14, 2012

Brant Mitchell has fried more bacon than a dozen men could eat in six weeks. I can see the shimmering, burnt-red pile on the kitchen counter from the couch where I’m pretending to still be asleep. Brant stands at the stove, barefoot, wearing yesterday’s rumpled clothes and poking a spatula at a cast iron pan. The hair on the back of his head is smashed flat from resting all night on the bony arm of the couch. The bacon pops, splatters grease on his arm, and he does a funny backwards dance.

“You know I’ll puke if I eat all that, right?”

He drops the spatula on the floor, barely missing his foot. His breath goes all rabbity. He brushes both hands through his matted hair. Tugs the wrinkles out of his T-shirt. 

“Shit. I was hoping I’d get it all ate before you woke up.”

I stand, stretching all the cricks out of my limbs. “And make me watch you throw up again? Thanks a lot.”

He picks up the spatula, rinses it off in the sink. “The thing is I was going to make this whole big spread, but then it turned out all the eggs had gone rotten and the bread had green spots, so maybe I overcompensated some.”

I find my socks underneath the coffee table and pull them on, even though the bottoms are black with dirt from the cellar. I shuffle into the kitchen, favoring my right leg because it hasn’t quite woken up with the rest of me yet. I wrap my arms around him, splaying my hands across his chest and nuzzling my nose in the back of his neck.

“How about we stay up here forever?” he says, so soft I barely hear him over the sizzling.

I plant a kiss between his shoulder blades. “We can’t. You cooked all the bacon.”

We take our giant platter of bacon outside, foregoing the rocking chairs to dangle our legs off the edge of the porch. The pine trees ringing the cabin are creaking in a breeze that probably can’t be felt down in the valley. 

I crunch on a piece of bacon. “I can’t believe we climbed a mountain on our first date.”

He has three pieces of bacon stacked in his fist, and he bites off one end before pointing the rest over his shoulder. “If we walked down that road, we’d be at my house in less than ten minutes.”

I stare at the gap in the tree line. “Shut up.”

“It’s true. But it ain’t safe.”

I motion at the stone jutting off the side of the mountain, at the winding path it hides. “Compared to that?”

He stuffs the rest of his bacon stack into his mouth. “Compared to my parents.”

“Hey, remember when we talked about being civilized human beings?”

He lifts an eyebrow, spews bacon bits when he says, “What?”

“You’re eating like an animal.”

“An animal? I’m eating like an animal?” 

“Yes. Bless your heart. You eat like an animal.”

He scrambles onto his hands and knees, crouching over the bacon platter. “No, sir. Now I’m eating like an animal.”

He shoves his face into the bacon, comes away with several strips hanging past his jaw. He makes a dinosaur sound and tosses his head from side to side, chomping what he can catch.

“Stop it! I kiss that mouth! Don’t be gross with it!”

He grabs two fistfuls of bacon and beats his chest like a gorilla. Then he throws the bacon at me, spattering my shirt with grease. I roll off into the chigger weeds, arms over my head. He hollers like an ape and bounces around the porch, rattling its rock foundations. 

I pop up and grab a handful of bacon, sling it at him as hard as I can. One long, floppy piece sticks to his shoulder. He snaps it up with his teeth, making more dinosaur sounds.

I make a pouch out of my shirt and scoop in several rounds of bacon. Brant pounces on the platter, growling. I take off across the yard, bitter weed staining my blue jeans yellow. Brant follows, flinging bacon. It whizzes past my ears, gets crushed under my boots. 

I scramble onto the big rock, crouch on one hand and both knees, cradling the bacon in my shirt. He puts his empty hands on the mossy side and bays like a coon dog. I throw a piece of bacon and he catches it in his teeth, crunches out the middle so the fatty ends fall at his feet.

 I dangle another piece. “You wasted all yours, but I’m willing to call a truce.”

He folds his arms. “What are your terms?”

“Come up here and find out.”

We finish our breakfast on the farthest edge of Pack Rock, sitting shoulder to shoulder, our legs dangling over the trees. The sun warms our backs as it crests the mountain, spilling its light into the valley. We can’t see his house or the barn, but we can see the big yellow field flecked with red-and-white cattle. Tiny vehicles travel east and west on the highway running through the heart of Hickory Ditch, mostly locals headed for their jobs out of town. A haze shimmers over everything, dulling colors, softening edges. It’s as depressing as it feels every day that I’m in it.

“That ain’t our kingdom.” 

“No,” he says. “Not yet.”

He takes my hand, rests our combined fist in the crease between our knees. A shadow passes overhead, followed by a thick, ugly fluttering. We look over our shoulders just in time to see the flock descend. They hop around the yard, pecking for bacon, cawing and flapping their mean, black wings. 

I can feel Hannah’s beautiful, dead mother in the hallway, watching me make out with her daughter. She whispers words like cheater and liar every now and then. I roll away from my girlfriend, who is testing the limits of her pledge tonight.

“Can we shut the door?”

She raises one eyebrow. “I had no idea you were enjoying yourself so much.”

“How do you expect me to enjoy anything with her out there?” 

I jerk my thumb at the portrait on the wall across from Hannah’s bedroom door. It’s four feet tall and three feet wide. I’d miss my mom if she were dead, but I’d never be able to sleep at night if Daddy hung something like that outside my room.

“My mother was a very modern woman. As long as we’re careful and care about each other, she wouldn’t mind.”

“I don’t care how much she minds; she don’t get to watch.”

“Doesn’t.”

“Exactly.”

“You know we can’t close the door.”

“Fine. Then let’s just watch the show.”

I start to sit up, but she grabs my shirt collar, pulls me halfway on top of her. My lips seek out our safe, familiar rhythm, but she keeps trying to spice things up with her tongue, and I worry the Internet feminists have talked her into tossing the pledge altogether. 

But footsteps on the stairs make Hannah shove me off. I slide onto the floor, facing the television. Jeremiah, her way older brother, peeks in the doorway, smirks, and continues to the bathroom. 

The bed squeaks as Hannah stretches out on her stomach, rests her chin on the top of my head and starts rubbing my shoulders. On screen, the Tenth Doctor and Rose are talking to a Queen of England about something I don’t understand because I never understand what’s happening on this show because Hannah refuses to turn on the subtitles. She claims it will teach me to speak proper English.

“Do you not like kissing or do you not like kissing me?”

I try to stay loose under her hands. “I like kissing you.”

She pulls the hair off my forehead, combs her fingers through it. “Are you growing your hair out?”

“Do you want me to?”

“You’d look cute. Like Rupert Grin in The Deathly Hallows.”

“I think I’d look like a clown.”

“No. Clowns have curly hair. But if you and Brant had a baby, it would look like a clown.”

“Then I guess we’d better plan on borrowing one of your eggs.”

She laughs. I tilt my head back, and she nuzzles my forehead. I reach up and tangle my hands in her short hair because I’m not ready for that joke to become a confession.

“People would be so mad if I had long hair and you had short.”

“People are idiots.” She bites her lip. “You like my hair, right?”

“I told you. You look like Emma Watson.”

“Yeah, but that’s not the same as you liking it.”

“I wouldn’t invoke the precious and holy name of Emma Watson if I didn’t mean it.”

She sighs and her breath stings the corners of my eyes. “Okay, I get it, this haircut reminds you of Emma Watson, but do you even like Emma Watson?”

I try to lower my face, but she won’t untangle her fingers from my hair. “What kind of question is that? Of course I like Emma Watson. Everyone likes Emma Watson. You’d have to be—”

She claps a hand over my mouth. “Forget Emma. Just tell me if you think this haircut looks pretty on me, on my face. Does it make you want to kiss me?”