Divine (30 page)

“
Yeah, you need
to relax after this exciting day.”

The sound of a vacuum
hummed out from the open windows as we approached the blue front door
of Jonah's mom's house. He turned the knob and pushed the door open
across the freshly vacuumed entrance, moving back and letting me go
in first. “Mom, we're here,” he called out loudly over
the noise.

I couldn't help but
laugh when we stepped around the corner and spotted her. She was
holding one end of her couch up with the tip of her pinky, while her
other hand pushed the vacuum back and forth over the area where it
had been sitting. She really
was
strong.

Jonah reached for the
light switch on the wall and flipped it up and down, making the
bright bulbs glow on and off to get her attention.

“
Oh my gosh, you
scared me!” she hollered as her head shot over at the two of
us. She clicked the off switch on the vacuum and sat the couch gently
back down onto the beige colored floor, placing it exactly over the
marks where the legs had indented the carpet.

“
Sorry Mom, we
didn't mean to scare you.”

I held up my hand with
a wave. “Hi Susan.”

“
Summer, it's so
nice to see you again,” she said as she hurried over and
grabbed me up in a hug. “How have you been?”

“
I'm good,
thanks. How about you?”

She pulled away and
looked happily at me as if I were her own daughter. “I'm fine;
no complaints.” Her eyes moved away from my face as she caught
the sight of the dried blood on my arm. “What happened here?”

“
Oh, well, the
sign where I work exploded over us. It's just a little cut.”

Her eyes widened at the
news. “It
exploded?
How on earth did
that
happen?”

I looked over at
Jonah's tight lipped expression. “Um, we're not really sure,”
I lied, not wanting to explain the whole ordeal.

Her eyes darted from
mine to her son's; it was obvious to her that we were keeping some of
the details to ourselves. “Okay, well,” she surrendered,
not wanting to pry, “dinner's almost ready. Go ahead and go in
the kitchen and get your plates out.”

“
Okay, thanks
Mom.” Jonah looked softly at the cut on my arm. “Let's go
clean that up. The bathroom's over here.”

I followed behind him
on the soft carpet as he led me into the small immaculate bathroom.
The walls were painted a cream color and were decorated with pictures
of sea shells that were painted vividly with bright watercolors.
There were two sinks that were nestled deeply in a glittery marbled
counter top, most likely done recently as a modern renovation.

“
Your mom keeps a
really clean house,” I noticed, taking in the perfectly folded
pile of light blue towels that sat neatly on the marbled surface.

Jonah bent down and
opened the cabinet beneath one of the sinks. “Yeah, she's
always been really clean.” He dug through a brown wicker
basket, looking for the supplies he needed to clean my cut. “Where's
the peroxide at?” he quietly asked himself.

I backed up to the
counter and rested my hands on its surface, giving a push with my
palms to lift myself onto its smooth top. I watched Jonah from above,
digging around in the baskets, looking for the things he needed to
make me better. He was so thoughtful, so caring. The cut on my arm
wasn't even that big of a deal, but it was to him.

“
Here it is,”
he announced, reaching the brown bottle above him and setting it onto
the counter while still searching in the basket. “I know my mom
has some bandages somewhere in here . . .”

“
I think the
cut's a little too long to be covered.”

He stopped his digging
to look up at me sitting above him. “Well, I guess you don't
need one if the bleeding stopped.”

“
Yeah, it's fine.
The peroxide is good enough.”

He closed the cabinet
and stood up, positioning himself between my legs that were dangling
off the edge of the marbled stone. The way he propped himself against
me made my body radiate with an intense heat, and I longed for him
more so than before.

My eyes followed the
curve of his neck as he leaned over and grabbed a light blue hand
towel off of the silver towel bar. “Here, I'll use this,”
he said, breaking me away from my impending fantasies.

“
Are you sure you
want to use that? I don't want to ruin your mom's nice towel.”

He soaked the light
blue cloth in the peroxide and glanced up at my concerned face. “I'm
not worried about ruining the towel,” he said calmly as he
placed it over my dried cut. “I'll buy her another one.”

I pulled in a gasp of
air through my teeth as the peroxide went to work.

“
Sorry,” he
apologized, “I know it probably really hurts.” He lifted
my arm up to inspect it closer while wiping around it with the cloth,
removing the dried blood from my tender skin. “There, all
better.”

I twisted my arm toward
me to look at the swollen area. “Thanks, that was really nice
of you to take care of it for me.”

“
You're welcome,
Ashy.”

“
Hey you guys,”
Susan's loud voice bellowed from the kitchen, “dinners ready in
here. I don't want it to get cold.”

Jonah shook his head
and laughed. “My mom is so amazingly loud.”

“
Yeah,” I
joined in with an amused chuckle. “I like her a lot; she's
fun.”

He stepped away from my
body and I hopped off of the counter, hitting the tiled floor below
and following him out of the clean little room. On our way down the
hallway I admired the photos that hung neatly on the wall in the
various fancy frames that displayed the smiling faces of Jonah's
family members.

I passed a curious
photo that held a familiar face and stopped to take a better look.
“Is that Lou?” I asked, amazed that it was the same man
that I had become such good friends with.

Jonah turned around and
looked at the black and white picture. “Yep,” he nodded.
“Pretty crazy huh?”

“
Yeah, he's so .
. .”

“
Thin?”

“
Yeah,” I
laughed, “I guess that was the word I was looking for.”

“
He was a pretty
trim guy back in the day.”

“
I can see that.”
Now the resemblance between Lou and his daughter was apparent to me.

We continued our way
into the kitchen, another area that was newly renovated with marbled
counter tops, and saw Susan standing in front of the sink draining a
pot of pasta into a large silver colander. Her brown voluminous hair
was clipped high onto her head, revealing a pair of beautiful diamond
earrings that sparkled wildly in the kitchens bright lighting.

I joined her at the
sink to get a closer look at the glittering stones. “Wow, your
earrings are so pretty; I can't believe how much they sparkle.”

She looked up from the
pasta and smiled. “Thank you, they were a gift from Jonah's
dad.”

I smiled as I felt the
usual awkwardness of bringing up a deceased person's memory. “Can
I help with anything?” I asked, quickly changing the subject to
something else.

“
Oh, no, you go
grab a plate and sit at the table.”

“
She likes to
entertain,” Jonah called out with his head stuck deep in the
refrigerator. “You want something to drink, Ash?”

“
Sure, I'll take
a soda if you have any.”

He pulled two cans out
and shut the door, cracking one open and handing it to me. “Don't
worry about helping with dinner, one of her favorite things to do is
cook for people.”

“
That's right,”
she chimed in with a grin. She brought the pasta over and sat it on
the table with a heavy thud, followed by a pile of garlic bread and a
large bowl of salad.

I sat down and began
loading up my plate with the wonderful array of food. “It all
looks wonderful; I'm starving.”

“
Thank you,
Summer. I just hope it tastes as good as it looks.”

“
I'm sure it
will.”

They both joined me at
the table and filled their plates, although mine was filled the most.

Man I must look like
such a pig right now . . .

“
Wow,”
Susan spoke up as she looked over at my brimming pile, “you
must be really hungry.”

My face reddened as I
dropped my eyes to my overflowing food. “Uh, yeah. I worked up
a bit of an appetite today.”

“
She tried to
teleport,” Jonah cut in before stuffing a fork full of salad
into his mouth.

Susan sucked in a
surprised breath and leaned forward across the table. “You did?
That's great Summer!”

I shot Jonah a sideways
glance of irritation. My teleporting wasn't something that I wanted
to talk about, especially since I had failed at it once again.

He picked up on my cue
and cleared his throat. “It
is
great that she tried.
She'll get it soon.”

Susan shook her head at
her son's words. “He's right, it's a good thing that you tried
it again. You won't get any better unless you put yourself out there
and do it.”

“
Well, thanks,”
I said as I shot Jonah a smile; I couldn't stay mad at that gorgeous
face of his for long.

I felt so comfortable
sitting at the table with the both of them; their close relationship
reminded me of the bond that I shared with my parents. Susan was a
lot like my mom which was one of the reasons why I liked her a lot.
And although Jonah's dad was gone, Lou was still around and acted as
a father figure to him, even though he could never replace Dan. All
in all it seemed like their little family unit was doing just fine;
they were as strong as ever. And I loved being a part of it.

We all ate every last
bit of food from our plates and sat back from the table, stuffed to
the brim.

“
Mom, that was
really good,” Jonah said before downing the rest of his soda.

“
Yes, it really
was. Thank you,” I added.

Susan grabbed a napkin
from the center of the table and wiped it across her mouth before
wadding it up and tossing it onto her plate in front of her. “You
are very welcome. I'm glad you enjoyed it.”

I smiled when I noticed
that she shared the same napkin-balling trait as Jonah. “You
two are a lot alike; you're both strong and you both wad your napkins
up and toss them on your plate when you're done with them.”

Susan smiled as she got
up from the table and took her plate to the kitchen. “Yeah, we
have a few things in common,” she agreed.

Jonah leaned forward on
the table and clasped his hands together in front of him. “Isn't
that what everybody does with their napkins?”

“
No,” I
jested, picking up on the familiar start of our bantering. “I
don't ball my napkin up, I just wipe my face and throw it down on the
plate.”

“
Well maybe
you're doing it wrong,” he joked.

I mimicked his hands
and clasped mine in front of myself, leaning toward him across the
table. “I don't do
anything
wrong.”

A devilish smile formed
on the corner of his mouth as he chuckled and sat back against his
seat, bringing his gaze down to his lap. I always seemed to forget
that if I made his eyes turn a certain color, that his mom would know
exactly what it meant; I had to be more careful at being flirtatious
with him when we were around her.

He rubbed his face and
cleared the shyness away from his throat. “Hey Mom, do you have
that picture of us all at the cliff in Hawaii? You know, the one
where we had the picnic?”

“
Um, yeah, I
think I know where to find it. It's in that big red photo album in
the hallway; I'll go get it.” She strolled out of the kitchen
to find it, leaving us alone at the table.

“
Jonah,” I
chuckled softly to him.

“
What?”

“
I'm sorry.”

He glanced up from his
lap with a smile, his eyes red from being rubbed at. “Don't
worry about it.”