Second String (In Too Deep #3) (3 page)

Ethan just smiled. "Yep. That's
definitely on the list. There are a few hair brained ideas I'd like to get out of my system before I get too old and start reconsidering."

We finished
the mountain of leftovers we'd piled on our plates. Collin was still preoccupied with the rug rat he'd been chasing… only now they were working on one of those giant floor puzzles. Rachel glanced at Ethan, then at me. "I'm a long-time fan of puzzles, so I think I'll go help Collin," she said, pushing her chair back from the table. "You two could have some dessert if you want. There's a ton of stuff in the kitchen… Or whatever… I'm sure you can find plenty of things to do. I don't think anyone would bother you on the back porch."

"Thank y
ou," Ethan said. "I think we'll find a place to disappear to for a while." He was smiling broadly at Rachel, and I just stared at his face like a googly-eyed teenager.

His gaze shifted to me.
"You okay?"

"What? Yeah."

"You wanna go scope out the dessert and then maybe sneak away?"

Chapter 4

Ethan

I followed Emily into the kitchen carrying the paper plates we'd just used
for dinner. She had on Under Armor tights that showed every curve on her muscular legs. I stared down at them as she walked. She turned around to ask me a question. She didn't catch me looking, thanks to my cat-like reflexes.

"I saw you staring at my butt just now."

Shit.

"
Aww, come on, cut me a little slack," I said. "You have to be aware of what you look like in those tights."

She smiled back at me
like she knew she was the bomb. "It
is
pretty good, isn't it? It's mostly the tights, though," she said. "They're really flattering. I have about ten pair."

I reached out and goosed her fine ass.
"That's not the tights," I said.

"How would you know? You don't know what it looks lik
e under there." She was right. She warned me right off the bat not to expect to get laid. She said she'd only let me go so far as kissing her when we spent the night together in Vegas. She assumed that would scare me away, but I was intrigued enough to hang out with her anyway. We spent the night together in my hotel room, but nothing happened beyond some conversation and a little kissing. We'd fallen asleep intertwined, but that was it.

"I'd love nothing more than to check out the evidence, but I'm sure it's not the tights, s
weetheart. You can't polish a turd."

"What?" she asked,
laughing.

"You can't polish a tu
rd. You know, there's not a pair of tights in the world that could make a shabby old ass look as good as yours looks right now. The tights don’t make this round shape right here." I reached down and cupped my hand around the curve at the base of her backside.

She gasped and spun, making me break the contact. "My
butt is strictly off limits, mister. Remember? I'm a good girl. It takes a lot more than a drive up the coast to get butt-touching privileges."

I laughed.
"What? I felt your butt for two hours straight when you sat on my lap earlier."

"You felt my butt with your leg?" I asked, incredulous.

"Of course I did. My leg and your butt have been dating longer than we have. I think they're in a pretty serious relationship," I said.

"Oh, so were
dating now? What gave you that idea?" She smiled and I thought she just might have the best pair of lips I'd ever seen.

"Well
you're
the one who said it." I said, as if I was only going along with her plans.

"Said what?" she asked.

"You said I'd have to drive up here some more to get butt-touching rights, so I took that to mean we're dating."

"Frist of all, that's not what I said exactly, and second…"
she trailed off.

"What's the second thing?" I
asked.

"
I can't really think of a reason why you shouldn't drive up here to see me now and then. Since it's not that far."

"Just how many of these drives is it going to take to get some of those butt-touching rights you were talking about?" I asked.

"Does it matter?"

"No, I don't guess it does. I'm just
warning you right now… I'm gonna keep trying."

"Fair enough
, but it's not gonna be easy."

I half-raised my hands in surrender. "
I've been warned."

Emily and I grabbed a slice of pie to share and headed for a hammock on the side of the house. We finished the
dessert on a nearby bench before situating ourselves on the hammock. Getting into that hammock was a hilarious scene even though we were both pretty agile people. If hammocks weren't so comfortable, no one would ever deal with the hassle of sitting on one. Somehow we managed, and soon we were both settled on our backs. She was using the place where my arm met my chest for a pillow.

"How'd you end
up here on Christmas?" I asked. "Why didn't you go to your family's place?"

"My parent
s are both shot-out," she said. She let out a little laugh.

"What's
shot-out?" I asked.

She was still laughing a little when she
said, "It's something my dad used to say all the time about random people. "
How's he doing?"
my mom would ask, and my dad would say, "
He's shot-out,"
which could translate to he's in jail, or he's a gambler, or he's a slob, or any number of things. Being
shot-out
can mean lots of things, but it's never a compliment."

"And, your
dad's
shot-out
?" I asked.

"Yeah, I guess so," she said laughing again. "I've never used the phrase on him, which is why
it's making me laugh. He used to say it about other people all the time, but I'm just realizing it applies to him now."

"So he's a gambler?" I asked, figuring that was the least offensive of the options she'd given.

"No. Both of my parents had a really hard time with my sister's death." Emily's laughter was replaced with an unreadable expression. "She was sixteen. I was fourteen. It was a car accident. My parents basically turned into robots after she died. I took off for Vegas the day I graduated from high school and haven't seen them since. I'd just turned eighteen, and all I had was two thousand in graduation money. Anyway, they're in Sedona, and I call to check in every three or four months."

I didn't quite know how to react to everything she'd just told me. That must have sucked to lose your big sister (and essentially your parents too) in one car accident.
It must have been obvious that I was at a loss for words.

"It's okay," she said. "Everybody ha
s a story. I'm not the only person in the world who's had it less than perfect. You just have to keep doing your thing, right?"

The hammock had almost come to a complete stop, so I stuck my leg out to give us a little push.
I thought about how brave she must be to face the world alone. Someone like her could make friends easily enough, but still. I couldn't imagine feeling like you didn't really have family to go home to.

"You're not saying anything. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to get all deep."

"No, it's not that. I was just thinking you must be pretty brave, going at it alone."

"Don't give me that much credit," she said. "It's impossible to be scared when I have Sal
to protect me."

I picked my head up and sq
uinted into the sun at the huge dog who had followed us out, and was lying on his side. His favorite position was flat on his side and motionless. He might as well have been dead for all the protecting he was doing.

"I'm glad you have that kind of confidence in him," I said. I rested my head back on the hammock and closed my eyes to avoid staring into the sun.
"Have you ever seen him in action? Like where he moves?"

"Shut-up," she said. "He's got plenty of energy. I take him for a walk everyday."

"All right," I said skeptically, "but he looks pretty shot-out to me."

She laughed and wiggled a
little, making the hammock creak. "He is
not
shot-out…
are you boy
?" We both looked at Sal who did nothing but open one eye and smack his lips. "He's exhausted!" she said, trying to make excuses for the lazy dog. "He's worn out from all the kids."

I just laughed as I wrapped my arm around her head and pulled her in to kiss her forehead. She turned toward me, almost flipping all the way onto her stomach. The hammock creaked again as she adjusted. She stared up at me. It was hard to see her since I was fac
ing the sun. I picked up my arm, shielding my eyes.

"I'm really glad we got to see each other again," she said. "I was just thinking about how weird it was that I saw your friends at a game, and now here you are."

"Here
you
are too," I said.

"I know," she said, "we're right here next to each other."

"Yep," I said, "in the very same hammock."

She smiled and rested her head on my chest. I relaxed the arm that had been serving as a sun shield, and
let my leg fall over the side of the hammock to give us another swing. We spent the next hour in the hammock. We talked and laughed and got to know each other a little better. I tried copping a little feel at one point, but she slapped my hand away. I reminded her that I said I was going to keep trying, and she said that was okay as long as I didn't mind getting my hand slapped.

It took the moviegoers a good half-hour to find us when they got home, but once they did, we had no choice but to leave the comfortable hammock and join the party.
I needed to be leaving shortly anyway, so I figured we should be sociable.

Gretchen's family has a tradition where they hide
a little glass pickle ornament somewhere on the Christmas tree, and whoever finds it first gets a prize. Gretchen hid a "kid pickle" first. That one was hidden in an obvious spot way down low where one of the kids could find it easily. Then she hid it again for the adults. Gretchen's three brothers, along with Collin, Joel and myself, crowded around that tree as if our life depended on finding that freaking pickle. I wasn't sure what the prize was, but I was relatively certain it wasn't big enough to warrant the intense searching that was going on. None of the girls even looked for the thing. They just sat back and made fun of us the whole time.
How can it be this hard to find a pickle?
I wondered, stooping onto a knee to search the lower branches. "It's not in here," I said, looking at Gretchen.

"Yes it is. I promise. I
t's green, like the tree, so it's camouflaged. It's supposed to be difficult. That's the whole point."

Just then, one of Gretchen's brothers said, "Got it!" and reached past some branches into the center of the tree, where he pulled
out the small, bumpy pickle.

"Garret wins!" Gretchen said, taking the pickle from her brother.

"Garret wins every dad-gum year," another brother complained. "I think he carries a ringer up his sleeve."

"I do not!" Garret replied. "I'm just good at finding it,
you douche bag."

"Okay boys," one of their wives said. "It's not like he won a new car."

"Yeah, where's my prize, anyway?" Garret asked. Gretchen handed him a bag full of candy she'd bought at a specialty candy shop… everything from chocolate coins to candy necklaces to the little wax bottles with sweet liquid inside. One of the other brothers reached into the bag to get a look at something, and got shoved by Garret.

"
Geez, Garret, chill," he said. "You have enough candy there to last for weeks."

"Yeah, but it's
mine
, dog." Garret said, acting all gangsta.

Just as soon as the words left
his mouth, one of the kids passed, grabbing the bag of candy, and taking off for the door. He handed it off to another kid who was strategically placed near the door. It was a carefully planned snatch-job that had Garret yelling and chasing them into the yard.

"
I hate to break up the party, but I have to get going," I said. "I want you all to know I'm gonna practice my pickle skills, though. Garret's going down next year."

Gretchen's mom
went to the fridge, pulling out two paper plates that had been filled to capacity and covered in aluminum foil. She shifted the top plate to make sure it was sturdy before handing them to me.

"The one on the bottom's salty foods and the top's filled with sweets." She stuck a finger in the air. "Wait," she said. She shuffled across the kitchen, opened a drawer, and took out a clear plastic fork. Then she ripp
ed a paper towel from the roll before using it to wrap the plastic fork. She gingerly laid the little package on top of the plates I was holding and then took my face in her hands to put a kiss on my cheek. "That's just in case you get hungry on your way home. But you be careful driving, mister."

"I plan on it," I said, smiling. "I really appreciate
the hospitality, Mrs. McKay." I lifted the plates slightly. "And you better believe I'm gonna tear into this before I get home, so thanks for the fork."

"Well, you're welcome anytime, sweetheart. It was so nice meeting you."

I made my way down the line, telling everyone merry Christmas giving partial hugs around my hand
full of plates. I told Gretchen I loved having Christmas at her house, and I remembered to put in my candy order for the next year's pickle prize.

"Seriously. Come every year if you want.
" She said, hugging my neck.

"
Congratulations on everything." I said. That caused Gretchen to laugh. "You're right, I have a lot coming up, don't I?"

"Yep you do," I said.

"Well, hey, so do you," she said, pushing at my shoulder. She was real gentle about it, what, with my plate situation. "You're gonna make the team, Ethan, I just know it."