Under the Orange Moon (13 page)

Dylan simply was not granted her own life in the family that she had. She would never get into her brothers’ lives the way that they seemed to always be in hers. Even with Brandon and Jonah in
California and Hugh in Washington, Dylan’s life would never be her own.

Ben stepped through the garage door of the Mathews house and smiled when he ran into Linda. “Hey Mom Two,” he said, stealing a freshly baked cookie from the wax paper on the counter.

“Hello, Son Five,” Linda replied, slapping his hand at the same time. “Those are for tonight.”

Ben adored Linda’s acceptance of him belonging to her family. She even included him in her Christmas list. It wasn’t just a shirt or a CD of some sort. She would buy him thoughtful presents, even a matching shirt that she bought her own sons. They would all laugh if by accident a few of them wore the same shirt when they were together. They learned to alert one another of what they were wearing, to be sure that didn’t happen.

“Where’s Son Four?” Ben asked.

Linda, knowing he meant Jonah, replied with a finger pointing out the window. A gesture that meant Jonah was outside. She was too busy licking homemade frosting from her thumb to speak with words.

Ben walked out through the sliding glass door and sat down on the patio in back. “Hey,” he called to Jonah, who was helping Brandon with the fireworks for the Christmas Eve show.

Jonah didn’t look up at him. “Where the hell have you been?” he asked with laughter in his voice. He must have figured this was female related, Ben suspected.

“I had some things to do,” Ben replied casually.

“Who?” Jonah asked with a smirk.

Ben laughed uncomfortably, only because he figured if Jonah really knew who, he would be nauseated with himself for even asking that question. “No one,” Ben answered, attempting to mask his amusement.

“Well, you’ve been MIA since last night. I just figured this was about a girl.” Jonah dropped a cord of lights and headed over to Ben. “Are you coming over tonight?”

“Yeah,” Ben answered. “I wouldn’t miss it.”

“I don’t know where Dylan’s been.” Jonah sighed and looked around. “She took off from Oilies last night.”

“Yeah?” Ben asked as absentminded as possible. “Hmm.”

“We invited Olerson tonight.”

“Why are you assholes pushing Oilie on her?” Ben tried to conceal the jealous fit that was consuming his brain, but his mouth was not doing so well in being discreet. “She doesn’t like him. You guys need to get over it.”

Ben could feel Jonah shift in discomfort. That was about all that Jonah needed to do to show his disapproval of Ben’s occasional outbursts. It wasn’t that Jonah didn’t know how to deal with Ben’s flare for anger. It was only that he would contemplate and choose his battles with Ben, shifting when he chose not to argue.

“I’m not pushing him on her,” Jonah responded after a few uneasy moments. “I just think he’s good for her.”

“Well, she doesn’t like him.” Ben sighed, slightly embarrassed.

Jonah didn’t reply, a signal of retreat. He stood up and left Ben alone again while he went back to his role of being Brandon’s assistant.

Ben looked around and remembered his life in the backyard he stood in. He almost laughed out loud when he remembered a time he could never forget. He was fourteen and Dylan put on a purple bikini, nearly killing him in his pubescent state of life.

On her way to join the swimming boys, Dylan bashfully snuck out of the sliding glass door with Linda behind her smiling proudly. Ben realized now that the bikini must have been Linda’s idea, an attempt to make her only daughter more feminine.

Ben stood on the diving board, ready to leap into a cannon ball, but completely frozen in a state of jaw-dropping horror. He had never seen so much of Dylan and he truly didn’t enjoy the show, knowing what it was doing to his body as a result. Ben dove into the water and came up just along the edge of the pool to hide the overwhelming evidence below.

“You look stupid,” he yelled when Linda disappeared.

Dylan’s face broke with hurt and her eyes glassed over with tears. She looked down at her feet and let her once proud shoulders fall. Ben knew even then that she was seeking his approval, but he couldn’t let her know that she had won him over again.

“Weed, put your other one on,” Brandon demanded with sweetness in his voice. Always the overprotective brother, he added, “You’re still too young for that.”

“She’ll never be ready for that,” Ben shouted. “She has to be a girl first.”

“Mom said I look nice,” Dylan said quietly through quivering lips.

“She’s your mom, Weed. She has to tell you that,” Ben remembered urging for the sake of himself, of course. She looked too beautiful and much too perfect. “Go put your old one on and let’s play water basketball.” He threw the wet ball at her face and laughed when it exploded with water spray, soaking her hair.

Dylan didn’t cry, though. She simply lifted the first thing she saw, a baseball, and threw it back at him. Hard. Ben dodged the flying ball and stared at her with shock in his eyes.

Dylan ran into the house and didn’t return with a new suit on, or even at all. Ben knew she was hurt and, whether he admitted it to himself then or not, the guilt he felt that day was heavy and true. Still, he would not falter and admit why he was so desperate for her to
not
be in that bikini.

“Ben?” Jonah called for what must have been the tenth time. “Hello?”

Ben snapped back into the present and realized Jonah was standing in front of him. “Sorry. What?”

“You checked out for a minute, buddy.”

“I’m back now.” Ben laughed uncomfortably. “What do you need?”

Jonah shook his head and threw an extension cord to Ben. “Help,” he answered sternly.

The atmosphere that surrounded them seemed a bit awkward. Ben truly feared the thought of his friends finding out about what he had done with their sister. He wouldn’t object to them taking turns punching him. Like a downright dog, he slept with his best friends’ sister. He only deserved a good beating.

He even found himself looking at them differently now. He almost wondered if he would have to choose between them all. He would choose Dylan. He would choose her over them all, and this was what frightened him the most.

Traditionally, the entire neighborhood spread out in the street to enjoy the light display that erupted over the Mathews’ home every Christmas Eve. Neighbors brought dishes to pass and sang songs of Christmas cheer to get the spirit going.

With the emptiness that loomed inside Linda’s home as a result of her sons’ absence, she contemplated moving into a smaller home for her and Dylan, knowing it would take a lot for Dylan to ever leave. However, when the occasion of Christmas came her way, Linda was reminded of why she could never leave her beloved home.

In the neighborhood the Mathews lived in, the friendly atmosphere went on just as it had twenty years before. The two and three storey homes ran side-by-side. Some were the same as the next, and others gave off their own distinct personality. It was a charming little community; no one would move away unless they absolutely had to.

The street in front of the Mathews’ house began to fill as it did every year this time. The women set up tables and food, while the men stood over Brandon, Charlie, Hugh, and Jonah to make sure they wouldn’t blow themselves up. Some things never change.

The children of the subdivision were all mostly grown into adults and allowed themselves to step back and embrace their childhood with memories of Christmas past and the innocent joy they felt while watching the sky burst with festive colors above them. It was a timeless tradition that no one would ever be ready to let go.

Dylan spotted Ben as he appeared at the side of her house. He was not quite out of the shadows and she was the only one that knew he was there, only because she was watching for him desperately. Ben motioned for her to come to him and she wasted no time obliging with a guilty grin.

She walked around to the other side of the house discreetly and searched for him in her own back yard. 

Ben pulled at Dylan’s hand and guided her through the dark. Together, they hopped over a concrete divider and found the darkest corner that they could locate on the other side, which happened to be the yard of their most crotchety of all neighbors, Mr. Raymond.

As Ben ran his lips against the skin of her neck, Dylan smiled, out of breath and tingling from head to toe. “Mr. Raymond is the only person that doesn’t come tonight and you choose his yard to do this in?”

Ben kissed Dylan’s slender neck, and teased, “He’ll be missing two shows then.”

“I wish we could sleep together tonight,” Dylan confessed, dizzily. She didn’t even try to conceal her sounds of pleasure as Ben moved his mouth and body against her.

Ben pulled Dylan’s dress up and stood between her legs. “Trust me. I’ll make it to your room tonight,” he whispered into her ear. 

Dylan’s toes practically curled under every time Ben’s lips grazed her skin. She had never felt such passion or need to be touched by someone. True, she was a virgin up until only the night before, but she never imagined the lingering sensations that Ben was able to leave behind on parts of her body that he wasn’t even touching in that moment. It was as if those parts were begging for his attention, asking for his lips and hands to feel their way over and satisfy her need.

“You’re beautiful,” he whispered with a genuine smile on his mischievous face. He stared with passion, heat and sincerity as he lifted her leg and slowly wrapped it around his waist.

Her stomach fluttered as he moved in closer and pulled at her bottom lip with his teeth. She sighed as she laid her head back against the wall and took him in with a head spinning greed. She couldn’t resist him. She was convinced she would ultimately drown in this new version of him and, for the first time in their ongoing saga, she wouldn’t fear it. 

They made love in Mr. Raymond’s yard and beneath the fireworks that had begun to shoot above them, a moment that they both realized had to take place only because of the ties that pulled it all together: the fireworks, of course, the final closing of the hand holding that had taken place five years before and, finally, the small delight of sticking a jab at the evil little man, Mr. Raymond.

They dressed together and then kissed as Ben buttoned his shirt. It was almost unbearable to pull away from him, knowing he would be stolen in the night by her brothers. She knew where he wanted to be, but she was beside herself just knowing that she could never kiss him or touch him out in the open world.

“Wait,” Ben said once more. He held her hand and slowly eased her back to him with a wayward smirk. “I’ll see you later. You know the spot?”

Dylan laughed with an uncontrollable adoration behind her voice. There was no sense in even attempting to hide her joy. “I think I know, but you should draw me a map just to be sure I know how to get to my bed.”

“It’s easy,” he teased, drawing her closer. He guided her fingers to his chest and stopped over his heart as he placed her palm flat on top of it. “We’ll meet right here.”

Dylan felt her breath fall short as she stared back at him with shock all over her face. Who was this man?

“Right there then,” she whispered, and stood on her toes to press her mouth to his. 

They separated after many moments of rushing back for another final kiss. They both took opposite sides of the house to make their way around. Dylan went first.

She crept up onto the porch and positioned herself comfortably, alone and somewhat hidden, in an attempt to claim that she had been in that spot the entire time. She sighed and looked up into the sky and couldn’t help but smile at the fond sounds and lights of Christmas Eve.

Dylan watched as Ben made his arrival into the crowd of her brothers in the driveway. She laughed quietly every time she caught him searching for her until his careful eyes finally found her on the porch. He smiled quickly and turned his head back to Charlie’s direction as if to at least pretend to be interested in the activity there.

You love me
, she thought as she watched him continue to watch her discreetly.

When Dylan was twelve, she painted Ben a picture for his birthday: two children, standing on a mountain and holding hands under a giant, red heart in the sky. When it dried, she rolled it up and wrapped a silver bow around the paper. She nervously walked it over to Ruth’s house and laid it on the porch, all before running away.

He never said a word about it. He never said a thank you, or even a more Ben-appropriate comment, like how awful it was. It was as if it never happened.

Dylan remembered crying on the very porch she sat on now. Carl came, cradled her to him and wiped the tears from her cheek.

“Boys are stupid,” she recalled him saying. “They never know a good thing until they’ve run it over a few times.”

Dylan tried to breathe through her tears. “He hates me, Daddy.”

Carl shook his head and pushed the wet strands of hair away from her tear soaked face. “No, no. It’s just the opposite. Ben likes you and that’s why he goes the extra mile to show how much he doesn’t. He’s a stupid boy.”

Carl died six months later.