King of Her Desire

13

Kevin got me right in the forehead with a strawberry.

A real ripe one, too, that exploded into a blood red pulp that got all into my eyes and hair. I didn't mind, though. I really didn't.

Because it broke up some of the tension at the table. Not sexual tension just...maybe guilty tension. Or that feeling parents probably get when they're sitting at the table with the kids after getting mad nasty with each other in bed the night before.

The sibs didn't notice it because Elliott had turned into Martha Frigging Stewart again for them. Made these massive, melt-in-your-mouth pancakes with blueberry and strawberry jam and whipped cream from scratch, no less. I'd never seen anyone just boil up some jam in a few minutes like that.

It's just sugar and fruit cooked down, but you have to remember I come from people who don't know what things like marmalade are. I'm not joking.

We got some fancy stuff for Christmas once, in some weird basket one of our aunts got from her boss. And everybody eyed that little jar like it might be poisoned or something. If it's not plain old everyday jelly, like Welch's or maybe Smuckers, we don't fuck with it.

The sibs drowned their pancakes in her jam, though. They were just completely happy that morning. They'd slept well, and chased each other around outside on safe ground, the way we'd always dreamed of doing someday.

That's where the food fighting came from. Kevin hit me, I hit him back and then everybody dove into the fresh fruit bowl for more ammo. All us young folk, anyway.

Elliott just sat there looking even happier than we did. She had a stiff arm, but nothing serious enough to stop her from cooking up a storm.

And when Carli came over to "boop" a little fingertip full of cream on her nose, she just laughed and kissed her and let her climb up onto her lap.

And I said, "So...this...TV thing..."

And Elliott exhaled real loud and relieved and said, "Really?"

"Well, look at them. I mean..."

She laughed and said, "I have been."

"I know you have. So let's...do whatever. You understand this stuff more than I do."

And then we sat there for a minute doing that uneasy thing again. Because there were so many crazy feels going on beneath the words. Should we have done what we did? Why shouldn't we have done what we did? What did it mean? Did it mean anything?

If she'd been some guy her age, nobody would've thought twice. That's what kind of pissed me off. Guys can mess around with someone 'way younger than they are and people will maybe raise an eyebrow a little. But let a woman do that and it gets all kinds of weird.

The fact that I was even questioning it made me feel bad. We weren't trying to get married or anything. It was "scratching an itch," like she said. A pretty persistent one, yes, but we were more like friends than lovers, really.

And I liked that. More than I thought I would. Having the pressure off, that pressure to be everything to someone—so much better, this was. I thought so, anyway.

She smiled as if she knew what I was thinking and said, "I'm going to get Ben. You lot, finish eating!"

And she hoisted Carli off her lap and onto mine. So I kissed Carli's cheek and gave her very full belly a pat.