Asking for Trouble (The Kincaids) Page 3

  The blue eyes sparkled at him just a little bit more, her mouth curving in a teasing smile. “Wow. Did all the guys on the football team get drunk and do it together, or what? What did your parents say?”

  He didn’t really have an answer for that one, so he didn’t answer.

  “Can I see?” She’d come closer, and he couldn’t exactly say “no,” so he lifted the edge of his sleeve. And then it got worse, because she put out her hand and traced the blue-inked pattern where it curved over his triceps, the target superimposed on the shield, the missile streaking toward the bulls-eye, the scroll beneath, on which you couldn’t really read the writing, because the artist hadn’t exactly been the best.

  “What is it?” she asked, bent close, and he could smell a flowery scent that was probably her shampoo wafting up to him from the dark hair, so shiny it gleamed, could see her scalp showing along her center part, because he had a good eight inches on her, even though she was tall. “It’s not a team.”

  The light touch of her fingers was like a brand. “It’s the 57th Wing,” he said, wishing his voice didn’t sound so strangled. “Of the Air Force.”

  “Did you want to join?”

  “No. It was my dad’s unit.”

  “Oh, I get it. That’s why you’re here for Christmas,” she said. “Your dad’s in the Air Force?”

  “No,” he said again. “He died.” He knew it sounded too bald, but he didn’t know how else to say it.

  “Oh. I’m sorry.” She took a step back, confusion in her eyes, and he felt like he’d kicked a puppy. Girls like this weren’t supposed to know about the bad things, the hard things.

  “You hassling Joe, Liss?” Alec said from the couch. He got up, started to grab for the hacky sack, trying to wrestle it from her, and she was turning, twisting, and laughing again. “You are such a brat.”

  They fell on the couch together, and Alyssa tossed the little ball to Gabe, who caught it with an elbow, kicked it with the side of his foot back to her, and the game was on. Soon all four of them were involved, Joe drawn in despite himself, because when it came his way, he couldn’t spoil the party, could he? And they were irresistible.

  Their mother came through the room as the little ball sailed through the air, whipped her white plastic laundry basket around and caught it inside in a deft movement. “You guys. Four short months away and you’re savages. The work of a lifetime undone. No playing ball in the house.”

  “Hacky sack isn’t playing ball,” Alec objected. “Football’s playing ball. Hacky sack’s like—playing yo-yo in the house.”

  “All right,” she said. “No playing yo-yo in the house. Honestly. You need to get out. Come on, now. A little peace and quiet here.”

  “Oh, nice,” Alec said, making a sad face. “We’re home a couple hours and you already want to get rid of us.”

  “I don’t want to get rid of you. I just want you to run around a while, run some of that energy off.”

  Alec and Gabe looked at each other and laughed. “It’s like we’re three, Mom,” Gabe said.

  “Well, really,” she said tartly, “it’s like you are three sometimes. And people wonder why I already have to dye my hair.”

  “Do you want some help?” That was Gabe. “Sorry. I should have asked.”

  She took one hand off the heavy basket where it was balanced on her hip, rubbed a palm over his broad shoulder. “Thanks, sweetie. Later I would. But for now, just go outside for a while, OK?”

  “We’ll take Joe for a walk, show him the town,” Alec decided. “That’ll be a fun-filled time.”

  “And then basketball,” Alyssa said. “I’ve got some new moves to show you, Gabe. And Joe’s here, so we can have teams. Can you play?” she asked Joe.

  “Of course he can play,” Alec said. “Every guy can play basketball.”

  “Well, I don’t know,” she flared back. “He can’t play hacky sack.”

  “Hey,” Joe protested. He had to smile a little. “I did it.”

  “Huh.” She tossed her head so her ponytail did a flip. “You kinda stunk.” And he had to smile a little more.

  “I play basketball better than that,” he promised. “A little better.” Actually, a lot better. Thank goodness.

  There was a fairly organized scramble for shoes and coats, and Joe went back to Alec’s bedroom, pulled his jacket out of his bag, went into the laundry room for his boots, leaned against the doorjamb between laundry room and kitchen to pull them on and tie the laces.

  Mrs. Kincaid stood back from the fridge, where she was taking vegetables out of the bin and piling them onto the counter, and looked him over. “Hold on,” she said. “You can’t go out like that. It’s cold out there. Don’t you have something warmer? And what about a hat? And gloves?”

  He straightened up, stuffed his hands into the pockets of the worn black leather bomber jacket. “I’m good.”

  “It’s supposed to drop into the thirties today,” she said. “It’s probably there already.” She shoved the refrigerator door shut and hustled into the laundry room, taking Joe by the upper arms and moving him out of the way as if he were one of her own boys. She shooed her children out the back door and onto the porch before opening a worn pine dresser in one corner of the room, dug inside for a while and came out with a black watch cap and a pair of brown gloves, handed them to him, then flipped quickly through pegs of coats and sweaters, pulled a brown plaid woolen jacket out from underneath a couple rain jackets, and shoved it into his arms as well. “There. All set. You can keep the hat and gloves. I wish you could keep that ratty old jacket too, but that’s Dave’s leaf-raking jacket. I’ve been trying to get rid of it for years, but he won’t let me.”

  He pulled the jacket on over the black leather, because she clearly wasn’t taking no for an answer, and under her watchful eye, put the hat on as well. “Thanks. I’ll borrow them, then. But I don’t need a hat. Or gloves.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said impatiently. “I don’t even know whose those were. Some friend of the boys’, probably, leaving his belongings behind and driving his mother crazy. You’re doing me a favor, saving me donating them like I should have already.”

  He was outmatched, so he mumbled his thanks and went out to join the others as the proud new owner of a hat and gloves. And it was probably just as well, because the air had turned colder, must have been down into the thirties already, like she’d said. Low clouds had turned the sky to a leaden gray, and a dampness in the air spoke of rain to come.

  They set off, Joe behind Alec and Gabe on the shoulder of the quiet street. More of that 1950s sitcom stuff. No sidewalks, just the big trees lining the street on both sides as far as he could see, a final few leaves still clinging that would fall in the coming storm. And Alyssa next to him, of course, a blue knitted hat with a perky pompom covering the dark hair, a puffy blue jacket zipped against the cold, seeming to bounce on her toes as she walked.

  “They’re in Twin World,” she said, nodding ahead at her brothers. “Bonding time. It’s what they do. No outsiders allowed, back to the womb.”

  Joe shrugged. “That’s OK.”

  “Do you have brothers and sisters?”

  “A sister. Half-sister.”

  “Older or younger?”

  “Older. Four years.”

  “So . . .” She hesitated, then went on. “Is your mom far away, then? And your sister? Is that why you aren’t home for Christmas?”

  Here they were, the questions, and even though he’d been expecting them, he tensed all the same. “Yeah. My sister’s in Alaska.”

  It diverted her, as he’d hoped. “You mean she lives there? I never think about people actually living in Alaska. Did you live there too?”

  “No. She’s in the Air Force. On a base outside of Fairbanks.”

  “Have you been there? To visit her?”

  “No.”

  “So do you get to see her? I can’t imagine not seeing my brothers. Not at Christmas.”

  “Not
for a while.” Not for a few years, and then it had been quick, a couple hours at the airport during a layover on Cheryl’s way to a new duty station. But he didn’t tell Alyssa that. “You’re on the basketball team, huh?” he asked, trying to think of something new to talk about. Conversation had never been his strong suit. “Varsity?”

  She laughed up at him. “I wish. JV, but I really hope I can make Varsity before I’m a sophomore. There’s this girl, Colleen Fitzhugh? She’s a sophomore this year, but I know she made Varsity in her freshman season, so I think I can do it. Wouldn’t that be cool?”

  He was barely listening. “You’re a freshman?”

  “Well, yeah. Halfway through freshman year,” she hurried to add, as if that would make a difference.

  A freshman in high school. Alec had probably told him that, but Alec had told him a lot of things. “How old are you?” he asked. Alec had told him that, too, he was sure, but at the time, it hadn’t mattered.

  “Fifteen. But I’ll be sixteen in March,” she hastened to add. “How old are you?”

  “Nineteen.”

  “This is my old school, up here.” She gestured with a mittened hand. “I played basketball there, too. That seems like such a long time ago, you know?”

  From the standpoint of six months, or whatever it was. Chico Junior High School, he read in two-foot-high letters stenciled onto concrete block. He was hot for a girl who had just graduated from junior high school. What kind of a pervert was he?

  “This is my favorite tree in the world,” she was saying now, reaching out for a trunk and swinging herself around it with a laugh. “Aren’t the leaves gorgeous?”

  Joe looked dubiously up into the mostly-bare branches. “Well, I can’t really tell.”

  She was scooping a few up from the concrete. “Gingko. See, they’re fans.”

  The graceful leaves, a rich golden yellow, were indeed shaped like delicate fans, and she was arranging them like a deck of cards, fanning herself with one hand, then holding the whole arrangement close to her face, peeping over them, her eyes flirtatious. “Why, Rhett. Sir, how dare you.” She fluttered those black lashes, and he could see her smile behind the blue mitten, and he was struck dumb.

  “Liss.” Alec and Gabe had wheeled around, and Alec was calling out to her. “Are you teasing Joe? He’s thanking God right now that he doesn’t have a little sister.”

  No, Joe was wishing that Alec didn’t have one. Or wishing that she wasn’t quite so little. Or something.

  She was fifteen, he was still telling himself desperately an hour later as he played basketball with the three of them, watched her dribbling, showing off her jump shot, laughing at him, bumping him, killing him. Fifteen. She was a child. And he was nineteen going on fifty, and if her brothers, if her parents could read his mind, he’d be right out of that house and out of their lives. Out of the warmth, the light, the laughter, hell, minus some teeth, probably, and on the Greyhound bus straight back to Stanford. He would just have to ignore her, and the way she moved, and the way she laughed, and the fierce, insistent craving she stirred in his body. He could do that. He’d done tougher things. Although, at this moment, he couldn’t remember exactly what.

  Everybody Except Alyssa

  Alyssa’s unemployment blues eased a little with the arrival of her brother Gabe on Christmas Eve. Alec had always been her exciting brother, equal parts glamorous, demanding, and exasperating, but Gabe had been her protector and confidante ever since she could remember. Although, she sadly admitted to herself, he’d had less time for her A.M.—After Mira. She liked her sister-in-law, but she missed being alone with Gabe. And with both of her brothers newly married . . . the phrase “fifth wheel” came pretty forcibly to mind.

  “You need to tell us all about the honeymoon, Rae. I want to see pictures,” Mira said when they had sat down to dinner, nine of them including Rae’s grandmother Dixie, all squeezed around the dining room table eating spaghetti with meat sauce, their traditional Christmas Eve dinner.

  Alec and Rae had been married on the day after Thanksgiving. A short engagement, a small, simple wedding, but Alyssa knew that Dixie’s health was fragile, and they hadn’t wanted to wait. And, Rae had said practically, they wouldn’t have to take as much time off work if they did it over the holiday weekend. Which had made Alec groan, and everyone else laugh.

  “It was . . . “ Rae smiled. “Great. It was great. As honeymoons go, I’d rate it right up there. I’ll show you my pictures later, if you want to see. Other people’s vacation pictures are never that fascinating.”

  “They are to me,” Mira protested. “I’ve never been to Paris. So romantic.”

  “Thanks, bro,” Gabe told his twin. “Raising the bar again.”

  He got a shrug in return. “Got to do it right. I’m only going to get one bride. Sadly.” Alec heaved a martyred sigh. “I tried to sell her on the merits of plural marriage, the whole sister-wife deal, but she’s not going for it.”

  “Nope,” Rae said. “Afraid you’re stuck with one. But yes, you did it right. Although it was strange, too,” she told Mira. “That was the first time it really sank in how much money Alec has. Flying first class, staying in a suite at the Georges Cinq, it was all like a movie, some movie that would never be starring me.”

  “What a nightmare,” Alyssa deadpanned.

  “Well, yeah,” Rae said with a laugh. “I’m not complaining. But he didn’t even check with me, he just set it all up, and it was . . . way beyond my pay grade. We’d go out to dinner, and I’d look at the prices on the menu, do the currency conversion, get this—” She put her hand on her heart. “Whoa, major shock, and have to remind myself that he could afford it.”

  “That we could afford it,” Alec said. “And here I thought you married me for my money.”

  “Nope,” she said. “I married you for your good looks.”

  “Oh, that’s right. I forgot. And it’s true,” he told the others, “I could see that calculator brain working every single time we went anywhere. They need to make those date menus without the prices again, like they used to.”

  “Always order from the middle of the menu,” Alyssa’s mother pronounced. “That’s what we were told when I was a girl. You didn’t order the chicken salad, because that was an insult, like you thought he couldn’t afford anything more. But you didn’t order the lobster, either, because that would make him feel taken advantage of.”

  “Until you started dating me,” Dave Kincaid put in. “Then you knew you had to order the chicken salad.”

  “Good thing you were worth it,” Susie said. “Lots of picnics, too.”

  “I was hoping you’d think they were romantic,” her husband complained.

  “They were.” She smiled back at him, and Alyssa felt about her fifth pang of envy since they’d sat down. Great. Now she was jealous of her parents.

  “Sometimes I think it’s better just to split the check,” she said, trying to lift her mood, join the fun. “What do you guys think?” she asked her brothers. “Better, or no? It always seems like it should be, but then, when I’ve been out with a guy the first time and he lets the check lie there in the middle of the table, and I can tell he’s thinking I should offer to split it . . . ugh. It turns me off.”

  “For sure, he pays the first time,” Gabe said.

  “That’s right,” Alec agreed. “Big red flag, Liss.”

  “But then,” she mused, “why should he, really?”

  “Because he asked you,” Gabe said. “He doesn’t have to take you someplace he can’t afford. If he can only take you out for a hamburger, or a picnic,” he said with a smile for his mother, “that’s fine. I’ve been that broke plenty of times. But if he asks you out, he should pay the first time. You can offer to split the check the second time, if you want.”

  “Of course,” Alec said, “if you ask him out, all bets are off. Though most guys I know probably wouldn’t be comfortable with the woman paying even then, not the first time.”

  �
��I still don’t ask guys out,” Alyssa admitted. “I should, but the kind of guy I like, I just can’t imagine asking out. I don’t like New Age men. I mean, I like them, I’m just not attracted to them. I should be, I know I should be, but I’m not.”

  “So nobody special right now?” Gabe asked her.

  “No,” she said, the fun and laughter wiped away. “Nope. Single again.”

  “Broke up?” he asked with the sympathetic understanding he always showed, and she wondered why she could never meet a guy like her brother.

  “Yeah. Broke, broke up, and home for the holidays.” She lifted her water glass in a toast. “Merry Christmas.”

  “Never mind,” Rae said. “You have to kiss a lot of frogs, huh, Mira?”

  “That’s right,” Mira said. “You’ll find the right one soon, Alyssa, I know it. He’s out there waiting for you.”

  “What about you, Joe?” Susie asked. “You know, if you ever have somebody special that you want to bring home with you, we’d love to meet her.”

  He shrugged. “Nobody special. Nobody to bring.”

  “Seems to me you’d be a real catch,” Dixie said. “A big, handsome man like you, with that real good job? Lots of girls must be interested.”

  “Not so handsome,” Joe said with a rueful smile, running a big hand over his shaved head.

  Alyssa watched him do it, the sheer size of his shoulder, the bulge of bicep that the dress shirt he was wearing in honor of the occasion couldn’t conceal, the crooked grin twisting his mouth amidst the closely trimmed stubble he’d begun wearing when he’d started shaving his head.

  No, not so handsome. But so tough, with his rough edges barely concealed, leaving you wondering what sorts of banked fires might be burning underneath.

  Dixie snorted. “More important things than hair. Any woman worth having knows that. Maybe you’re just not giving them a chance.”

  “I don’t think that’s it,” he said. “It’s something else. I don’t know. It starts out OK. They start out thinking I’m mysterious, I guess. I’m a challenge. That’s what they say, later.” He stopped, reached for his glass. No wonder. That was practically baring his soul, for Joe.