Flare Up

by Shannon Stacey

  Miss Perfect looked like she’d just taken a flying leap into a steaming pile of cow manure, and Terry had to think the next two weeks might not be so bad after all. Payback was indeed a bitch.

  When Keri saw Joe walking toward her, his hands in his pockets and his dimples visible from the moon, she couldn’t even articulate all the things she wanted to say to him.

  She settled for, “You are not checking me for ticks, Joseph Kowalski.”

  “Damn, babe, don’t go squashing all my hopes on the first day.” It was Keri who felt like an idiot, but Joe who was grinning like one. “I see you found Terry.”

  “I’m not riding one of those.” She pointed at the trailers of ATVs.

  “See that shiny new red one? That’s yours, babe. And don’t tell me you forgot the rules already.”

  As if she could. The Rules had been hand-delivered to her parents’ house before she’d even gotten out of bed that morning.

  (1) Only “official” answers to “official” questions may be published in Spotlight.

  (2) Any mention of where we go, what we do, or any other family member but me will result in the best legal team money can buy raining all over you and your magazine like a Georgia thunderstorm.

  (3) For every full day you spend with the Kowalski family, you can ask one question.

  (4) For each answer I give, I get to ask you one question. Failure to answer forfeits your next question.

  (5) Disclosure of any information other than the official interview questions and answers to Tina Deschanel, especially the attached MapQuest directions to your destination, will result in a horror show you don’t want any part of. Trust me.

  (6) Refusal to participate in any Kowalski family activity will result in no interview. (Unless it involves Kevin and nudity, which, with him, may or may not include sex.)

  Keri didn’t intend to get naked with any of the Kowalskis. No tick checks. No sex. No skinny dipping. Her swimsuit was a one-piece. And pajamas were not optional.

  That last thought stuck in her head and she looked at the row of campers and tents with a rising sense of alarm. “Where will I be sleeping?”

  Joe was still grinning, though Terry had wandered away to help the girl who must be her daughter hook up their camper. “Cabin, around the corner.”

  “A cabin?” That didn’t sound too bad. “You mean like with walls and a door and a bed?”

  “And electrical outlets, even.”

  Keri snorted. “Those will come in handy for all those electronic devices you made me leave at home.”

  “Pull your car around and maybe we can get you settled in before the rest of the family finds out you’re here. They all walked down to the store to visit the campground owners and buy wood for campfires.”

  Keri drove her compact rental up the narrow dirt lane and pulled in at the first cabin, parking in the shadow of Joe’s massive SUV. The cabin was small, but looked sound enough, and it even had a nice little porch.

  At Joe’s gesture, she opened the door and stepped inside. It seemed even smaller on the inside, but it had ceiling fans and a gas fireplace, and a dinette set. Along the back were a double bed and a set of bunk beds. A cheery braided rug covered the hardwood floor.

  And Joe’s stuff was strewn across every surface but the bottom bunk. “What is this?”

  “Our cabin. You get stuck with the bunk bed because I’m the famous author.”

  “You’re the famous freakin’ insane author if you think I’m sharing a cabin with you.”

  “The others are booked for the coming weekend. You can go home if you want, of course. I’m sure your boss would understand.”

  “Or you can sleep in my tent.”

  Keri whirled around at the sound of a second male voice. The man was incredibly tall, incredibly built, and... “Oh my God, Kevin? What the hell have they been feeding you?”

  “Virgins and Budweiser, three times a day. You look great, Keri. It’s been a long time.”

  She tried to remember how much younger Kevin was than her, Joe and Terry. Six years? Something like that. He’d been gangly and acne-prone the last time she’d seen him. He certainly wasn’t anymore.

  “You barely fit in your tent,” Joe told him before Keri could think up a response, “never mind a woman, too.”

  “She could sleep on top of me.”

  “Get out,” Joe said while Keri laughed. “Go grab Keri’s bags out of the car before you go, though.”

  Kevin sighed and cast a mournful glance at Keri. “The curse of being the only Kowalski son with any muscles.”

  He disappeared and Keri took a moment to try to calm herself. It didn’t work. Even after almost twenty years in California, she still hadn’t found her center, chi, Zen or whatever the hell it was she was supposed to find.

  On the one hand she had living with Joe Kowalski for fourteen days. On the other, she had a career in the toilet and her living in some sublet fleabag apartment.

  Then it occurred to her to wonder if pajamas were optional for Joe, too, and she had to find the switch for the ceiling fans and flip them on. It was awfully hot all of a sudden. And she wasn’t sure whether a pajama-free Joe went in the pro or the con column, which really played hell on her Zen.

  Kevin returned, setting her bags inside the door. “I intercepted the mob and turned them back. I’d say you’ve got fifteen minutes max before they come looking again.”

  Then he was gone. Keri took another useless deep breath and tried to brace herself for the minutes/days/weeks ahead. It wasn’t working.

  “This is so unprofessional of you,” she accused Joe, who was making a big show of plumping his pillow and testing his comfortable-looking mattress.

  “Right, because expecting me to expose my private life to the masses because we had sex twenty years ago is the epitome of professionalism.”

  Keri walked over to test her own mattress. It was what it looked like—a slab of foam on a sheet of plywood laid over 2x4 supports. Lovely. “I wouldn’t do this if I had a choice, but my career means everything to me.”

  “No, babe, your career is everything to you. And we’re going to remind you success doesn’t equal bylines and bottom lines.”

  He wasn’t smiling, so she wondered if he actually believed the tripe he was spewing. “So you’re doing this for my own good? To save the shallow princess from her gleaming ivory tower?”

  Now the dimples made an appearance. “As the good and pure-hearted prince the shallow princess stomped all over on her way up the ivory steps, I just want to see you get mud in your hair.”

  “So it’s all just a grand scheme to humiliate me.” She stood, intent on getting to her car. “You probably never intended to answer my damn questions at all.”

  Keri didn’t get far before Joe spun her around so she ended up, as luck would have it, with her back against the footboards of the bunk bed. When he tucked one leg between hers and rested a hand on either side of her head, her traitorous body immediately recognized the locker position and relaxed. She even had to curl her hands into fists to keep from tucking her fingers into the front pockets of his jeans.

  They’d spent every spare moment at school in just this position—her resting her back against her locker with Joe leaning over her. Inevitably a teacher would come along and bark at them. “Daniels and Kowalski, I want to see daylight between you two!”

  There wasn’t much daylight between them right now. And there weren’t any teachers coming, either, though odds were good his family would at some point. What she didn’t know is if they’d be horrified or encourage him.

  “I didn’t bring you here to humiliate you, babe.”

  Keri wished he’d quit calling her that, but she couldn’t make him stop without drawing attention to the fact it bothered her. “Then why am I here? You could have flat out said no, or you could have scheduled the int
erview for two weeks out.”

  “But then I wouldn’t get to spend the time with you.”

  How had she not drowned in those eyes back in high school? It was hard to focus on the words coming out of his mouth when he looked at her like that. “It’s been almost twenty years, Joe.”

  “Exactly. You weren’t just my girlfriend, you know. You were my best friend, and I want to catch up. Oprah would say I need closure.”

  “Like you watch Oprah.” Keri’s fingers were practically itching now to tuck themselves into his front pockets, so she shoved them into her own.

  “My niece does, and I’m sure if I asked her, she’d tell you that’s what Oprah would say.”

  “I think it’s about ten percent closure and ninety percent payback.”

  Joe grinned. “Seventy-thirty.”

  “Thirty-seventy.”

  He leaned in closer, and Keri had no room to back up. A billion thoughts seemed to fly through her head, but only two stuck. Was he going to kiss her? And why, after all these years and a few significant—albeit doomed—relationships, did she care?

  It had to be nostalgia. They said a girl never forgot her first, after all. She’d had more than one dream set in the backseat of a 1978 Granada. But this was too much.

  A brief flash lit up the cabin, and Joe swore so softly only somebody practically pressed up against him would hear it.

  “Say cheese!”

  “That would be Bobby,” Joe told her before stepping away—much to her surprising dismay. Had he really meant to kiss her? “He used his allowance to buy a package of disposable cameras for the trip.”

  “I thought we couldn’t have cameras.”

  “No, babe, you can’t have a camera. We have cameras—disposable, film, digital, video, digital video, you name it. Hell, there’s a good chance Ma’s still got her old 110 in the bottom of her purse.”

  Keri looked at the little boy giving her a grin that would probably be as potent as his uncle’s when he got older. “Hi, Bobby. Aren’t I supposed to say cheese before you take the picture?”

  “When I do it that way, people hide their faces, so I like it to be a surprise.”

  She smiled, but she was wondering how surprised Bobby’s mother would be to find a picture of Joe pinning her against the bunk bed come up in her son’s vacation pictures.

  “Grammy sent me to tell you to stop hiding and get the machines unloaded so the trailers can go in the parking area. And she said Miss Keri better go say hello right now or Uncle Kevin gets her s’mores.”

  Joe walked around the trailers, loosening tie-down straps while keeping an eye on Keri as she was given the quick, but probably not easy, tour of the Kowalski family tree. Considering her line of work and the fact their mothers remained friends, he was pretty sure she’d already been given a rundown on who was who, but they still made for a daunting group.

  Keri knew his parents and siblings, of course, but Mike and Kevin had changed a lot in the last eighteen years. Mike’s wife, Lisa, had moved up from Massachusetts right after Joe graduated, so Keri didn’t know her at all. And their four boys—Joey (fifteen), Danny (twelve), Brian (nine) and Bobby (six)—never stood still long enough to pin a face to a name. Terry’s girl, Stephanie, was hovering on the brink of teenage attitude. Throwing in Kevin, with his frat boy charm, and Terry, with her decades-long grudge, made for an interesting mix.

  And speaking of interesting, Joe couldn’t believe Keri thought his sole aim in inviting her along was to humiliate her. So maybe inviting wasn’t quite the right word for what he’d done, but he hadn’t realized until she’d thrown that accusation at him they weren’t on the same page. Hell, they weren’t even in the same chapter.

  Maybe he’d totally misread the vibe he’d gotten in the restaurant. He could have sworn she’d also felt the flicker that lingered from the burning inferno that used to be their chemistry, and when she agreed to the ridiculous offer he’d expected her to turn down flat, he thought she was as interested in fanning that little flame as he was. Instead she’d taken what was a half joke, half refusal gone wrong and blown it into a revenge plot of Shakespearean proportions.

  And Joe was left looking and feeling like an asshole. There was no way to explain to her the proposal he’d come up with in the car on the drive to the restaurant had been nothing more than a chickenshit way of refusing the interview without outright saying no. He’d started thinking it might be fun when she gave him the same look that turned his head in high school, and he really got on board when she closed her eyes and moaned after taking a bite of the cheeseburger. When she agreed to the stupid plan, he assumed she was on board, too, and the cool and calm demeanor was a bid for not looking too eager.

  Now he knew it was merely stoicism in the face of anticipated emotional torture, and that royally sucked. If he backed down now he’d have no control over what she printed, plus he’d have to explain why he hadn’t made it through day one, which couldn’t be done without making a massive fool of himself.

  “If you’re going to stand around and stare at your ex-girlfriend all day, get out of the way first.”

  Mike’s voice dragged Joe back to what he was doing—which was, apparently, standing there with a tie-down strap in his hand, mooning over Keri Daniels.

  He tossed the strap to the older of his younger brothers and straddled the first machine. “Got the keys?”

  Mike held up a handful, then tossed him the correct one. “You know Terry won’t let anybody back out of the driveway until every key is accounted for. She’d staple them to our foreheads if she could find a staple gun strong enough to penetrate our thick skulls.”

  Joe fired up the ATV, backed it down the ramps and pulled it off to one side. After giving the look of death to Mike’s four boys, who were watching him like turkey vultures, he climbed back onto the trailer.

  “Lisa likes her,” Mike said, since he was taking his own turn at watching the family drama unfold.

  “Key. How can you tell?”

  “Body language. We’ve been married sixteen years, Joe. I can tell when she needs to take a piss at this point.”

  “But you can’t tell how she feels about unballing your dirty socks?”

  Mike took a swipe at him, but Joe hit the throttle and laughed as he unloaded Joey’s machine. He glanced over at the campsites to see his namesake practically jumping up and down, so he gave him another look of death for good measure before climbing up the ramp again. Through the corner of his eye he saw Keri holding an armful of riding gear, looking utterly baffled.

  “She wants to get pregnant.”

  Joe’s head snapped around. Pregnant? “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Lisa wants another kid.”

  “Oh.” That made a little more sense than what he’d initially thought, but not much. “You guys are barely surviving the four boys you have, and Lisa is actually planning to throw a party when Bobby starts first grade in the fall. Are you sure?”

  Mike nodded and tossed Joe the key to Danny’s ATV. “She said it straight out. Said it might be a girl this time.”

  “Or it could be a boy. And it ain’t like twins are unheard of in the Kowalski family. Think about it, Mike. Six boys. We’d have to hire people to drive all your campers and machines here.”

  Mike laughed, but Joe could see the tension in him. Though two years younger, he often seemed like the oldest now, and Joe wasn’t the only one to notice it lately.

  “You know what you need? Let’s get these suckers unloaded and go for a brothers-only ride.”

  “The boys will have a fit,” Mike said, but his face lit up just thinking about it.

  The Kowalskis rode their ATVs at a wide variety of speeds. When the little kids were on their own machines and Grammy was along, half-dead pack mules made better time. When the two youngest boys rode with their parents and Grammy was napping,
the entire crew could be a little more adventurous. Sometimes all the children were left with Leo and Mary, allowing Joe, Kevin, Terry—and last year her husband, Evan—Mike and Lisa to go bombing through the trail system.

  But the brothers-only rides, those were special, with a high pucker factor. Just Joe, Mike and Kevin—testosterone, mud, rocks and a combined twenty-one hundred cc’s of four-wheel-drive power. It was almost as good as sex, although the attrition rate was generally higher.

  Mike cast a glance at his wife, scoping out her mood. “Lisa’d be pissed if the boys are underfoot while she’s trying to get everything set up. Remember ’04 when she made me sleep in the screenhouse?”

  Joe called out his sister-in-law’s name and beckoned her over. “We feel a need for speed.”

  Lisa was a short, fragile-looking brunette with a tall, not-so-fragile attitude. “You are not going riding with all this work left to do.”

  Joe flashed his winningest grin, but she’d been a Kowalski wife for sixteen years and was raising four of her own. She’d built up an immunity. “Forget it.”

  “Keri and I will take the boys into town for pizza in a few days.” She wasn’t immune to bribes involving freedom. “You and Mike can sneak off and ride up to that hidden grassy spot you guys like so much. It puts color in your cheeks.”

  As always, the promise of sex free of juvenile interruption made her cave like a wet napkin. “One hour. And you guys pull lifeguard duty for the first trip to the pool.”

  “Three hours, two lifeguard duties, and we’ll keep the boys out for ice cream, too.”

  “Two hours, all of the above, plus s’mores duty tonight.”

  “Done.”

  After Lisa walked away, Joe grinned at his brother. “Piece of cake.”

  “Never works for me.”

  “That’s because you’re her husband. She likes me better because she doesn’t have to wash my underwear. Plus I’m better lookin’.”

  Mike laughed. “You keep telling yourself that while I’m getting laid out in the woods, my friend.”

  “You just like it out there because the mosquito bites make your dick look bigger.”