“Uh, yeah what’s up with that suit?” Jonah finally asked.
Ben smoothed out his unwrinkled jacket. “Nothing. I had something I needed to take care of before I left and it happened to require a suit.
“Well go get normal clothes on,” Jonah demanded. “You’re making me feel weird.”
“I will, loser. I have to see my mom, anyway.”
Ben began to walk the familiar path behind the house and into the neighbor’s yard by leaping over the concrete wall that separated it, a course that was common to them all. The trail that stretched from the Mathews’ house to the McKennas’ was pretty much etched down into the dirt, grass and Astroturf that traveled between each yard and then across the street. It was a shortcut to them as kids, but a pain for the surrounding neighbors who guarded their landscaping with their lives. On any given day of their childhood, an angry neighbor could be heard screaming from a window because one of them had blindly hopped onto one of their plants or small palm trees from the other side of the wall.
“Careful, Mr. Raymond is still there and he still hates when you walk on his grass,” Dylan warned.
Ben waved at the thought. “It’s faster to go this way. I don’t want to walk all the way around the block when I can just hop a few walls. I’ll be back in an hour or so.”
Dylan watched him leave and rolled her eyes at his nonchalant personality. Even now, when he was supposed to mature with his age, Ben remained unaffected and totally obtuse to the world around him. He only cared about one thing in life: himself.
“Dylan, enough with the paint already,” Linda called. “I need help with the potatoes.”
Dylan dropped her stick robotically and jumped up on the porch. There was no point in arguing. With everyone home again, not only was the house going to be a debacle of commotion, but there was easily going to be at least fifteen pounds of potatoes to peel, as well.
Being the only girl for Linda, Dylan got the lovely honor of being her mother’s assistant in the kitchen. The good news was Charlie, Dylan’s second oldest brother, was getting married to Meredith in the spring. Meaning Dylan would soon have an ally of her own, someone else to peel the potatoes for once.
“Is Ben joining us for dinner?” Linda asked, pulling down the dinner plates from her cupboards.
“Does Jonah’s bottom drawer hold about fifty porno magazines?” Dylan replied, sticking a verbal jab at her twin brother. They never seemed to mature when they were in their mother’s home.
“Dylan,” Linda said firmly.
“Sorry, Mom,” Dylan said through a small sneer.
“Ben didn’t recognize you when we pulled in, Weed,” Jonah teased. He elbowed her as he reached over to grab a piece of green pepper from the counter.
Dylan glared at Jonah. She hated that name and loathed all of her brothers for torturing her with it her entire life. It was a cruel name, not at all funny the way they intended it to be.
“Shut up, Jonah,” Dylan hissed.
“I’m sorry. You’re not a weed anymore,” Jonah apologized with a cocky grin.
“I never was a weed, idiot!”
Charlie hopped up on a stool between Jonah and Dylan. Always the bully of the family, he pulled Jonah into a choke hold, and said, “I think Weed’s new name should be Bubble Butt.”
“Adult children of mine, please behave.” Linda tasted her gravy to make sure it was perfect. “Your sister is neither a weed nor a bubble butt.”
“Come on, Mom. She has to be one or the other.” Charlie grinned menacingly. “What was that about Ben?”
Jonah laughed. “He checked her out when we first pulled in. He actually wanted to know who she was.”
“He did?” Linda turned, intrigued.
“Yep.” Jonah elbowed Dylan again.
“Well, our little Weed is growing up,” Charlie teased.
“Charlie, shut up!” Dylan screeched. “Why are you even here? Go back to your apartment!”
“Sorry, Weed. I’m here until the wedding. Besides, I want to bond with my baby sister before I become a husband,” he teased while pinching Dylan’s cheeks. “You’re going to miss me when I’m gone.”
Dylan squirmed out of his hold and punched him in the arm. “Ugh, I so won’t.”
“Okay, that’s enough,” Linda commanded with her hand over her smile. She loved the sound of her children bickering. Most would agree that made her a lunatic, but the old feeling warmed her heart to no end.
“Mom, stop laughing!” Dylan hollered.
“Oh, honey, you’re beautiful. That’s a nice compliment that Ben was attracted to you.”
Dylan’s face squeezed into a scowl while she tried to calm her flaring temper. She had half hoped that after five years of silence, the constant Ben teasing would merely be a historical discussion never to be brought up again.
Charlie smacked Jonah on the back of the head. “Quit it.”
“What? You were teasing her more than I was?” Jonah replied, rubbing his sore head.
“Shut up, Jonah,” he said plainly. Charlie put his arm around Dylan. “I’m sorry, baby sister. I’ll stop.”
Dylan rolled her eyes and grabbed the giant pot of water from the counter. She struggled while she carried the dreadfully heavy thing out back. She slumped on to the deck behind her house to begin the job of endless potato peeling.
Ruth McKenna held her arms out to her son as he moved up the stairs to greet her. She hadn’t changed much over time. Donned in her usual pajamas, she still looked sad and pathetic, the only way that Ben had known her for most of his life.
“Hello, Mom,” Ben said, cringing at the feeling of her cold hands on his face.
“Benjamin, how was your flight?”
“It was an airplane—same as always.”
“I’m happy you came home. How is school?”
“Fine.” Ben’s one-worded responses were small, subliminal messages that he sent to people he didn’t wish to speak to on a regular basis.
“Just fine?” Ruth’s eyes scanned his blank expression, hoping there would be a bit more chatter on his part.
“That’s what I said, right?”
“Okay. Fine.” Ruth pointed up the stairs. “Your room is just how you left it.”
A light breath escaped from Ben’s half-curled, smirking lips as he made his way up the wooden steps. She said the word “left” like he abandoned it when he took off for school. What was even more entertaining was the way she managed to make it sound like he left her as well. Everyone leaves Ruth.
Ben opened his door and looked around before stepping inside. Besides the few random boxes that Ruth stuffed in there to store, it was just as he left it. He smiled at the Harvard banner that hung over his bed. Seeing it there gave him a sense of validation, knowing he had made it.
He sat on the edge of his lumpy mattress and looked around the room. He pulled open his bedside drawer and smirked at the items that were left behind: remnants of his glory days in high school, magazines, phone numbers, condoms and a foul ball from the last Diamond Backs game he went to.
He stood up and changed into more comfortable clothes. He had been so used to his nice pants and collared shirts that he wore he had forgotten what it felt like to wear a pair of jeans. He slipped a faded, gray Harvard T-shirt over his head and fell back against his twin bed.
Ben ran his hand through his hair and laughed to himself when the reality of it all set it. He was home. Seeing the Mathews somewhat stamped this into place for him. Not his mother or her house. It was the Mathews family that made him feel that pleasant, good-to-be-home feeling.
It was like old times. Only Dylan was not the old Dylan.
Dylan. She was absolutely fascinating. He couldn’t control his reminiscent smile when he thought of her, the only girl born to poor Linda Mathews and who came out with a knack for doing boy things better than most boys. She wore baggy clothes on her petite body, loved art and all that applied, threw a football like Brett Favre and had no problem taking her b
rothers down by using the unfair advantage of having the ability to kick them square in the balls.
She could hardly be described as a weed anymore.
He thought about her eyes—her emerald green eyes. Those were the same. Her hair shined the same, too, he noticed. Sparkling wisps of auburn still shone through the light brunette color when the sun beamed down on it a certain way. Her skin was olive and looked somewhat Mediterranean when the summer rays were strongest, he remembered.
She was the same way he left her five years before, only she let the best of herself come out with age. He hadn’t forgotten her effects on him, but he found her pull a bit more difficult to avoid now.
Ben sighed at the memory of her skirt bunched between her legs and he nearly scolded himself out loud for even allowing thoughts about Dylan’s legs to enter his mind.
“Knock, knock.” Ruth opened the door without any grant from Ben, which in his mind was not just annoying, but typical. “Are you going to be here for dinner?” Already she was making his visit complicated.
“I don’t believe so. Why?”
“I thought about cooking.” Ruth’s face only half frowned. “No big deal.” Her expression proved otherwise.
“Tomorrow?”
“I thawed the chicken already. Maybe it will keep until then.”
“I’m sure it will be fine, Mom.” Ben sat up and stared at her disappointed face. “Ask me.”
“What?”
Ben rolled his eyes. “Ask me what you want to ask me. Get it over with.”
“Fine. How is he?” Ruth’s eyes watered and her voice choked.
“He’s the same as always. He’s busy, selfish, and bitter.” Ben’s three words to sum up his father, Warren McKenna, were harsh, but true.
Sometimes it was hard for him to draw a line between his parents. He wasn’t sure which order his hatred went. Did he hate his selfish father for leaving his mother? Or did he hate his pathetic mother for allowing his father to leave? Either way, he hated them both.
“Ben, you shouldn’t say those things.”
“Then you shouldn’t ask.” Ben stood to his feet. “You’ve wasted about two decades of your life waiting for that man, Mom.”
“I haven’t waited.” Ruth’s voice went quiet, sending Ben his signal that the familiar tears were coming.
“I’ll see you later.” Ben walked by her, gently placing his hand on her arm as he passed. “We’ll have dinner tomorrow night.”
He hated when she cried. Not because it made him sad, but because it truly irritated him more than he could tolerate. Ben remembered clearly all the times she had cried in front of him. It seemed his mother cried over everything they discussed. No one should ever see a parent cry, a theory he wished his mother lived by.
Dylan sat on the edge of her back patio. Her legs were spread as she peeled each potato and let the skin fall into the garbage between her feet. She fought hard against the potato, taking all of her frustrations out on the defenseless spud.
The sun beamed down on her skin and a small wind soothed her nerves as she crucified the potato in her hand. She took in a large breath and released it slowly, depleting each hard slash and lessoning her tight grasp on the peeler. Breathing was essential in this moment.
Why did he have to look so good? Was there simply nothing ugly about him? And why had he looked at her like that? It was amazing that he had even looked at her at all. Normally he would practically walk through her, unless they were alone, where the dynamics changed into something bizarre but brilliant all at the same time.
She gripped the metal peeler with such force her skin was in agony.
She would always be pathetic over him with or without his presence. Even in his absence she would stupidly compare everything to him. Like when her mother wanted to replace the diving board on the pool, Dylan used what she secretly thought of as her Ben timeline and remembered that it hadn’t been replaced since he had mastered a back-flip, so that meant it was over twelve years old. She was such a loser.
It was easy to see his younger self through the masculine face he wore now. It seemed as though while everyone else went through the unpleasant ugly phase of pubescence, Ben glided through it with grace and perfection. Dylan felt no surprise that he was even more handsome than before. He simply aged beautifully. His light brown hair was careless, but stylishly done. His eyes were child-like blue in a very deceiving way. There was no innocence about him. There never had been.
It wasn’t a simple thing, pushing Ben out of her mind while he was away. Of course, she hadn’t forgotten him. She never would. She had hoped that he would never come back. Sadly, this just wasn’t a logical wish.
“Need help?” Ben asked. He stood in front of her with a cheesy grin and a hand covering his brow, attempting to shield his unadjusted eyes from the Arizona sun.
“No,” Dylan answered quickly. She refused to look at him too long out of fear she’d say something stupid.
“Are you mad at me?”
“Why would I be mad at you? I haven’t seen you in years.”
Ben leapt up and sat next to her. “Well, that’s just it. You don’t seem very happy to see me.”
Dylan stopped peeling and stared at his face. He was so full of himself that sometimes she wanted to slap her own cheek for even holding him in the high regards that she did.
She gasped dramatically. “Oh my Lord! Is it really you, Ben McKenna?” She covered her mouth. “My life makes so much more sense now that you’re home. Take me Ben. Take me now.” She let out another fake, girlish yelp and went back to her peeling.
Stunned and put in his place, Ben slowly reached down to grab a potato and wash it. “That’s better. Thank you.”
“Anytime.”
“You’re still painting, I noticed.”
“You say that like it’s a bad habit, like I’m smoking or something,” Dylan barked.
“I’m just trying to make conversation. Wait. Are you smoking?”
“No—God!” She tried not to laugh by biting her lip. “Yes, I’m still painting. I’m an instructor in Scottsdale.”
“What?” Ben snapped his head back in disbelief with a proud smile. “That’s great, Dylan.”
Dylan shook her head. This was how they were, and she knew now that it would never change, not even with age. Ben was only the Ben she knew when he was sure no one else would see. When someone else was looking, Dylan changed from the friend he congratulated to his best friend’s twin sister, Weed, whom he teased or ignored.
Jonah stepped through the French doors that led into the kitchen. “You’re back, with normal clothes on.”
Dylan snuck a look over at Ben, realizing he actually did have normal clothes on now. She had tried so hard to not look at him that she didn’t even notice his new, more Ben-like outfit.
Ben hopped back down to the stone path that led around the pool. “So what’s the plan for tonight?”
“I think tonight’s a good bar night,” Jonah replied, patting Dylan on the head. “Dylan is a part time bartender at Michael Olerson’s place, Oilies.”
“Why don’t we go there then?” Ben asked. “Are you working tonight?”
Dylan stood up and lifted the even heavier, extremely full pot from the ground. “I have to work at eight.”
Ben reached out and pulled the pot of potatoes from her hands. “Then we’ll see you at nine, Weed,” he warned with a smirk.
Chapter Two
Oilies Bar looked like a hole in the wall and smelled like old, stale beer. Dylan had grown accustomed to the male patrons that screamed and hollered loudly at a losing team on the TV screens above her head. She found the blaring volume of the games a bit soothing because it only reminded her of being in her grandfather’s kitchen, listening to a baseball game at a high level due to the fact that her grandfather was deaf to the world around him.
She loved this particular job. She loved the ripped jeans she got to wear and the free shots she got to do. Not to mention the added bonus
: the more attitude she gave, the higher her tips seemed to be. There was an uncanny mix of alcohol, testosterone and girlish, witty comebacks that turned on the men at sports bars. Something Dylan never understood, but thoroughly enjoyed when it came to her tips.
The bar was conveniently located right in the middle of Tempe, filling the place from wall to wall with college students just about every night. In the summer, it was slow and almost not worth Dylan’s time. Still, she went because she enjoyed the atmosphere and good conversation.
“There’s our favorite bartender,” Ben exclaimed, smacking his open hands down on the wooden bar.
Dylan poured three shots and slid two over to her brother and Ben. She lifted her glass and smiled mischievously. “Cheers.”
“What are we drinking to?” Ben asked, pressing the glass to his lower lip, but holding off until Dylan answered.
Jonah blurted, “To getting laid.”
“Whatever,” Dylan answered with an eye roll, and then downed her tequila.
Jonah walked away to greet a crowd he recognized, leaving Ben and Dylan alone and awkward, although neither one would dare admit their discomfort.
“How’s school?” Dylan asked, deciding to be nice.
Ben nodded before taking a sip of his beer. “It’s good.”
“Good.”
“How long have you been working here?” Ben asked.
His eyes moved around the room, a maneuver Dylan decided was for her sake. For some time, he had been staring at her tight, black T-shirt that had “Oilies” written across her chest.
“A year.”
“What made you decide to be a bartender?”
Dylan smiled, amused at their attempt to make small talk with one another. “I came here for my twenty-first birthday and drunkenly asked Michael for a job.”
“That’s funny.”
Dylan didn’t respond. She only stared at him with a puzzled look, a silent request for him to elaborate on his humor.
“You acquired a job as a bartender while you were drunk?” He stared at her with his familiar cocky smile. She pretended as though it irritated her and, in a way, it did. She despised how much that smile, a look meant to frustrate her, only seemed to make her more attracted to him.
Under the Orange Moon Page 2
