"Course! But I'm cold too!"
"There's a fire!"
Beau seemed to consider this. I shivered and dragged my log closer to the fire. A light snow had started to fall, big, fat flakes that didn't so much fall as dance in the air, light enough to fight gravity and float upward in the wind like we were in the center of a massive snow globe. Beau disappeared back inside. Finn shrugged. "Guess he wasn't that thirsty."
Then the front door slammed open and Beau started down the steep side yard lawn. He was carrying something in his hand that as he got closer resolved itself into a pile of brightly colored hats. "If you're gonna sit out here in the snow, cover your idiot heads," he grumbled, handing one to me and then chucking the other one full force at Finn who caught it right in the face.
I unfolded it in my lap and stared. "Is this one of the ones..."
"Aunt Margaret knitted?" he finished, sitting down and pulling a wholly sensible black cap out of his pocket. "You bet your ass it is. If you're going to be ridiculous sitting out here in the snow, you're going to wear a ridiculous hat."
Finn, meanwhile, had pulled his red and green chevron creation onto his head without complaint. The white pompom bobbed solemnly on the top of his head.
I burst out laughing.
Beau's grin widened. Finn struck a pose and I laughed harder. Beau's deep bass chuckle started up, the slow "huh huh huh" of his laugh that always made us laugh harder. It was contagious, the kind of shit we used to get in trouble for at the dinner table, laughing so hard you go soundless and shaking and your face starts to hurt.
Just before everything had gone foul, we'd had a moment like this. Down in London's Portobello Road Market, bored out of our mind's as Gabe's ex was shopping, some wide eyed tourist had recognized us and asked if we were the King Brothers.
"Nah mate, sorry," Finn had replied in the most ridiculous British accent I'd ever heard.
"Right," Gabe jumped in, his accent even more transparently fake than Finn's. "We do get that a lot don't we?"
"You really think we look like them?" I'd asked, not even bothering with the fake accent because I'm terrible at them.
The tourist had blinked and put her phone away, saving us from the selfie. "Oh my god you're right," she'd said, looking horrified. "You guys look nothing like them, I'm so sorry."
"I hear they're assholes anyway," Beau prompted which had her nodding and apologizing before she moved on.
And we'd laughed.
Just liked we were laughing now. "Where the fuck did you find these?" I managed to wheeze to Beau.
He nodded solemnly. "They're new, actually. She sent them. Early Christmas present."
"They're supposed to go under the tree, jackass."
"I thought it was something I got from Amazon. Didn't even read the address label until I'd opened it. Then I figured -" His grin was mischievous. "I mean, you looked cold."
"The fuck is this?" Gabe was rounding the corner. My chest tightened when I saw his sling, and the way he was moving so carelessly with it too.
"Oh good you're here. Have a hat." Beau chucked a green and white one at Gabe who let it land at his feet while he stared at it in mock horror. "Courtesy of Aunt Margaret."
"Put it on. You've got snowflakes in your hair," I instructed.
Gabe grinned and slapped it on his head one handed. The floppy tassel hanging to one side made him look like a scruffy, worse for wear elf. Beau's "huh huh huh," started up again which made me laugh again and suddenly all four of us were doubled over and everything was right again.
Chapter Thirty
Ruby
I'd finished my lesson plans right after lunch and immediately regretted making Jonah leave.
"Was I an idiot?" I asked Ginger. My heart was doing funny things and I felt like a part of my body was missing. Like I'd severed a limb and left it somewhere before wandering away. "I'm an idiot."
Ginger was splayed out in a patch of sun on the living room floor and didn't really care about me one way or another. I reached out and nudged her with my foot. "Hey I'm talking to you. What should I do?"
In response, she rolled over, showing me her belly for a moment before flopping over to the other side and then getting startled by the tape recorder that still sat in the middle of the floor.
"It's just a tape recorder, silly," I'd admonished her. But I was feeling suddenly jumpy myself. Just the thought of my night with Jonah, the way he'd looked at me like I was something he'd never experienced before, had me tingly all over.
"He should have this," I told my kitten and then second I said it, I knew it was exactly the right thing to do. "I should go over there, bring it to him, don't you think?"
If my kitten thought I was being transparent in my desperate need to see Jonah again, she at least had the good grace to hide it by attacking her own tail.
Now I stood on the wide, slightly stooped front porch of the King house with the box and the tape recorder in my arms, wondering if I should knock. I never knocked when I came over to see Claire. I hadn't knocked since I was eight years old.
But this was different. This was... I shifted from one foot to the other, feeling for all the world like I was eight years old again when I was saved from my agony of indecision by the sound of voices floating up from behind the house.
I set the box and tape recorder down. Tugging my scarf a little higher up my neck, I stepped back down to the frozen yard. Finn's loud, mocking laugh rang out, sending a few perching crows scattering into the sky. That made me pause. Though he was Claire's favorite, I'd always been a little wary of Finnegan King. His smile was the furthest thing from reassuring. It could be happy to see you, but it also could be mocking you for thinking that.
Then I heard Jonah's voice. Smooth and loud, with that easy command he had. Hearing it now with the context of what had happened last night, made me feel warm enough to loosen my scarf again. I hefted the box again, mindful of not rattling the precious tapes around too much, and walked around the side of the house.
The Kings' house was up on a small rise, the second story windows above the tree-line giving them a nice view of the little jutting hills that in summer reminded me of tennis balls shoved under a tree carpet. But the yard sloped away from the house in what had been pretty intense sledding hill when we were kids. The grade leveled back out again just before it hit the banks of the creek. Going flying off 'the cliff' as the King kids called it was always an added worry and thrill, and one of the reasons everyone came over here on snow days.
The King brothers - all four of them that I could see- were down by that cliff now. They had pulled up stumps and logs and old forgotten lawn furniture to sit around the fire pit down there, and each one of them was wearing a ridiculous hat.
Jonah was the first to look up and spot me and the expressions that crossed his face made me walk a little quicker. He hopped to his feet, making. "Baby!"
I stopped and looked at his brothers. "Did you...?"
He startled a little. "Oh right, Finn, I was about to ask you." He turned and slung his arm around me, pulling me close as his brothers all watched with varying expressions of surprise on their face. Or was it horror? I ducked away. "What do you think Claire would say if I started seeing Ruby?"