Uneven Lengths

Savannah

“How was your dinner with Damon?”

My Uncle Jonah is in my room to tell me goodnight. His bedtime check-in.

“There were some hiccups. I’m not going to lie, but it was nice.”

~Hiccups? Like getting caught at the start of having sex by Percy with a water hose?~

~Then fighting with Damon?~

~Then kind of starting a relationship with the biker prince? The one who you warned me to stay away from?~

~Those kind of hiccups.~

“Nice?” His cop-face strong and clear.

~Nice, like Damon’s dick.~

“Uncle, I know you know the Henleys as criminals you arrest, but…Damon isn’t just a pain in the ass. I know it’s hard to believe, I wouldn’t believe it if I wasn’t on the receiving end.

“He has some issues. Guy’s a massive douchecanoe. But he is also someone who makes me…”

My uncle sits on my bed.

The look of exhaustion more like a part of him now.

“He makes you laugh. And smile again.”

I nod in agreement.

“I saw it when I came to pick you up at the bar. You were having fun. I saw it on you, you’ve been lighting up again. Just like your mom. Ellis always lit up whatever room she walked in.”

The ache in my heart sticks in my throat.

I nod out a ~yes~. The threat of a sudden tear threatens to burn past my eyeline, but I flutter my lashes and banish it back to the dark part of my broken mind.

“I miss ’em. Just like you, Van. But unlike you, I get to see parts of them now and again. You have so much of your dad in you. Good and bad.” His blue eyes are trained to the floor.

His elbows on his knees, his head hanging low in between them.

His voice dropping to the identical baritone of my father’s.

“Jeremiah has to be laughing his ass off seeing you with Lucien Henley’s son.”

Those tears I banished finding their way back out, brimming my eyes and abandoning ship.

“Your mother in your smile. I’m sure she is loving watching you defy the rules. She wasn’t much of a rule breaker but that didn’t stop her from encouraging others for her own amusement.”

His head shook like a sad sway of what used to be laughter.

I know why, the memory is bittersweet.

It hurts to think about.

It hurts to remember, but it’s pure agony to think about forgetting.

I clear my face. Listening to him, I don’t think he has anyone to do that with.

My Aunt Zoey left years ago, abandoning her family for the life she must like since she never came back.

He has no one to turn to.

Man still wears his wedding ring.

“I saw this kid today. Shoplifting, a bag of Tootsie Rolls.” He lets this half-ass chuckle out while he runs a hand down his face.

“Kid looked at me, I said ‘Why did you steal it?’ He looked me square in the eye and said ‘Because my sister ate all mine.’ If that isn’t something Morgan would have said, I don’t know what is.”

I nod along. He’s right. Morgan would.

He would blame me and then cheer me on when I was fighting to get out of it.

“You like this ~douchecanoe~, don’t you?”

Sniffling, I clear my voice, my uncle looking up from his staring party with the floor.

“Yeah, I do. We like each other, actually,” I confess, looking my uncle in the eye, the smear of wetness smudged under my eyes.

“You two have a plan ready to handle Lucien Henley?”

My phone pings, but I quickly look back at my uncle and shake my head.

“No not yet. I don’t know why he hates us. Wanna help with that?” I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear and show him an outstretched ear.

“Not tonight, Van. That’s…a long story I can’t get through tonight.”

He shakes his head.

“I love you, Uncle Jonah. I know I’m a handful, you’re doing great. Kickass cop, dad, and uncle. You’re killin’ it.”

I hold my hand out to do knuckles, he accepts with a lopsided smile and blows it up at the same time I do.

“I’ll kick that douchecanoe’s ass if he hurts you. I’ll have to wait till you’re done, but I’ll do it. I promise.”

I laugh at him, letting him turn my light off and bidding him a good night.

Under the blanket of darkness and with the click of my door shutting, I grab my phone and check the message.

Angel

You could be my someone you could be my scene

You know that I’ll protect you from all of the obscene

I wonder what you’re doing imagine where you are

There’s oceans in between us but that’s not very far

Can you take it all away

This pain you gave to me

Can you take it all away

I actually said ~aw~ out loud like some kind of dweeby, crushing-on-Damon kind of girl.

Savannah

Fell into you like the sea

You broke my fall

And you pulled me deep

I think that you should know

This uncertainty

Has got me restless.

Counting myself to sleep.

I’m counting.

One of the reasons.

To adore you.

Three words on my lips.

For you only.

Please don’t wake me up.

I’m dreaming in technicolor.

Feel your heart beating.

The rhythm is like no other.

And when the skies are gray.

We’ll paint the night together.

Please don’t wake me up.

We’re dreaming in technicolor.

~See? I can be sweet.~

***

“I don’t get it. How does chicken nuggets, mashed potatoes, and cinnamon apples go together?” I shake my head at the choices our school offers. That doesn’t go!

Percy groans in agreement but loads his tray down with three white bowls of nuggets.

I follow his lead and take my own two bowls and grapple with the dipping sauce bin to find my favorite combination of ranch and honey mustard.

Percy scoots his tray down the stainless-steel rack under it. I grunt a disapproving noise at the lack of choices.

The feeling of large hands with nimble fingers braiding around my hips makes me shriek from the sudden touch.

He caught me by surprise.

Damon’s laugh eases me back down. A punch to his shoulder and smile later he grabs my tray to come with Percy and I outside, Moonpie and Sunshine already waiting under the trees.

“Oh look at the love birds,” Sunshine jokes, earning himself a proud middle finger from Damon’s hand.

“More like love rabbits,” Percy mumbles but loud enough for us to hear it. This time it’s me who issues the middle finger.

“No thanks, I’ve seen it in action.”

I throw my juice box at him, our growing group laughing along. Percy yelps at my rebuttal.

Damon and I sit together, his legs spread out at each of my sides with his chest pressed to my back.

We eat together. Something strangely intimate has started up between us this past week and a half.

After our disaster of a dinner, things between us seemed to have changed.

Our talk of maybe having something more than friendship going surprisingly not off-the-rails horrible.

When he left, we even kissed at the door goodnight, Dallas hitting his siren to make us jump apart, but I didn’t let that stop me from stealing one more kiss when he climbed on his bike.

At first, we didn’t know how to act. School was like this cringey zone of ~what are we supposed to do~ super awkward moments that led to others, but after about the third day, we figured something out.

We are not friends.

We were never friends, and now we are still not friends.

We are in the weirdest situation between not friends and not dating.

We’re like the first explorers to land in uncharted territory.

Something has kept us apart physically this past week. We haven’t had a chance to finish what we started in the backyard.

If it’s not some kind of crap with my doctor’s appointments, then it’s something with Damon’s life.

“Are you two going to the party tomorrow?”

Moonpie steals my attention away from thinking too far into this situation between Damon and me.

“Percy?” I look to him.

Seeing how now Uncle Jonah knows Damon and I like each other, he has effectively cockblocked us at any given opportunity.

One of the new ground rules he has issued is if I leave the house, Percy has to come along.

He branded me with a third wheel.

“You’re talking about Brady’s houseboat party at the lakes?”

“Yeah, the party of the year.” Moonpie adds air quotes around it and shrugs.

“I don’t know. It’s like an hour’s drive. Van?”

Our entire group looks to me.

I know why.

“If you want to go, just drug me. Bring the knockout juice, and we can stay for a while. Before you say anything, I PROMISE not to drink. I can’t go through another hangover with uncle again.”

I can still hear Johnny Cash blaring through the floorboards of the house.

Sunshine starts in with jokes of seeing me drunk last time.

“Why did you talk like you were the queen of England?”

Percy spits some of his Dr. Pepper out at hearing the question.

“First of all, fuck you. Secondly, I didn’t sound like the Queen of England.”

This goes back and forth between us.

How Moonpie slapped my hand and how I called Percy a wench when I straddled Damon’s lap.

“I stand by that. I was just fine where I was.”

Damon’s chuckle doesn’t leave his throat, but I feel him closer to me.

Like he’s finding more comfort around me now.

“When Van drinks, she turns into a British woman from, like, the 1800s. She’s always done it. The first time with the Midori Sours and the flip off the gym roof.”

I groan at the memory.

My ankle still hurts whenever I think about how I landed in a roll.

“Your first drink was Midori Sours?”

Damon’s lips press against the back of my neck.

“No. It’s the first thing I got drunk off of. Then we played truth or dare and I fractured my ankle. But I still got the backflip in. My first drink was 99 Bananas, which is why Percy and I still can’t go to Buffalo Wild Wings in Cardale.”

The bell rings at the same time a string of questions start to erupt from the three guys.

A kiss goodbye shared between Damon and me, we move on with our day.

***

With dinner over, Percy and I set up our plans for the party since Uncle Jonah will be doing his overnight shift.

~Party tomorrow.~

~With my Angel.~

~With Percy sidetracked.~