"Whoa! Wait! What's going on?" Annie asked her oldest daughter, as the brunette ran around the center island.
"Uh, no time, mom...sor--" Quickly, Mary was cut off by Robbie's voice as he, too, could be heard running down the steps.
"Annie! Have you seen Mary? Anybody seen Mary?" he yelled, zooming down the stairs faster than his quary had a few minutes before. Annie looked back as Mary's brunette head ducked below the level of the island countertop and Matt entered from the opposite doorway.
"C'mon, Mrs. Camden, tell me where Mary is! Please?" He opened his mouth to yell for the hidden brown-haired girl when he caught Matt's curt chin gesture toward the floow behind the island.
Sneaking up on the other side, Robbie threw himself over the cleaned countertop, suprising Mary and eliciting a yell before he pushed himself back over to chase her route out the now open back door.
As the two left, in what the remaining two Camdens could swear was a real cloud of dust, Annie and Matt just shook their heads, at a loss for words over the pair's continuous antics.
Over the bush, through the hedge, to the picnic table and over the car...5 seconds to the street...Mary hardly broke a sweat as she easily cleared Ruthie's bike. On the other hand, Robbie was right behind her, gaining on her as if it took no effort at all, and she knew that it didn't.
They had been running around all morning, right after Robbie 'accidentally' flushed her hairbrush down the toilet. She soon returned the favor by throwing his favorite shirt into the garbage cans near the back door.
Things had gone downhill fast.
"Mary, you know I can beat you!" Robbie said, sounding as close as if he were saying it into her ear. Which he probably was. The next second, he lunged, tackling Mary and taking her with him to the grassy ground.
In Mary's mind, it seemed like one of the "out of body" occurances she only saw in the tabloids that Lucy used to read. She could swear that everything had gone hazy--everything but the boy....everything but the *man*, she corrected herself...that braced himself on top of her following their fall.
When did his eyes darken? she wondered, looking straight into their depths as Robbie grinned down at her from above. It had been a year, a year since she decided to stay home for good--or for the time being--and since then, Mary had the crazy feeling that they were more like brother and sister than anything else. Most of their time together was spent like this--running around, terrorizing the Camdens, acting like they were 10 again.
But, at the moment, they both knew that they weren't.
She had jumped out from under him like some kind of scared rabbit. Robbie cursed himself mentally hours later, yanking a shirt off the hanger and pulling it on viciously...before realizing it was backward. Augh, he thought, why can't I do anything right?
Things had been going so well. A year since Mary came home. It didn't take him long to forgive her, and, deep down, he was so glad that she stayed he couldn't even express his feelings out loud. It was hard to act tough around her--really, *really*, all he wanted was to be able to tell her exactly how he felt. But man, he never knew how Mary would take it. He didn't know if anyone had actually tried to romance the girl. And Robbie knew, from talking to Matt, that if there was one way to get a girl, good old fashioned romance it was.
They had been comfortable, he thought, slinking down the stairs to grab a drink from the kitchen before wandering outside. Maybe comfortable wasn't the best thing, but it was better than nothing, Robbie thought to himself. They were crazy sometimes, granted, as the entire family fell into the habit of yelling "Mary! Robbie! Cut it out" on a regular basis. The thought of it made him grin.
Of course, after the incident that morning, Mary was avoiding him like the plague, as much as he hated to make use of the already overused cliche. He just had to find a way...well, he just had to.
I'm done with this, Robbie thought, I've waited. Now if I can only find a way to tell her how I feel.
It was already dark when he walked downstairs that evening. The nights were still very chilly in Glen Oak, and chiller than most, as the area had had a cold front within the last 24 hours that had most of the city reaching for their jackets out of the backs of their closets.
Coming down the stairs in his favorite shirt (freshly cleaned and rid of all smells after the garbage can incident), the flannel pajama pants that had been a gift from the Camdens the Christmas past and socks, Robbie made hardly any noise. It didn't take much to walk silently into the family room, where only Mary sat, so engrossed in a movie she didn't seem him at all.
Robbie couldn't do anything but stare at her for a moment. The soft light of whatever movie she was viewing played across her features, and he could see her eyes glisten. It was obviously either a "chick flick," or she was having problems with her contacts. The first one was rare, but definitely not impossible. He'd bet on that.
Mary only looked up when he settled softly onto the sofa beside her. For a second, Robbie could tell that she wanted to move away from him.
Please, please...he pleaded in his mind. Please don't move away.
Like a miracle, she relaxed.
"What movie are you watching?" he questioned, turning his face to hers.
"Ah, uh, some movie with Robert Redford, and....ah, Barbara Streisand."
"The Way We Were?"
"It's a chick flick," Mary said to him. "How do you know what it is?"
He did like to suprise her sometimes, Robbie would admit that. "Hey, who knows..." he left it with a grin.
Nobody home but herself and Robbie. She thought he'd gone to sleep. She'd hoped he'd gone to sleep--she did everything but go to check on him.
Mary knew she was stupid. Only stupid people make bets with themselves, she said silently--and only stupider ones worry about keeping them. But it was a bet she had made.
If she talked to him again, she'd tell him the truth. Mary knew she at least owed Robbie the truth.
"Robbie, I..." she began to say when he casually slipped his left arm around her, pulling her closer to him on the plush couch.
"You're cold...I can tell. You're shivering. Shh," Robbie told her softly.
"But I..." she started and was stopped once again. What was he doing? Didn't he see she was trying to say something? "Can't you see I'm trying to..."
He was more infuriating, more irritating and more amazing to her every minute, she could swear. And more right for her than anything had ever been, besides home. And he was almost like home itself.
"Mary--" he said, catching her chin in his hands. "I see what you're trying to say. I want to say the same thing. But first..." and when Robbie touched his lips to hers, he could tell that Matt was right. Romance was what she needed.
Mary had her own thoughts--just one last one before she sighed and stopped thinking.
Yes. He was almost like home.