Chapter 3
At dinner, Tommy didn't ask any questions, but that didn't mean there wasn't conversation. Everyone wanted to know about how school was going. I wanted to hear about Sierra's cheerleading competition. Sam wanted to know just about everything, so he just sat back and listened. Halfway through the main course, Valerie almost face plants in her spaghetti, and Melissa excuses herself to get her daughter into her room that my mom and dad have set up for her.
In the Moore Mansion, all family has a place.
When Melissa sits back down, she starts to talk to Sam. "So, Sam, where are you from?" she asks. Obviously, she wasn't paying much attention to the dilemma that happened before dinner. I don't blame her, though. She was cooking and probably too preoccupied to care about me snapping at my brother. It happens a lot.
"I was born in Kansas," Sam tells her. "Lawrence."
"So you're a farm boy, huh?" Melissa asks with her brilliant smile. I love Melissa. She is one of the kindest people I have ever met, and she has a way of making everyone feel welcome without even realizing it. She's being so nice to Sam that he doesn't seem to be at all awkward about answering these questions about himself, something that he normal avoids at all costs.
"I guess you could say that," Sam laughs with a slight nod. "We moved when I wasn't even a year old, though, so I don't remember it at all."
"Who knows?" Momma cuts in. "Maybe you have some untapped farming skills that you don't know about. Lord knows we could use someone around here who knows how to care for our landscape."
"So what are you majoring in at Stanford?" Daddy asks as he stuffs a bite of food into his mouth.
"I'm actually studying law," Sam says. "I'm hoping to get into Stanford's law school in a few years."
"He's pretty much already in," I offer to everyone. Sam, modest as ever, just looks down at his plate with red cheeks. "It's just a matter on whether or not they have enough scholarship money for him. Which," I add, nudging his arm with my elbow, "they're probably going to just hand to him the second he applies."
"So you've got a good grip on law, huh, son?" Daddy asks.
Before Sam can be humble about it, I answer for him. "Good? He's the best in our class, hands down. He's already been asked to help the professor with a court case before."
Tommy looks impressed. He swallows a bite of food and asks, "Really? As a junior?"
"It was a small one," Sam says.
"It was a murder trial!" I exclaim, exasperated.
"A murder trial?" Sierra asks, her inner crime lab technician getting the best of her. She and I share the guilty pleasure of watching any of the CSI's or the Law and Order's that ever come on television.
"Just because a gun was involved doesn't mean it was a murder trial. Someone fired a shot at a range down in San Jose, and the gun backfired," he corrects me. "Professor Higgins knew that I know a bit about firearms and asked a few questions. I didn't solve any murder mysteries or anything like that."
"You know about guns?" Momma asks interestedly.
At the same time, Tommy is aghast. "You know about guns?"
Sam balks, feeling like he's said something wrong. "Well, yeah, my dad hunted a lot when I was a kid," he says. "I don't carry any or anything, never have. But after I got jumped a few times," at this, I glare at my older brother, "Dad taught me how to use one."
"Could you teach Jess?" Momma asks.
Tommy is appalled. "Mom!"
"Every girl should know how to protect herself," Momma says with a shrug. At this, she winks at me, and I smile. Momma always has my back. "I don't see why not."
"Mom, Jess doesn't need to use a gun," Tommy says. "If wherever she's living is that dangerous, we should take her out of school and send her to school here. But we don't need to train her to use firearms."
"Honey, I think you're insulting our guest," Melissa says, placing a hand on her husband's arm to calm him down. Tommy looks over in Sam's direction. My boyfriend shakes his head and tries to speak, but my big brother can't shut his damned mouth.
"Oh, come on, Mom, it's insane! You know it's insane. No mothers actually want their children using guns!" Tommy exclaims. "I'm sure Sam's mom didn't want him using a gun when he was younger either. Am I right?"
I feel sick to my stomach, and I have never been angrier at my brother in my life. I want to stand up and smack him clear across the face. Again. Sam remains quiet as the rest of the table falls silent, politely waiting for an answer. After a few moments of silence, everyone seems to realize the weight of the question.
"Jessie, what about your major? Still going on with pre-med?" Sierra asks, sensing the tension.
I nod. "I think so. But I don't think I want to go into cardiology anymore," I say.
"What do you want to go into?" Dad asks curiously. It had always been my dream to follow after him, become a great heart surgeon, but he doesn't care what I do, as long as I'm happy. That's what I love about my daddy. There's no pressure whatsoever to be what I don't want to be.
"I was think of being a pediatrics nurse," I say. When everyone starts jabbering about how wonderful that sounds, I mouth a silent thank you to my sister, who gives me a wink identical to my mother's previous one.
"So, wait, I'm confused," Melissa says, putting down her utensils. She turns to Sam. "So if she's majoring in pre-med, and you're in pre-law, how'd you two meet up?"
This is a story I'm happy to let Sam tell. It's not intrusive, and it's a story that I think Sam likes to tell to people, or at least he always has a smile on his face when he tells it. The one that creeps onto his lips when he starts it now warms my heart, and I can see my mom and Sierra's hearts melting right across the table.
Somehow I know that I'm going to have a squealing teenager in my room after dinner is over.
"Well, it was my first day on campus. Actually, I think it was my first forty-five seconds," Sam says. "And I saw Jess sitting in the commons with her roommate, and even though, I'll admit, I was nervous as hell, I went up and asked her where the pay phone was."
He's interrupted by Sierra's scoff of disappointment. "The pay phone?" she asks. "How romantic is that?"
"Sierra, shush," Momma admonishes her. "Go on, Sam."
"I thought she was going to laugh at me or something," Sam says with a shake of his head. "I looked like hell, to be honest. I hadn't slept in three days, and I was living off fast food and coffee for a week before I got to school. I looked like I had been run over by a truck."
I remember exactly what he looked like. His brown hair was an absolute mess. Not one piece stuck out in the same direction as the other. The bags under his eyes could've been used as automobile air bags, and his clothes looked like they hadn't been washed in a good week. But when he smiled, everything else just kind of seemed to not matter anymore. He looked so weak and tired, but he still managed to give me a grin, trying to assure me even before he knew me that he was okay. So I pointed him in the right direction and prayed that he'd find a bed soon.
"She found me sleeping in the courtyard a few hours later, I think," Sam tells my family. "I don't remember going there, but after I got off the phone, I apparently walked right in there and went to sleep."
"I helped him get registered and find his dorm," I finish for him. He hardly remembers this part. He was only half awake, and he could barely string a sentence together. "And then I didn't see him for a week or so. We met up in psychology, I think."
Sam shook his head. "Art history with Professor Mayer," he corrects me. "And Jess promised to help keep me awake."
"In the end, it was really me who needed him to wake me up," I say with a laugh. "That class was awful."
"I didn't think it was too bad," Sam says with a shrug of his shoulders, stabbing at the food on his plate.
"Of course you didn't. You like every class you take," I say with a roll of my eyes. "You always get a good grade."
"I don't know what you're complaining about," Sam says with a sip of his drink. "You ended up getting an A in the class anyway."
"That was because you gave me your notes before the exam."
"Okay, okay," Sierra says, stopping our conversation. "So enough about school. Who asked who out?"
Sam and I glance at each other. I take the initiative this time. "We actually don't really know," I tell my family honestly. I can feel the derisive snort bubbling up from my brother's mouth, and I silence him with a hard glare before it starts. "We just kept meeting up with each other, and then I guess eventually it was Sam who asked me if I wanted to go see a movie with him."
"What movie?" Sierra asks. She's storing all this information in her head. She loves these sorts of things. Love stories and crime scenes, that's my little sister for you.
"Um, some grade B horror flick," Sam admits. "It was Jess's choice. Not mine."
Sierra's jaw drops, and Tommy laughs out loud. "You chose a horror movie?"
Horror movies scare the crap out of me. I cried when I watched Casper the Friendly Ghost as a kid. And I can't stomach gore at all. I get squeamish and just yell until the people stop attacking each other. Sierra wants to kill me when we watch CSI together, but I just can't help it. Seeing all that blood and all the violence just gets me.
"I didn't want Sam to go running for the hills," I admit. "I thought that if I chose a horror movie, he wouldn't think I was just some typical lovesick college girl, that he would actually remember me."
"I think I remember you more because you ended up throwing up on my shoes during a fight scene," Sam fills in with a laugh.
My cheeks grow hot, and I smack him on the arm. "I thought we weren't going to talk about that ever again!" I exclaim. I'm not mad at him. I could never be mad at him, but I can tell by the gleam in Tommy's eyes that says he'll never let that one go.
"I didn't think family counted," Sam says with a laugh. I know that he shared everything with his brother, so it's no surprise to me that he didn't think twice about it here.
"Family's the only time it counts!" I say. "They're the ones who have license to mock you for the rest of your life."
Everyone around me is laughing, but I think it's more about the bickering between Sam and me than the story that came before it. I look Sam right in the eyes, and we both burst out laughing. It had been the most mortifying moment of my entire life, but Sam was so nice about it that it lessened the humiliation. I think he felt bad about the whole thing, but it was my fault that I got us there in the first place. But he did bring me home and give me a kiss on the forehead. The next day he had called me to check up and set up another date. At an ice cream place this time, given that I wouldn't throw up on him.
"That movie didn't even scare you!" I exclaim weakly. "How did it not scare you?"
Sam shrugs his shoulders. "Horror movies don't scare me. Most are completely inaccurate anyway."
"Well, yeah, it was about a ghost that killed people. Of course it was inaccurate. But wasn't it scary?" I ask. Sam just shakes his head.
"Not really."
"Not much scares you, does it, Sammy?" my brother asks a bit snidely. I send him a swift kick under the table, which causes Tommy to jump up and yelp, smashing his knee on the underside of the dinner table. Honestly, it's not what Tommy said. What he said could be completely innocent, a playful way to move the stream of conversation along. It's his tone that makes me want to tear my hair out.
And now I sound like my mother.
Sam, not sure how to answer the question, just stares. I don't blame him. My brother is an idiot. "Uh, I don't—"
"Please, don't answer that, Sam," I say. "Tommy is a moron."
"Just trying to make conversation, Jessie," Tommy says nonchalantly, turning to his meal.
"Well, try not to," I snap at him.
"Okay, who wants dessert?" Mom interrupts before the fight gets big and stands on her feet. Good old Mom, the peacekeeper. "Sam, you're finished. Will you help me grab the cake and the plates?"
Sam stands up and grabs his own dirty dish. "Of course," he says and starts to clear away the rest of the empty dishes and food-splattered silverware. After he and Mom leave the room, I hear her strike up a cheery conversation with Sam about Stanford, and I wheel on my brother.
"Will you be nice?" I whisper harshly.
"I am being nice!" Tommy exclaims in a hushed voice.
I snort. "You've wanted his head since the minute you saw him in the terminal. Will you get off his back? He's doing fine!"
"She's right, Tom," Dad says, nodding sagely at my brother. "Leave the poor boy alone. He hasn't done anything wrong."
"He hasn't done anything wrong yet," Tommy points out with a sly smile.
"Who says he's going to do something wrong?" I bark. If anyone in the world knows how to rile me up like this, it's my brother.
"Tommy will make him do something wrong, if he gets his way," Sierra says with an eye roll. "Forget about him, J. I like him."
"Thank you!" I exclaim exasperatedly, staring pointedly at my brother.
"For what it's worth, I like him too," Melissa says quietly. "I think he's sweet, Jessica. You really have a nice boyfriend."
"I'm sorry I can't say the same for you," I say back apologetically.
A dirty napkin is hurled across the table and smacks me in the face. I turn to Tommy with a crooked eyebrow. "You don't want to start that right now," I tell him.
"Start what?" he asks, annoyed.
"Actually, that was me," Dad says. We all turn and look at him and burst out laughing. Dad always knew how to break up fights with a joke. "Stop making fun of your brother, Jessica. And Tom, you need to apologize to Sam by the end of tonight."
"Apologize?" Tommy asks. "Apologize? Come on, Dad, what have I even done to him?" I find it humorous how Dad can have us all feeling like children, even know when we have our own lives and our own families.
"You've been a dick, that's what," Sierra says. She's always had my back, especially when it came to my boyfriends.
"Sierra, don't use that language at the table please," Dad says patiently to my eighteen-year-old little sister. "Or ever, for that matter. It's a bad habit."
"I learned from you, Daddy," Sierra says with a bright, childish smile.
"Dad doesn't swear," Tommy says with a roll of his eyes.
"He does when thinks he's alone, and he jams his finger into the snowmobile hood," Sierra points out. We all laugh again. She's my father's daughter, through and through.
"All right, enough," Dad says with a laugh. "Just don't say those things at the dinner table."
At that moment, we hear a peal of laughter from the kitchen, and my mother appears with Sam at her side. They're both sporting smiles and silverware. Sam has the cake held firmly in his hands.
"Cake anyone?"
Author's Note: Thanks for the reviews! I really appreciate them! Keep it coming, guys! Your motivation is what gives me more ideas.