A/N: Thank you for your patience, my lovelies!
Emmett wasted no time at all twisting my parents up. At first they were sputtering that this was a time for the family, but it was almost like he wouldn't let them say no - which was weird. Emmett wasn't normally so pushy, and he knew damn well that they were hurting. He had to know.
But he made an interesting argument.
By my parents own logic, we were celebrating as Lucy might have celebrated had she lived. Emmett pointed out that kids her age often had parties for their classes. He wasn't wrong. The bowling birthday I had - I did take the majority of my class.
"I know I don't fit the age range technically, but my mom tells me I'm the biggest little kid in the world. So I can stand for them - all her friends," Emmett said, his voice gentle enough that it wasn't insulting.
"You realize we're going to the cemetery first?" my dad said dubiously.
Emmett nodded. "I'm not trying to be a pain in the neck." His voice and his eyes were utterly sincere. "I almost lost my brother like this, so I understand. Believe me, I do. And I want to be here - for Jasper, but for all of you, if you'll let me."
And how could Momma and Dad argue about that?
That was how I ended up spending most of my dead sister's birthday with my best friend.
I had to admit, I was hella nervous about the whole thing, and more than a little pissed off. I knew Momma and Dad were uncomfortable, and they shouldn't have had to put up with that kind of shit today of all days. So I ignored him on the car ride over. I kept on imagining his big, loud voice in the quiet of the cemetery. There was going to be tension, and Emmett was prone to joking when things got tense.
This wasn't a joking matter.
But I should have given him a little credit.
When we stopped for flowers, he asked Momma if Lucy had a favorite animal. I wanted to punch him in the face - my parents and I played this silent game where we couldn't remember, it was too painful to remember, but we couldn't forget Lucy. And Momma, at first she looked so pained... but then she answered in such a small voice I couldn't hardly hear her.
"Dogs. She loved that blue dog from that kid's show," she whispered.
"Blue's Clues?" Emmett smiled - it was such a gentle smile. "Yeah, the girl had good taste. I loved that show. I watched it even when I was all grown up."
"We had a little dog for a while," Momma said. "She tried to dye him blue with food coloring. Poor little thing."
She was crying, but she had the tiniest little smile.
Well, cut my legs and call me shorty.
Emmett didn't press it. Instead, he gathered up the bouquet with the brightest colored flowers in the entire shop and a blue furred stuffed dog to go with it.
At the cemetery, he set down his stuff and gave us some space, taking the old flowers around Lucy's grave to the furthest possible trashcan to give us time to hold hands and cry.
Well, Momma and Dad cried together. I just kept my arms around them and tried to ignore the lump in my throat and the way my eyes stung.
Emmett came back and settled cross-legged, facing all of us.
He looked at me first. "What's your favorite memory of her?"
I just blinked at him, set on stupid, and again, I wanted to punch him because if I thought of the good times, I was definitely going to cry and beyond not wanting him to see that, I didn't want my parents to have to comfort me.
When I didn't answer, he looked to my father and asked the same question.
Dad was annoyed, I could tell, but he blew out a long, slow breath and answered.
"She used to put her ear on my stomach and giggle at the noises it made," he said softly. "And then she would have whole conversations with it - my stomach."
I didn't know until right that second that Emmett was capable of laughing any way other than boisterously. His laugh then was more of a respectful chuffle... an amazingly cemetery appropriate sound.
He got them talking, telling little stories.
Last year, Momma had been a sobbing mess by the time we left. Oh, she was still splotchy-faced and red eyed, but there was a lightness there, too. I was mystified.
At CiCi's Pizza, Emmett paid for all of us including a child's ticket. He asked us what Lucy's favorite drink was, her favorite pizza, even what she would have gotten for desert. He set a place for her at our table.
"I think sailors used to do this for fallen crew members," he explained. "I don't know, I heard it somewhere. You raise your glass and toast to the people you miss the most."
He raised his glass.
We toasted.
Then we got on to bowling which, really, I was dreading the most. Like we were gonna be in the mood to play any more than we'd been in the mood to sip tea and eat sandwiches and watch other little girls pretend they were princesses.
Emmett elbowed me in the side. "Bet you can't hit a strike."
I looked at him.
"An honest strike, too. None of this spare shit."
I blinked hard.
Seriously, he was going to go all fun and games on me? My parents didn't like cursing. What the hell -
"Come on, let's put a friendly wager on it. Whoever gets the most strikes. Loser... I don't know. Does the winner a favor, no matter what the favor is. Can't say no."
"Fuck off," I said under my breath, low enough so Mom and Dad didn't hear.
Emmett just grinned.
Asshole thought this was a game.
He didn't say anything else, just took his bright green ball and threw it. He leapt into the air when he saw it had completely annihilated all the pins. "Wooooo! Strike! Yes!"
He was jumping up and down. I stared at him, completely just...
Aghast.
"Beat that," he said to me. "I dare you."
The only thing that kept me from losing my shit right then and there was because when I looked back at Momma and Dad, they were glaring. I couldn't make it worse on them by shoving my stupid ass roommate around. So I picked up my ball and threw it with a limp wrist.
"Dude. That was pathetic!" Emmett crowed. "Go ahead, Mr. Whitlock. I've gotta teach your kid a thing or two about how to handle a ball."
He grabbed me by the wrist, taking me off to the side. "Dude," I hissed at him when I could be sure my parents couldn't hear. "What the fuck are you doing?"
He raised an eyebrow. "Teaching you to bowl, obviously. Now look. You gotta cup the ball like so -"
I yanked my hand away from him. The bowling ball dropped on my toe. "Son of a..." I bit my lip.
"Well, don't let it go next time," Emmett said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
I glared at him. "Why are you doing this?"
"Because that little girl throw was embarrassing."
"You know that's not what I'm talking about!"
People were staring, including my parents. Momma was looking over with worried, irritated eyes.
"Look," Emmett tried again. "It's all about follow through - it's always about follow through." He demonstrated his throw. "What you wanna do is -"
"Emmett. I know how to bowl, okay?"
His wide grin was back. His eyes had the fucking nerve to do that twinkle thing, and Jesus fucking Christ... his dimples were motherfucking adorable.
And I wanted to hit him.
"So prove it. Whoever gets the most strikes gets to order the loser around for a day. A day!"
"Emmett? It's your turn," Momma called.
I grabbed my ball from his hands, pissed as hell and wishing that Lucy was into boxing so I could bust the shit out of Emmett's face. I marched to the aisle like a soldier to battle and flung the ball out.
The resounding crack of the bowling ball hitting the pins was loud and unbelievably satisfying to my ear.
I loved that sound so much, I didn't even register Emmett's whooping behind me. I picked up my ball, and as soon as the pins reset, I took my turn.
Strike.
The sound of the ball scattering pins into the metal bin... It did something for me.
And I took the next seven turns, barely able to wait until the pins reset before I was flinging the ball down the aisle.
When I was done, I was breathing hard, staring down at the end of the aisle, not exactly sure what had just happened. I turned around slowly, finding my parents staring at me and Emmett grinning.
"I win, asshole," I said to him.
He threw back his head and laughed - his full bodied laugh.
"Double or nothing," he declared.
~Emmett~
Mr. and Mrs. Whitlock were not pleased with me. At. All.
Well, not for nothing because, again, losing a kid sucked, but fuck them anyway.
I gave them the majority of the day. I honored their daughter. I played their macabre, really rather fucked up game, and I watched Jasper get more and more sallow as the day went on.
He spent every minute of the day dreading the next minute, watching me to make sure I didn't upset them, watching them to make sure they weren't upset, taking in this fucking oppressive, gray atmosphere onto his own shoulders so they wouldn't have to hold it.
Yeah, again. Fuck. That.
They lost their daughter. It sucked. Their son was still alive and hurting in front of them, and he didn't understand he didn't need their permission to smile again.
Bowling wasn't nearly as aggressive as I wished it would be, but I worked with what I had. It took some prodding, but Jasper got into it eventually. After he had his little eight strike bowling master moment, we restarted the game for real. I mean, for really real. His parents sat there watching us, all pissed off at me for ruining their constant state of mourning, and Jasper and I had ourselves a real competition.
Kid was a fantastic bowler. But in the end, I won. He owed me about a day's worth of favors.
Fantastic.
He was quiet on the ride home, knowing he'd upset his parents, but there was something lighter about him. This morning, tension was practically rolling off his skin. It made me want to tear my hair out, it was so bad. Now he just looked a little sad and nervous. Sad was inevitable - of course he was gonna miss his sister. Nervous was... understandable. Didn't matter how old you got, knowing your parents were probably going to yell at you at some point was never fun.
I had the strangest urge to hold his hand. How weird was that? I saw his fingers tap, tap, tapping against the middle seat between us and I just wanted to give him a squeeze.
Strange. But whatever. I was protective of him. Sue me. Someone should have been.
Which brought me back to my original point - his parents could fuck right off if they were so pissed. Jasper deserved at least the option to be happy on a day like today. I mean, it was cliche, but did they really think that Lucy would have wanted them to mope, mope, mope all the time?
Whatever.
Shit hit the fan when we got home. I guess Mrs. Whitlock just couldn't hold it in anymore. She started doing that passive aggressive thing, saying shit that didn't sound mad until it got to a boiling point.
"If you didn't want to celebrate your sister with us, Jasper, you could have just said so," she snapped. "At least saved us the money for the ticket instead of bringing all your friends over when they aren't wanted."
"Ah, all respect, ma'am," I said as politely as I could. "I invited myself. It's really not his fault." I was sure she didn't realize how much it said about how I respected a woman in her position that I paused for a second, thinking over what I was about to say instead of it coming flying out of my mouth. "I was just trying to be there for Jasper. Maybe it was the wrong way to go about that..."
"This is a time for our family. It's bad enough that Jasper is taking off tonight," she said, obviously trying not to cry.
That kind of threw me a bit. "You're taking off tonight?" I asked Jasper.
He looked a little sick. "I don't... have to," he hedged, glancing at his parents.
"No. Go. It's obvious you need space, and that's fine. It's better if you're out there instead of rubbing it in your mother's face on today of all days," his father said hotly.
Taking a hint, Jasper grabbed the proffered car keys from his father and got out of there. I followed him, of course.
"So, what's going on tonight?"
"Oh, will you fuck off already?" Jasper yelled, waving his hand at me furiously. "Really, what the hell are you doing here, man?"
"What are you doing here?"
"What?"
"What are you doing here?" I repeated patiently.
"That is a really fucking stupid question," he muttered, pulling his hair back as he started to pace on the lawn.
"Are you going to tell me you came here to celebrate your sister's life?" I shook my head. "You came here for your parents. And that's just fine. I get it, obviously. But who came here for you?"
He looked up, blinking his big brown eyes at me. "What about me?"
"Your parents were mostly okay with me being here until I got a little rowdy at the bowling alley. Well, news flash, sports fans, that's what you're supposed to do at a bowling alley. What you need -"
"What do you know about what I need?" Jasper bellowed. "You think I needed this?"
"You think I don't get it, Jasper? You know I do. You know I've had my share of celebrating birthdays where all you can think about is death." I laughed because laughing was the only way I knew how to deal with the tightness in my chest as I remembered. "Jesus fucking Christ, it was sick, okay? On Edward's birthday, Mom and Dad had us going, going, going all day long. We had so much fun."
Yeah. Fun it wasn't, and my inflection on that word spoke volumes. I couldn't keep the venom out of my voice.
"And the whole fucking time while we were pretending to smile and laugh and have fun, we were all thinking about death. Edward was right there in front of us, and all I could feel was this great, big void he was going to leave when he went.
"And I know," I rushed ahead when he opened his mouth. "It's not the same thing. It really isn't. Edward is alive and Lucy never will be again. But that's the point. Lucy is dead. She's not suffering anymore. She's not hurting. What in the ever loving fuck is it going to prove for you to put yourself through this shit year after year in her honor?"
Jasper growled, pacing furiously at this point. "You still haven't answered my question. What are you doing here, besides telling me how I need to mourn my sister?"
Jesus Christ. I knew he wasn't an idiot. Why did he have to make me spell it out like this? "You're here for your parents, I'm here for you, you jackass."
"You're here for what? To annoy the shit out of me?"
"Well, what's better, honestly? Being annoyed or feeling the way you felt last year, and probably the year before that?"
He stood ramrod straight, and I thought he was going to hit me for a second. I would have been okay with that. Anything to keep him from going into zombie mode again.
But instead, his shoulders slumped. "It felt... good. Better, anyway. It felt... almost normal," he admitted quietly. "But my parents -"
"Your parents will survive. You're so considerate of their feelings, and that's not a bad thing. But they need to be considerate of your feelings, too. All you did today play a damn game, had a little fun on your sister's birthday."
I let that hang between us for a few seconds before I spoke again. "Now are you going to tell me what your mom meant about you having somewhere to be tonight?"
Jasper opened his mouth, but no sound came out at first. Then he bent over at the waist, laughing so hard he had to brace himself with his hands against his knees.
I had no idea what the hell was so funny, but it was a nice sound - his laughter.
"I'm uh..." Jasper managed between titters. "I'm going to pick up Peter in a little bit here."
Well, that was about the last thing I expected to hear. "Peter?" I repeated dumbly.
"Yeah. He wanted to come spend the night with me. I mean!" he stumbled, his face flushing a bright red. "I mean, he wanted to go out tonight. With me."
"Oh," I said after a minute. "Well, hey, whatever. Don't let me get in the way, man. I'll figure out a way to occupy my time."
Jasper shoved his glasses up so he could rub his eyes. "No. No, that's fine. We weren't gonna... do anything," he said sheepishly. "He knew today was going to be hard, and he convinced me to go out tonight. That's all. He's flying right back out to Georgia in the morning."
"Well... that was nice of him," I hedged, wondering why it felt like biting into a lemon to compliment Peter.
"Yeah. You're both pains in the ass," Jasper muttered, letting his glasses slip back in place. I thought he sounded a little lighter though, so there was that. He sighed. "Come on. We might as well head out since you've gotten me banned from my house."
~0~
It was really starting to bug me how... irritated I was with Peter.
I mean, even I had to admit he was a pretty cool guy. He was nice, quick as a whip, sharp as a tack, and a whole bunch of other lame sayings. And objectively speaking, he was a good looking guy.
As guys went, I could see he was a catch.
And I didn't know why that pissed me off so damn much.
It was bugging me that I might have been more homophobic than I wanted to admit. I didn't think I had a problem, but what else could explain why I felt like mimicking the way he walked and talked? It took a hell of a lot of self control for me not to mock him.
Peter had a flamboyant edge.
But why should the way a guy walked and talked bother me so much?
Why had it bothered me that he held Jasper's hand or gave him the occasional peck as we walked around downtown Houston? I was hyper aware of how many people stared when they did that.
It not only bothered me, but when their kisses lingered, I kind of got to thinking that PDAs were rude. Which was just stupid. I was a big fan of PDAs normally.
What the fuck was my problem, anyway?
Like I said, Peter was pretty cool. He cracked my shit up when we went to karaoke, and he sang Redneck Woman - which, by the way, had to be the worst song known to man - with all the hip sashaying and trilling you could ask for. Hilarious. He had every tight ass in the place rolling.
He kept up with me at pool. He bought us drinks - Mr. I'm-24-and-mature. He made Jasper laugh.
I didn't have a problem with anyone.
Again. What the fuck was wrong with me?
I was trying to sort that out when Jasper wandered off to the bathroom, leaving me alone with Peter. I was so disturbed by the I-might-be-a-homophobic-prick thing, I didn't even notice until Peter laughed.
"You know, just for the record... you win," he said.
"What?" What the fuck was this guy on about?
"You win," Peter repeated. "There was never any contest really, but I had hope up until now."
"You wanna fill in the blanks there, buddy?"
Peter leaned with his elbows on the table we were sitting at. He propped his head on his hands, looking contemplative. "I heard it in his voice this last week or so - how bad it was going to be for him this weekend. I heard him closing in on himself - getting further away. I couldn't sit by and let it happen." Again he laughed, looking up at me. "Do you know how hard it was to convince him to let me see him just this evening?"
He shook his head. "I thought it was better to pick up the pieces later, but you had the right idea. Get the jump on him, and don't let him break in the first place. Of course, you knew what he needed. So you have that edge."
"Edge. In. What?" I had the weirdest urge to grit my teeth.
He tilted his head, staring at me. "Oh, sugar. You're worse off than he is, aren't you?" He laughed. "It's going to be interesting to see how this plays out."
At least he was legitimately irritating me at that point. I tried to ignore him, just resting my head on my folded arms on the table.
"Just be careful," Peter said, his voice serious and soft. I turned my head to look at him. His expression matched: serious and soft. "You've both had occasion to hurt so much. That's why you're good for each other. You understand him, and he understands you." He looked me right in the eye. "But that also gives you power over each other, and you can hurt him, same as he can hurt you. So just... be careful."
A/N: So there's that.
Thanks so much to jadedandboring for helping me with beta work and to barburella for… annoying the hell out of me in my docs. I love yous!
I signed up for Project Team Beta's Smut University. I'll be giving a live interview on June 30th. It's a fun time all around and some great authors are participating. Sign up here: projectteambeta . com / smut-university /