This is my second of two sentence challenge stories from the OCSFC. However, unlike the first, this one's a work in progress.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Ties
Prologue
Seth was greeted with a lazy nod from his mother before she took a cautious sip from her steaming mug of coffee. "Did you know that Friday's Ryan's birthday?" she asked quietly.
Seth nodded. "Yeah, I know."
"He told you?"
"No, I was going through his wallet and I suck a peek at his driver's license when he wasn't looking."
A perplexed expression crossed her face, but she appeared to be willing to shrug off the peculiarity of Seth's confession for the time being. "How do you think he feels about surprises?"
"Do you mean, like, 'Surprise! It's a brand new car!' or 'Surprise! You've been abandoned by your mother!'?"
"Seth," she warned, but he cut her off before she could continue.
"Because if you're referring to the latter, I'm gonna have to go with 'not good.' However, if you're considering purchasing him a vehicle, I think he'd lean quite favorably toward surprises. And if you do go that route, I would be more than happy to hold onto the keys. You know, until Friday rolls around. And seeing as how you guys are all about equal opportunities, and my birthday's only a month away, I'm thinking a sweet ride would be your best gift choice." He finished with a smug smile.
His mom rolled her eyes while manipulating what remained of her bagel on the plate in front of her. "A party, Seth, not a sweet ride."
"A party? We're talking about Ryan, right? Ryan Atwood?"
"I know that he wouldn't want us to plan a party for him, but that's why I wanted to make it a surprise. I thought that if he didn't know about it, he wouldn't have a chance to object and would have to enjoy himself."
"Yeah, because around here, parties are all about enjoying yourself."
"This one would be. We could invite his friends and some family."
"By friends, I'm guessing you mean me, Marissa, Summer and Luke; and even that's a stretch. And by family, who exactly are you referring to?"
"He's got to have some family…."
"Yeah, that's why he's living with us."
"Has he ever mentioned any cousins or anything?"
Seth scoffed at his mother. "He's never even mentioned his dad, let alone cousins."
"His father's in prison, Seth."
"I know. All the more reason to talk about him. That's got to be an interesting story to tell."
"What's got to be an interesting story to tell?" The sudden sound of Ryan's voice caused a panic to surge through Seth's chest.
"The, uh, Cuban missile crisis," Seth stammered and swallowed deeply. "You know, that Khrushchev guy…the Kennedy administration…Soviet weaponry…. It's all very fascinating, really." He finished breathlessly as he tried to manage his discomfort and avoid Ryan's eyes, hoping that he hadn't overheard the tail end of the conversation regarding his father .
"Yeah, okay." Ryan shook his head and reached for a bowl.
"What are you boys doing after school?" Seth let out a sigh of relief when his mom changed the subject, allowing Seth to abandon the verbal rampage he felt building within his gut.
"I have Lit Mag. I figure if I keep writing, one day they'll have to give in and publish my work."
Ryan grabbed a box of cereal from the cupboard and began filling his bowl. "Maybe if you didn't write about plastic horses, they would."
"I gave Captain Oats one cameo! You people need to open your minds a little." His mom shook her head and turned to address Ryan.
"What about you, Ryan? What are you doing after school?"
Ryan pushed his cereal around the bowl until every last morsel was saturated with milk. "Studying, I guess. I don't know; haven't really thought about it."
"Would you be able to come down to the new subdivision and help move furniture into the model home?"
"Yeah, sure. No problem."
Seth was awed that Ryan answered without the slightest hesitation. Moving furniture could just be the worst job in the world - especially in ninety-degree weather - but Ryan hadn't even flinched. He obviously felt obligated.
Seth on the other hand, knew exactly how to avoid these situations when they arose. "Mom, were you seriously going to ask me to move furniture?"
"What? Are you too good for that?" she openly mocked him.
"That's debatable, but don't you remember me trying to move my bed? I was laid up for a month."
"Seth, don't exaggerate." She turned to refill her mug.
Seth waited until his mother turned her back before he placed a hand to his lower-back and mouthed, "A month!" to Ryan.
"I can pick you up after school, Ryan. Three-thirty out front?" She turned back around and Seth promptly put on his mask of over-emphasized innocence.
"Sure." Ryan nodded, still smiling from Seth's demonstration.
She suspiciously grinned as her eyes drifted from Seth to Ryan and back again. "Three-thirty it is."
………………………………...
"Just put it right over here. Not too close to the walls!" The flustered women held her hands on either side of her face, ready to cover her eyes in the event of disaster.
Ryan gently placed the end table on the ceramic floor. The woman smiled tightly, fiddling with her rings as stepped back to appraise new the layout of the foyer.
"Good," she mumbled to herself, then turned back to Ryan with a nod. "Good. Now go help Gregory move in the entertainment unit into the master bedroom."
A loud thump came from the kitchen, and Ryan waited until the uptight woman had turned around to face the noise before he lifted up the bottom of his damp t-shirt to wipe his face. With all the money the Newport Group had spent on ridiculous things such as a 50-inch television for a bedroom that no one was even going to sleep in, he figured they could at least have waited to move everything in until the air conditioning was installed. The heat in the enormous house was stifling, but it didn't appear as though the small, anxious woman had even broken a sweat in her thick pantsuit.
Apparently the noise from the kitchen wasn't enough to warrant her presence because after a few seconds, she spun on her heel to face Ryan again, waving her hands in a shooing motion.
"Go on now. The unit's heavy, Gregory can't move it until you're there to help him."
Ryan pushed his sweaty hair out of his eyes, reluctantly nodding at the power-tripping woman.
"Hey, kid." Ryan felt a hand on his shoulder to go along with Kirsten's voice. "Here," she said, handing him an icy cold bottle of water. He eagerly accepted the offering, savoring the feeling of the condensation from the bottle against his palm. He couldn't open and drain half the bottle into his mouth fast enough.
"Kirsten!" The woman smiled nervously, her heavily made-up face creasing in places where creases should never exist.
"Mary." Kirsten sounded genuinely perturbed. "It's too hot in here to push these kids so hard. When was the last time you offered them water?"
If the woman's face wasn't plastered with a thick layer of tope foundation, Ryan was sure she would have turned beet red.
"I thought…I thought there was a cooler somewhere."
Kirsten moved forward a couple of steps until she was standing between Ryan and his dictator, keeping her hand on his shoulder as she spoke. "No, there isn't. Ryan, honey, can you go tell the other kids that there are water bottles in the fridge that they can help themselves to?"
"Sure." Ryan smiled at Kirsten, turning and feeling her hand slip off his shoulder as he stepped out of her reach. As much as he wanted to stick around to watch Kirsten chastised the woman further, he needed to get outside where there was a breeze.
Just as he was stepping out the door, he came face to face with Caleb Nichol.
"Ryan," Caleb grumbled with a nod. Ryan couldn't blame the man for being somewhat cynical. Especially when taking into consideration what happened the last time Ryan set foot in one of The Newport Group's model homes.
"Mr. Nichol." Ryan acknowledged the man without looking up and fiddled with the soggy label on the half-empty bottle of water.
"Kiki!" Caleb called out to his daughter, pushing through and abandoning Ryan in the marble-trimmed entranceway.
Ryan waited until Caleb had fully entered the foyer before turning and heading toward the kitchen, where he opened the fridge and pulled out another bottle of frosty water. He made his way back out the front door and toward the gigantic truck that had been backed into the interlocked-brick driveway. Greg, whose father was an accountant for The Newport Group, was sitting on the edge of the rear of the truck, his legs swinging limply in the open space between the truck and the ground.
"Here, man." Ryan smiled and offered Greg the water.
"Sweet. Thanks." Greg gratefully snatched the bottle out of Ryan's hands. "How much are we getting paid to work in hell?" Greg asked once he'd taken a long sip.
"I'm just doing Kirsten a favor." For reasons Ryan couldn't quite identify, he felt slightly self-conscious revealing the information to Greg.
"Kirsten Cohen? You know her?"
"She's…uh…yeah, I guess you could say that." Ryan shifted his weight uncomfortably.
"My dad says she's really nice. I can't say one way or another, I just hope she realizes that I, unlike you, am not doing this out of the goodness of my heart," Greg joked with a tilt of his head.
Ryan smiled and drained what remained of his water in one final gulp before tossing the bottle into the empty cardboard box acting as a garbage. "It's not going to move itself." Ryan wiped at his face with his shirt one more time before they tackled the ridiculously large entertainment unit.
"Ugh." Greg let out an exaggerated groan while pushing himself onto his feet . "Let's get this over with."
………………………………...
"Thank-you so much, guys. I know it's hot as hell in here, but really, the place looks great."
"No problem." Ryan smiled at Kirsten's gratitude, overwhelmed that something he'd done, and hadn't considered to be a big deal, had made her so happy.
"You guys don't mind cash, do you?" Kirsten's face broke into a large grin when most of the boys immediately shook their heads.
She started at one end of the line, handing each of the workers two, 50 dollar bills, all of whom appeared thoroughly satisfied at the amount of pay for only four hours' work. Despite the grueling conditions, the intense labor was suddenly worth every drop of sweat.
Ryan backed away when Kirsten reached him at the end of the line.
"Ryan," she pleaded quietly, "please take the money. You worked just as hard, if not harder, than everyone else."
He smiled and shook his head. "You don't have to pay me. Consider it a favor." He looked down and hoped she would accept his reasoning and drop the matter entirely. He couldn't take money from her. Not after all her family had done for him.
"Am I hearing this correctly? Is someone turning down money?" Ryan and Kirsten both turned their heads to see Caleb approaching. Ryan relaxed immediately when he saw that the usually scary man was smiling with a proud expression on his face.
Kirsten shrugged, the hand clutching the hundred dollars in cash fell to her side. "That would appear to be the case."
Caleb grinned at Ryan, placing a hand on his shoulder. Ryan tensed, but if Caleb noticed, he didn't let on. "You did good today, kid."
"Thanks." Ryan did his best not to stutter in his astonished state. Caleb had barely spoken two words to him since they'd met, and the sudden acknowledgment and appreciation left Ryan dumbfounded.
"If you're interested, and only if you really want to, there's some work with your name on it at The Newport Group. A couple nights a week after school, that's it. The only catch is you'd have to accept being paid. I don't want the child labor coalition up my ass." Caleb laughed at his own joke, but Ryan couldn't help but think the man was serious. It was always business with Caleb Nichol.
"Yeah." Ryan accepted immediately. "That would be great. Thank-you."
"You worked hard today. I was impressed. You deserve it."
"Thanks." Ryan could see Kirsten beaming in his peripheral vision. He didn't know who she was more proud of, him or her father.
"I'll let Kirsten know the details and we'll get you started next week." Caleb extended his hand. Ryan accepted, shaking firmly. He had no idea that all it took to earn Caleb Nichol's appreciation was to turn down his money.
Kirsten turned to face Ryan once Caleb had walked away. "You really want to do this?" She sounded so hopeful that even if Ryan hadn't wanted to be involved, which he did, he wouldn't have been able to tell her otherwise.
"Yeah. I can't wait."
Her smile spoke volumes. Ryan knew she was proud and that was better than any amount of pay he could have received for the four hours of hell he'd had to endure.
"I think tonight's a take-out night. We'll pick something up on the way home." She wrapped her arm around his shoulder and lead him toward the door. "And I love you, but you're going to have to shower before you eat," she teased.
Ryan nodded in agreement. "Trust me, there's nothing I want to do more."
………………………..