"Out of Season"
Part Eight
Disclaimer: The characters of "The O.C." belong to Fox and no infringement is intended in this fictional work.
AN: This is a bonus section, written for spqr/dorabelle, who requested laundry hijinks. Not sure whether this is what she had in mind, but this part is for her.
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Ryan Atwood's hair was still wet as he trudged barefooted past the vending machines toward the laundry room. The stretched-out layout of the apartment complex revealed its origin as a cheap motel. Now it was a cheap pay-by-the-week rooming facility with just one washing machine and one dryer.
When he entered the laundry room, Summer was leaning over the washing machine, watching the water fill. She jumped and whirled around as he spoke, hastily dumping her scoop of soap.
"Hey," he said. "How's it going?"
"Just starting the second time through," Summer said. "You startled me."
"Sorry," he said, slinging his garbage bag of dirty clothes onto the floor beside the only chair in the stuffy room.
He stuck out his hand.
"Hungry?"
She looked at his offering suspiciously.
"What is it?" she said.
"Peanut butter sandwich," he said. "No hemlock."
She gave him a "look who's funny now" glare, took the sandwich and waited for him to sit on the hard orange plastic chair. As soon as he did, she plopped herself across his lap. He caught her before her momentum took her to the floor, wrapping one arm around her waist and the other across her legs. She giggled.
"Thanks," she said, taking a bite of peanut butter sandwich, one arm draped around Ryan's neck, as they listened to the rhythm of the washing machine starting its wash cycle. Humidity filled the air, plus the faint smell of chlorine bleach. A few used dryer sheets littered the floor.
Ryan could still smell a little concrete dust, too, that had to have been coming from Summer's blouse.
He opened his mouth to apologize just as Summer turned the sandwich toward his mouth and stuffed it in.
"Your turn," she said.
He bit obediently and chewed.
She watched him studiously.
"Have you been eating enough?" she said. "You look thinner. You should take two bites."
He scowled at her but took another bite. One soft peach hand reached up to muss his still-wet hair. A few cold droplets flicked onto his shoulders.
"You should grow it out," Summer said.
Mouth still full of peanut butter, Ryan didn't bother to answer. His hair length was a familiar theme, and she didn't need him to sing the chorus again.
"Hey," she said, thwacking him in the stomach when he didn't respond. "You're supposed to say, It won't fit under my hard hat.'"
Ryan swallowed.
"If you know what I'm going to say, then I don't need to say it," he said. "Besides, if I said that, you would say, But it would look so hot.'"
She laughed at his falsetto imitation of her voice.
"And then you would say, I don't need long hair to look hot,'" Summer growled in her best bass voice —- which wasn't very bass.
"That's right," Ryan agreed, "so this is a talk we don't need to have."
"But it's fun every time," Summer argued, taking another bite of their sandwich. "And you would look hot with longer hair."
Ryan looked at Summer, with her red scarf and red top and dark hair and dark eyes, sitting so close to him. She glowed with possibility, with youth and bright promise. He reached up to pull off her scarf, letting her hair loose, and kissed her on the jawline. He swept his hand underneath her dark locks, so soft and silky. His other hand smoothed up and down her soft, olive thigh to the edge of her tiny polka-dotted skirt. He didn't let his hand go further.
He lifted it instead to Summer's face, tracing one finger around her eye sockets, down her nose and to her chin.
"No, you look hot with long hair," Ryan said. "You look hot all the time."
She snuggled her head into the curve of his shoulder.
"So do you," she said. "Short hair, long hair, you're always hot. Especially with those cute bare feet."
She kissed his neck then sat back up to take another bite of peanut butter sandwich.
Ryan held Summer and thought about his life before her. He didn't tell her his particular fears about long hair. Summer's world didn't need to be tainted with the knowledge of how long hair could be used as a convenient handle for a bad-ass juvie hall resident who wanted sexual attention. She didn't need to know. He didn't want to tell. Those were lost years, as far as he was concerned. He wondered whether Trey felt the same way.
"Earth to Atwood. Where did you go?" Summer said, waving the sandwich in front of Ryan's nose. "You were with me, telling me I'm hot, and then your face went blank, like you were remembering something bad."
"I did?" Ryan said.
"You did," Summer said. "Anything you can tell me?"
Ryan grabbed the hand Summer was waving in front of him and took a bite of their sandwich. He thought about it as he ate. She had been hinting lately that she wouldn't mind hearing more about his life. His best efforts to thwart her wouldn't last much longer in the face of her persistence.
"Just thinking about my brother," he said.
"I didn't know you had a brother," she said. "Older or younger?"
"Older," Ryan said.
When he said nothing else, she prodded him in the chest.
"Well," she said, impatiently. "What else? Tell me all about him. What's his name? Where does he live? Does he think his brother would be hotter with longer hair?"
"His name is Trey, he lives in prison, and he doesn't care about my hair as long as I visit once a month," Ryan said, testing her.
The sandwich dropped to the floor, half-eaten. Summer squiggled around on Ryan's lap and stared into his eyes.
"Seriously?" she said. "What made you think about him?"
Ryan pushed Summer gently onto her feet on the cement floor. He got up and walked across to lean on the washing machine, feeling its rumble under his hands. He couldn't face her.
"When I was 16," Ryan started.
He heard movement behind him and peeked. Summer was watching him, her eyes fixed on his back. He shot his eyes back to the wall above the washer with its bulletin board of notices for child care, church services and used cars for sale. He couldn't focus on any of them, and he clenched his jaw. He sucked in a deep breath and blew it out.
"When I was 16," Ryan began again, "Trey took me out to teach me how to steal cars."
He stopped to breathe.
"We got caught."
Another pause for breath. It was too late to stop. He went on.
"It wasn't Trey's first time. He'll be out in about three years. I was just thinking about how long it has been since he's seen a woman even half as beautiful as you."
Ryan closed his eyes, waiting for Summer's decision. He had been thinking about her and a car thief in the same thought. She wouldn't like that.
He flinched as Summer walked up behind him, then he felt her arms go around his waist. She pressed her body against his.
"What about you?" she said.
"What about me?" he said.
"Is that when you went to prison, too?" she said.
Ryan twisted in Summer's arms, shocked. He had never told her anything about juvie. He tried not to talk about himself at all.
"How?" he said, without enough breath to say anything else.
"Nobody told," she said, leaning her head against his chest. "I guessed."
"I got out of juvie when I turned 18," Ryan said. "I don't like to talk about it."
"I know," Summer said simply. She lifted her face to Ryan's. "It's all right."
She put her head back on his chest. Ryan wondered whether she could hear his heart racing, almost in time with the wash cycle. He had been afraid to tell her, and she had known the truth all along. He tentatively put his arms around her and breathed in the Summer smell and the warmth of her body. Her flower perfume mixed with the scent of used dryer sheets and other people's dirty clothes.
"When I was 16," Summer said quietly, her words ruffling into Ryan's T-shirt, "my best friend overdosed and died. My dad got married for the fourth time, two months later. I celebrated Daddy's honeymoon by getting drunk off my ass on champagne and losing my virginity to the waiter who kept bringing me drinks."
Ryan listened. The thrum of the washing machine was the only sound in the tiny room. That and Summer's soft voice.
"A month later," Summer said, "I missed a period and had to make a visit to a clinic for a little procedure."
She took her own turn to pause. Ryan felt her shoulders move up and down as if she were gathering strength.
"Daddy said he had never been so disappointed in me ... and he ... I don't like to talk about it."
Ryan said nothing, but his arms tightened around her. They stood coupled and listened to the vibrations of the washing machine's spin cycle together. The humid air pulled down into Ryan's lungs as the moist heat and Summer's trust relaxed his body. He breathed in and out. He felt Summer do the same.
Ryan leaned his head down toward Summer's ear.
"Thanks," he said. It almost hurt coming out of his tight, tight throat.
Summer reached up a hand and pulled his head toward her mouth. He bent to her and she kissed him, sweetly, then pulled away.
"Can I go with you sometime?" Summer said, hesitantly. "To the prison?"
Ryan looked in Summer's dark, sincere eyes. There was no mockery there.
"Maybe," he said.
"Thanks," she whispered, pulling his head back down and kissing him on the ear. She was starting to nibble when the buzzer on the washing machine went off.
They jumped apart. Summer smoothed out her polka dots. She glanced at the washing machine.
"I'm just going to get us a beverage," she said. "Quarters, please."
She held out a hand and Ryan dropped change in it. He watched her walk away, admiring the polka dots and what lay beneath them. He retrieved Summer's red scarf from the plastic chair. He tied the scarf around his own head, do-rag style, and picked up the forgotten sandwich. He tossed it in the trash before turning back to the washing machine.
He opened the lid, reached in and pulled out a handful of shredded fabric. He frowned at it. How had she managed that?