Elm tossed Cy a salute of the middle finger variety that told his sibling just what he thought of Cy’s pretend promotion of all-consuming bossy buns.
Cypress rolled his bright blue eyes at Elm, gave me a look that said, “Can you believe this fool?” and left with a loud, chuffing huff, but not before glancing my way, doing a doubletake, and pausing for a moment, the longest freaking moment.
Caught by the odd look he was giving me, holding my gaze, I forgot to blink as I watched him watching me. A strange rumbling noise came out of nowhere, yanking me from the odd moment I found myself in. My stomach was doing flip flops at this point and I was struggling to decipher if any of this was a good thing or not. The way Cy was looking at… No. No reading into things.
Nervous anxieties aside, I rarely got the stomach flip flops, not like this.
Glancing around for any sign of that odd noise, I frowned down at my car. Damn. Et tu Brute? The last thing I needed was a broken down car needing an expensive repair.
“Shop heater old. Turn on,” Elm blurted. “Loud,” he added for emphasis.
“Shop heater.” Cypress let out an insanely loud snort. “Shop heater be broken,” he called out to Elm.
Elm fidgeted in place, looking mighty uncomfortable.
Had he- No. Blinking once hard, my gaze quickly darted away. Had that- Had he broken wind? The silly, stray thought had my cheeks pinkening.
Elm muttered something under his breath and turned to bare his teeth at Cy. Elm rumbled something at Cypress and then Cypress burst out laughing.
“She think- She heard-” Cy was bent over, holding his stomach laughing, pointing at his older sibling.
Confusion thy name is Prudence Ophelia Dubois.
“He no fart,” Cy called out, as if he’d cottoned on to where my mind had went.
Was I that darn transparent or was it so easy to decipher that’s where a being’s mind would go, what with the way Elm was acting, all guilty like, and all. Cy was pretty spectacular at reading me, about ninety percent of the time. I mean, he used to be. Didn’t look like much has changed. It was probably how he so easily got my goat.
It was so weird being back here, having a moment like this.
Before I could blurt out an argument to his stance, that I did not in fact suspect a fart, he began to nod slowly, still grinning from ear to ear, looking like horror movie Jack Nicholson in all of his glory, and with a jaunty one fingered salute back at Elm and a smirky smile shot my way, disappeared back inside.
“I not,” Elm insisted.
“It’s the heater… from inside,” I quickly agreed. Was I bobbing my head too much? Too vigorously?Stop that, I grumbled in my head at myself, then ceased any head wobble bobbing like a broken bobble head immediately.
Cy barked something from the propped open shop door in that weird rumbling thing they did and then began laughing anew.
Elm let out a noise just shy of a full on, animalistic growl, startling me as I scurried around him and slammed my trunk closed hard so it wouldn’t pop back open again with the funky latch acting up. A funny noise squeaked out of me but I covered it quickly, rounding my car to wave absently over my shoulder.
“Well, it was nice seeing you all! Thank your ma for tossing in those avocados! I don’t think I’ve ever seen ‘em that big!” I called out.
Stepping back out with one last bag, causing me to pause, my hand on the door handle, Sunny waved her free hand frantically over her head as she called out to me, “Pru! Oh, Pru, dear! Oh- Catch her, Elm, hun, would you?! Don’t let your- Uh- Don’t let her get away, sweetie!”
Elm didn’t even so much as blink, springing into action to “catch me”, bounding over to me to clamp a thick mitt of a hand onto my shoulder like I was a thief and not simply waiting out his mother as she called out to me.
Don’t let his what get away? His little friend? Long past a friendship renewal time frame, ma’am. I’d shed enough tears over his first departure, thank you very much.
I’d love to lie and say being dumped like a hot potato without further ado hadn’t broken me but years of therapy needed to cope with the aftermath, if one wanted to say I took his rejection insanely hard, and mangled self esteem and trust issues would say it certainly hadn’t helped me out any.
With a short glare over my shoulder aimed at the moose holding me captive, I swatted his hand away. “I wasn’t going to run,” I huffed and puffed at him. And yet I basked in his touch. Damn, I’m a lunatic.
The fool was treating me like some kind of suspected criminal, like we didn’t grow up together, or have fake weddings in his backyard all those years ago, and I’m fighting the dopey, sappy feeling suffusing me at one stupid, simple, meaningless touch.
Of course, in our fake wedded scenarios I was only the bride for lack of any alternate bride choices, and the boys would take turns playing groom, best man, and minister. Essentially, I’d pretend-married all three Tree boys back in the day.
They were mainly motivated by the wedding cake we’d talked Sunny into making for us for our fake receptions. Sunny probably still had photos of it all. She was always snapping pictures of the boys like she was worried there’d be no tomorrow.
I envied her that— I should have done the same, should have taken more pictures of my folks, lived like every day might be our last.
