“We were,” Griff relented and kicked off his slides on the rug covering the entryway’s marble floor. “You mind if we…” He looked sheepishly at his wetsocks.
“Oh of course, take them off, they’ll just keep you cold,” I told him. We always ran around here barefoot, my parents never cared.
“We got it all rigged up to make it look like we arestillbilleting…” Nick trailed off. “But our place is nothing like this.”
I followed his gaze to the two staircases on either side of the foyer that ran into each other at the top. Those led to all our bedrooms upstairs.
I stepped forward and peeled off my jacket to hang it up in the closet, loving the feel of the cool marble under my socks.
“So what are you doing instead?” I asked them. My mind jumped to the worst case scenario… I hoped they weren’t homeless. They did sort of look like lost boys– very hot lost boys– but still… Everyone deserved to have a home. I resolved then to bring them in and make them feel as welcome as I could here. “Here, give me your socks and I’ll throw them in the dryer for ya.”
“You sure?” Griff asked, looking surprised.
“Yeah.” I ushered him to hand them over. “Your feet will be nice and toasty after. Duke and I always throw socks in the dryer after we skate outside so our toes don’t freeze off.”
“Helps with the burning after you come in,” Duke added.
I felt them trailing after me as I went to the laundry room to dump their socks in the dryer for a couple minutes.
“Want anything to eat or drink?” I asked, trying to be a good host. I’d never hosted anyone before, but I tried to remember what my mom did when we had company over.
“Uh… what do you guys have?” Nick asked.
I decided to let them pick instead of listing everything out. I ushered them to follow me into our large, state-of-the-art kitchen and I quickly opened up the pantry and fridge.
“Help yourselves, guys.” I peered in for a look myself and noticed everything was refilled once again. “I think it just got restocked.”
“Rose was here?” I heard Duke ask from the kitchen table. “And we missed her, damnit.”
Rose was an older widow who lived down the street. My parents paid her to clean and stock the house for us. She didn’t need the money, but I think she needed something to do. My parents kind of made up the job to keep her around. She used to babysit us when I was too young to look out for Duke myself and we loved her. I think she loved us as well. She was like a grandmother to us.
“What did I say about swearing?” I called out to Duke, putting my hands on my hips.
I heard him mumble an apology. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Nick smiling, and I threw him a warning look. Duke would just take laughter as encouragement to keep the cuss words coming.
After grabbing some snacks, we all bounded down the stairs to the basement together.
I watched Nick and Griff look around in awe at my dad’s man cave, which was paneled in dark wood and included movie theater seating. There was also an air hockey table, a ping pong table we put outside in the summer, and an area cleared away with a net pushed up against the wall so that Duke could shoot pucks down here.
I followed Griff’s face to the signed hockey and football jerseys framed on the walls.
“Our dad was a football player for Michigan State. Go green!” Duke shouted as he pointed to the framed MSU jersey that had “Callahan” stitched to the back.
“Damn, that’s awesome,” Nick said.
Duke paused and looked at him confusedly. He was still at the age where he thought everyone grew up with the same knowledge he did. “No, when I say, ‘Go Green’, you’re supposed to say, ‘Go White.’” He turned and moved toward the theater area to fire up the TV andXbox.
The boys were extremely animated as they played Chel against us, and I couldn’t help but crack up as we played. I struggled to keep my eyes open because of laughing. I think it was part of their tactic. But it didn’t work. Duke and I were killing them.
During the last round, Nick released his controller with one hand and started tickling my side in an effort to throw me off, but I just stood up and tried to get away from him… but that didn’t work because he just kept following me. I had to keep my arm wrenched to my side to protect my ticklish spot, and I was still able to score a goal… and I have to admit, I loved having his attention. Nick had a boyish charm to him. When he smiled at me, he made me feel seen… He made me feelspecial…
After the round finished up– Duke and I won again– Nick asked about getting something to drink, and I promptly got up to head upstairs.
I was surprised when I felt him fall in step behind me, and a nervous energy coursed through my chest over the prospect of being alone with him.
In the kitchen, I moved toward the fridge and Nick looked out the windows into our backyard.
“Holy shit! When you said you guys skated outside, I thought you went to a pond or something… But you guys have your own private rink out here?” he asked with a shocked face. “That’s the coolest fuckin thing I’ve ever seen!” He leaned closer to the window to check it out.
