Blue Sky and Other Things That Are Good For You

I was now driving Suzy and me over to Ryans house. When I asked Ted for the day off he gave it to me, paid even. Which was good. Suzy though, still needed to be watched. Luckily for me, Sydney would be at the house, so I asked if both Ryan, and Suzy’s mom Alisa, and they said it would be fine if she was there.

His house wasn’t gated, but it was away from a lot of people. And big. Very big. Suzy was holding tightly onto my leg while I ringed the doorbell.

“what if she doesn’t like me?” Suzy asks, worried about Sydneys views.

“you and her will be best friends by the end of the day.” I reassure her, but she doesn’t let go of my leg.

The door opens and Ryan appears there, looking happier than ever. I smile back and walk in, dragging Suzy along with my leg.

“Hey.” I say, when I’m finally in.

“hi.” Ryan replies, “Syd, get down here, I have someone for you to meet!” he calls and Sydney doesn’t waste a second to come downstairs.

“hey Sydney, remember me?” I ask.

“of course! You’re the girl you licked your nose!” great, that’s what I was forever going to be remembered for.

Suzy looked up at me, “you what?”

“don’t worry about it sweetie.” I turn back to Sydney, “Sydney, this is Suzy. Suzy, Sydney. Go off and become friends now.” Suzy lets go of my leg but still stands close by.

Sydney looked happy but Suzy was still worried, “I want to stay with you,” she mumbles. To Suzy, I was like a second mom. I’d been babysitting her since she was two.

“I don’t think you do. The movies we’re watching has A LOT of kissing in it.”

“EW!” she screeches and jumps over to Sydney. “do you like Barbies?” she asks, and they became instant friends.

Ryan was still laughing at the whole kissing thing when they finally ran upstairs. “there’s like, two kiss scenes.” He mentions. “my sister told me.”

“they don’t need to know that.” It was then that I realized I was still holding the bag in my hand. “oh, I brought frozen yogurt and sprinkles.”

“you didn’t.”

I shrug, “Ted, my boss, seemed to really like you. so when I took the day off, he insisted I bring the makings over here.”

Ryan laughs, “we’ll save that for later. I don’t think they need to be hyped up any more than they already are.” I follow him into the kitchen and he puts the stuff in the freezer, then opens up the fridge. “want anything to drink?” he asks.

“sure. Anything works.” I say.

He grabs two cans out of the fridge and hands one to me. It was a Cherry Cream Blue Sky. I roll my eyes, “I’m sure this isn’t all you have.”

“actually, it is. My sisters love it. That’s why it’s all I had that day in elementary school.”

“right. I’m sure that’s the reason.” He grins and reaches up to grab one of those old popcorn makers. You know, the ones where you actually pour in the kernels and it pops it. And then you have to put the butter on yourself. It’s the only way to actually get good popcorn these days.

“hey, the corn is in the cupboard behind you, could you grab it please?”

“of course.” I set down the can and turn around. Right there in front was a big canister of popcorn. “here you go.” I say, handing it to him.

“thanks.” He pours some into the popper and then presses on. Something seemed to be missing, but I wasn’t quite sure. We stayed silent as the popcorn was popping. Then there was a pop and it was louder than I expected. Another pop and another. Suddenly, one shot right up. Ryan was looking out the window at something so I tap him on the shoulder.

“what?” he asks loudly over the maker.

“you forgot to put the top on!” I say.

“the-“ before he finished, a piece of popcorn landed in his hair. He looks at the maker and it was overflowing through the top.

I quickly unplugged. “oops.” He says.

“yeah, oops.” I say.

“sorry, I haven’t used this in ages. We were out of microwave so…”

“you kidding? This is the only way to have good popcorn.” I say and throw a piece at him.

“oh no you didn’t.”

“I think I did.”

He grabs a piece and throws it at me. I open my mouth and hop a little to catch it. I smirk at him victoriously. “okay, seriously. What else can you do with your mouth?”

I pause to think about that question and then laugh, “there are so many answers to choose from and none of them sound appropriate.”

Ryan throws another piece of popcorn at me and I catch it again. “you do realize that the popcorn will be gone if you keep doing that, right?”

“fine.” He grabs a bowl and pushes all of the popped popcorn into it. He grabs the melted butter from behind him and then tosses on a little salt. “okay if I put M n’ Ms in it?”

“is there any other way to eat popcorn?”

“Amanda hates it when I do that.”

“well, I'm not Amanda.”

He picked up the bowl of popcorn and I grabbed the sodas, following him into the living room to watch hours of movies.

“which one first?” he asks, holding up the movies.

“let’s start with the six hour one. Might as well get it over with.” I say, popping open my soda can.

He puts the disc in and hits play before sitting back down next to me. The movie didn’t seem horrible. But that’s on the first ten minutes of a six hour film. After the third disc I finished my can of soda and crushed it against my head. Ryan hadn’t gotten up yet to change discs and turned to me shocked.

I look to the ground before meeting his eye, “what?”

“you just crushed that against your head.”

I nod.

“how?”

“practice. Determination. When I was younger, I crushed a can with my hands and showed it to my dad, all proud. And he told me that when I crushed it against my head, I would be a real man. Joking of course, but at the time I didn’t exactly know what that meant. So I drank a lot of stuff from cans and practiced.”

“and now you’re a real man?”

“yup.”

“huh. Good to know I guess.”

The girls run down then, screaming. “Charlie took Ariel!” Sydney screams.

Charlie came down right behind them, “no I didn’t! I swear!”

“Charlie…” Ryan looks at him, disappointed. He obviously didn’t know how to deal with kids.

“Here’s the deal Charlie, there’s some Chocolate frozen yogurt in the freezer, and sprinkles. We were going to eat some now, but no one gets any until Sydneys Ariel doll is found. You wouldn’t happen to know where it was, would you?”

instead of answering, Charlie sprints back up stairs and comes down moments later with a red head Barbie. He hands it to me and I don’t accept it, “that’s Sydney’s not mine.”

He turns to her. “here you go Syd.” He says.

“Thanks Charlie.” She replies.

“great. Now you three go wash up,” I stand up and pick up the crushed can from the table.

Ryan sat there looking amazed, “you coming?” I ask.

“yeah.” He shakes the thoughts out of his head I guess and gets up. I grab the yogurt from the freezer while he pulls out dishes.

“where did you learn to handle kids like that?”

“I’ve been babysitting for years now.”

“that couldn’t have been just from babysitting. That’s like, motherly instincts.” I scoop the chocolate into a bowl for Charlie and then move onto Vanilla for Sydney.

I shrug, brushing off his comment. After serving those two, I did a swirl mix for the rest of us. Charlie got his blue sprinkles, Sydney pink, Suzy purple, and a single pink one on top of Ryans.

The kids run back into the room and I pass out all the bowls. “okay, put your dishes in the sink when your done and don’t forget to wash your hands afterwards. Then you can go back to play. Ryan and I will be watching movies,” I groan, “in the other room.”

Charlie raises his hand and I smile, “yes Charlie?”

“if I don’t get any chocolate on my hands, do I still have to wash them?”

“yes Charlie.”

Suzy raised her hand next and I turn to Ryan raising my eyebrows. He just laughs. “yes Suzy?”

“what if I get it on my face?”

I hand out some napkins, “then use this and wipe it off.”

Sydney doesn’t bother raising her hand, “why does Uncle Ryan have one pink sprinkle on his?”

“because he said something mean to me yesterday and now doesn’t get the full amount of sprinkles.”

They all gasp, “you must’ve said something really bad.” Sydney comments and then digs into her yogurt. I couldn’t help but laugh and then walk back into the other room.

“you do realize they won’t put the dishes away, or wash their hands, right?”

“no, I don’t realize that. Obviously you don’t know how to take care of kids.”

“want to wager on that?”

“not particularly.” I reply.

“no fun.”

“I just don’t want to watch you lose. I have a feeling it’s never happened to you before.”

“Those are some brave words coming from someone who doesn’t want to bet.”

“fine. What do you plan the bet be on.”

He thinks about this for a second and then turns to me with an answer, “If you win, I’ll go back to only really talking to you five times a year.” That would make my life so much easier, “and if I win, you and Suzy have to come over every other Saturday afternoon for a play date.” I just about choke on the yogurt that was going down my throat.

“play date?”

“for the kids.” He says, “unless you want one with us.” He jokes in a trying to be seductive voice.

I laugh, “first off, that voice does not work on you. second, you have a girlfriend. A bitch of a girlfriend, but still a girlfriend.”

“fine, be that way. You in or not?”

“you’ll leave me alone?”

he nods. I put my hand out, “it’s a bet. All the kids have their dishes in the sink and clean hands when we go in there in fifteen minutes.”

Ryan grabs my hand and firmly shakes it. “be ready to start spending a lot of time with me.”

“let’s just finish the movie. We still have what? Two, three more to go through after this.”

“something like that.” He presses play and we turn our attention back to that.

I look up at the clock and see that it had been fifteen minutes. “ready to lose?” I ask. Getting up.

“not even close.” We walk into the kitchen and find all three bowls set into the sink. I look up at Ryan and Smirk. One down, one to go.

“hey kids, come here for a second!” I call. The three of them run into the room. Suzy’s hands were clean, as were Sydneys. Charlie on the other hand…I don’t know what he did, but one hand was clean and the other wasn’t.

“Ryan Richards never loses.” He says, standing behind me. I ignore both his statement and how close he was.

“Charlie, what did you do?”

“I’m still working on getting it off.” He says, licking the back of his hand. But-but-how? Sydney smiles up at me.

“tag! Your it!” she doesn’t tag me but more like pushes me over into Ryan. He catches me as the three of them run off again.

“told you I would win.” He says, still holding onto me.

“great. Can you let go of me now?” he does and we head back into the living room to watch the movie.

We finish the first six hour movie and even get through the second one quite easily. It was the third movie, that we both started yawning at. I tucked my feet underneath me on the couch and Ryan had moved his left arm over the back of the couch to get comfier. The girls had crashed an hour ago and I already called Alisa to ask if it was okay if Suzy slept over. I, of course, would pick her up tomorrow.

My arms started to get goosebumps on them because it was getting cold. Ryan grabs the blanket off the back of the couch, I guess he noticed I was cold. Instead, he wraps it around himself. I stare at him, if that was possible at the point, in shock. “ever heard of guests come first?”

“right.” He unfolds the blanket some, “you’re going to have to move closer though, I’m freezing.” I roll my eyes and move closer to his end. We weren’t touching, but it was close. Ryans arm goes back up on the couch and I keep my legs tucked under me.

I was blinking to keep my eyes open and at some point in the middle of the movie, they didn’t open up again.