Endlessly

1994

"98... 99... 100. Ready or not, here I come!" I shouted into the now-silent house.

Somewhere, Marc, Jared, and Rae sat hidden, waiting for me to find them. With the rain coming down in buckets outside, we had successfully burned through every one of our mothers' attempts to entertain us and prevent us from destroying the house. We had already 'helped' our moms bake cookies, built a giant fort out of blankets, had a Nerf gun war, and watched a horrible movie about a princess that Rae had wanted to watch. We had built a castle for Rae's favorite doll and my favorite action figure out of Legos, then proceeded to knock down as we pretended to be Godzillas.

I checked the living room first, where Jared usually hid. But today, someone, probably Rae, must have reminded him that there weren't any good places to hide here. I got a little nervous as I began opening closed doors, because Marc was known for jumping out and scaring you, even if it meant he lost.

I approached the dining room, listening carefully. Then, there was a soft sniffle from inside a cabinet. Yanking the door open, I found Rae, teary eyed and shivering. Immedately, I held out my hand, pulling her out, before asking what had happened. Between hiccups and half-sobs, she retold how Marc had told her to hide in the cabinet and shut her in. Minutes later she had gotten scared, and tried to get out, only to realize that she couldn
t open it from the inside.

I was as furious as a six-year-old could be. I vaguely remember throwing a temper tantrum, bringing my mom into it when I tried to tackle Marc, only to find that he was way stronger than I thought, pinning me to the ground in seconds. Actually, that wasn't why my mom had gotten involved. She got involved Rae jumped on Marc back, hollering and pulling on Marc for all she was worth. She went ballistic, and he mom hauled her away, unable to console her crazed daughter.

That was the Rae I had grown to love, the one that would go from tearful to royally insane in seconds. And that was the Rae I would wind up loving the rest of my life. I just didn't realize it at the time

Present

The day before my family's annul barbecue was always chaotic. Tables had to be set up. We bought enough to food to basically feed a small African country. Wood had to be hauled up to the house for the bonfire. Grass had to be mowed. Decorations had to be set up. It was basically hell.

When I trudged down the steps that morning, I was met by the usual scene. My mom had cooked a huge breakfast, because lunch would not be served until we were halfway done, and it was spread out on the kitchen counters. On the table, were dozens of papers, with the exact layout of the party drawn onto it by my dad, and a nearly endless lists of things to buy from the grocer, written by my mom. Both parents, however, had already disappeared outside.

Marc was already awake, seated on one of the counters, the morning paper in one hand, coffe cup clutched in the other. He glanced up at my arrival, and gave me a slight head nod, a typical morning greeting. I, like always, grunted in response, and reached for bottle of orange juice.

"Still not a coffee person?" Marc asked.

I shook my head as I took a sip, enjoying the refreshing feel as it washed the taste of sleep from my mouth. I took a peek out the window to see how the day was shaping up, and choked on the juice, spewing a little of it onto the floor.

"What the hell, dude?" Marc shouted, leaping out of range of the spray.

I gestured wildly outside, where Rae stood, talking to my mom and dad. "Woah," Marc said in agreement. "I wonder what she's doing here."

I struggled over to the sink, where I basically puked up the rest of juice. Unwelcome tears ran down my face of their own accord, as they always do when you choke. Marc slammed a hand down on my back, which only managed to send me into another coughing fit. I flung my arm out, and was satisfied when connected solidly with Marc's stomach.

He groaned, and backed away, thankfully. I got my breathing back under control, and wiped at my eyes, trying to stop the watering. I looked out the window again, and nearly started choking again when I saw my mom was leading Rae into the house.

"Shit!" I scrambled away from the sink, and tried to exit the kitchen but Jared came bumbling in, blocking my way. "Get your ass out of the way, man," I hissed, but I heard the back door open, and knew it was too late.

"What are you ta-" I stopped Jared's confused words by connecting my fist his arm. "Ow!" he complained, and I turned, fake smile plastered on my face, pretending I didn't hear him.

"Good morning boys," my mom said cheerfully. "Did you all sleep well?"

I nodded as I shot Marc a look, silently telling him to keep his mouth shut. "Jordan?" I turned to face my mom as she addressed me. She walked closer, before asking, "Have you been crying?"

I could hear a barely covered up snicker behind her, as Marc cracked up. In response, I saw Rae grin as well. I am going to kill him.

"No, I was choking and-"

Marc cut me off. "Sure, you were, big guy. Keep telling yourself that." He leaned towards Rae and stage-whispered, "He was crying over you. We all know it."

I took a step in his direction, but was stopped by my mom's arm. "You may be a grown man, Jordan, but the rules are the same. No fights in the house."

So, I settled for maiming Marc with my eyes, hoping he got the message. When the smile was wiped off his face, I guessed he got it loud and clear.

"Regardless," my mom continued, "I came in to ask you boys if people have an unwritten 'plus-one' on their invite." She took in our dumb-struck looks, and I could practically hear Rae rolling her eyes.

"Can I bring someone with me, geniuses?" she asked to the room, but she kept her gaze steady on me.

Bring someone? What the hell? I raised my eyebrows at her, part of the non-verbal communication we had developed when we were friends.

Her answering look made my stomach drop. A little jerk of her head to the side, a little shrug of her shoulder. You should've been expecting this, it said.

I opened my mouth to tell her of course not, she cannot bring another guy to my fucking party, but Marc beat me to it. "Um, sorry, but unless they got an invite, they can't come. Not because we don't trust your judgement or anything, but we can't risk having people we don't know here taking pictures and stuff. Do't want a repeat of the 2005 barbecue." Marc, Jared, and I all grimaced, remembering the time Eric had brought a chick home who had turned out to by an un-diagnosed psycho.

In that instant, all of Marc's past grievances had been forgiven. Then, like my entire family suddenly decided to be nice, my mom piped in, saying, "That's exactly what I told her. Sorry, sweetheart, but your date will have to wait." She shot me a look I didn't quite get, before excusing herself and returning to her work outside.

Thank God for moms.

***

"I." Shove. "Can't believe." Shove. Shove. "She was gonna." Shove. "Bring a date." Extra hard shove.

I panted as Jared, Marc, and myself struggled to push an ancient pick-up truck out of the barn. My mom had this, quote, 'genius' idea that the DJ equipment would look wonderful in the truck bed. "It'll look so quaint," she quipped. Yeah, right. It's just another thing for us to do.

"What the hell did they build cars with back then? Fucking cement?" Jared grumbled, legs braced against ground, trying to gain leverage.

"The more important question is," Marc said from inside the cab, where he was 'steering', "Is what the hell was Rae thinking, asking if she could bring another guy?"

"I don't know, bro. Maybe she's like, trying to make you jealous or something. Girls do that a lot," Jared said, adding his unhelpful two cents.

"Why would she do that?" I asked nobody in particular. "She was there to see the way I reacted to David. I think I made it pretty clear that I'm still wrapped around her finger."

"Whipped," Marc fake-coughed from the front seat, and Jared chuckled.

"You know what? Why don't you push this fucking thing? It's not like it actually needs steering. The axle is rusted in place," I spat, stomping over to the cab, pulling Marc out by his shirt.

"Watch yourself," he growled, shoving me off. "You owe me, remember?"

"I don't owe you shit," I replied. "You simply repaid me for all the times you stole girls from me growing up."

"Get real," he grumbled. "The only girl you were interested in getting with was Rae, and I don't think a nuclear bomb was gonna stop you two from getting it on." He added an ugly hip thrust to reiterate was he was saying.

"Whatever. Just help push this piece of shit out of here."

"So you can get back to plotting how your gonna try and get Rae back?" Jared asked, nudging my shoulder.

I shoved him back, muttering for him to shut up. The three of us pushed the truck for another hundred yards before taking another break, muscling aching. The site of the barbecue was within sight, but we had another good three hundred yards to go.

"Jesus Christ. I would've paid for someone to bust up my truck instead of hauling this piece of shit back up to the house," Jared complained loudly.

"Hey, is Eric coming up tonight or tomorrow?" I asked, looking at Jared, because he spent the most time at home out of the three of us.

"Tomorrow," he responded, flopping into the truck bed, laying spread eagle. "Something with Parker having a doctor appointment and Tanya had to wrap up a few loose ends at work. Personally, I think he just wanted to get out of doing all this manual labor crap."

"Humph," I added in agreement, squatting down and sitting back on my heels. I looked up at my brothers, both of whom were trying to catch their breath. "Wanna know something?"

Neither of them said anything, but instead just looked at me, telling me to continue, but if it wasn't interesting they'd stop listening. "Rae and I made out for the first time in this truck bed."

I hid my smirk as Jared jerk up into a sitting position before jumping off of it. "That's disgusting, dude. I really could've gone the rest of my life without knowing that."

I simply shrugged my shoulders, before climbing in and laying where Jared had before, and shutting my eyes. "Psych," I said, just loud enough for him to hear.

"What the- That's not fair!" He grabbed ahold of my foot before trying to yank from the truck bed, but I already had a firm grasp on a handle, so he couldn't move me half an inch.

"Man up," Marc directed at Jared. "You got powned, get over it."

Ah, the untimely advice of an older brother. Riiiiight.

It worked though, and Jared dropped my leg with an annoyed grunt. I knew he'd get me back eventually, probably at the barbecue. Not that I cared. I just enjoyed the feel of the Canadian sunshine and the warm summer breeze, trying to forget about certain things that had to do with certain girls coming to a certain party, possibly with certain men that were not me.