Rebel Love Song

The house was too quiet for my taste as I started getting ready for the day. Lily had gone to Pennsylvania with my grandmother for a week. Jake and I were supposed to get the house set up and ready for when she came back. It was another drizzly gray December day, not raining, just kinda pissing on us.

I messed with the strings on my hoodie, waiting for the coffee to finish heating up. I just needed a little caffeine before I went over to Jake’s. Once the coffee hit my system I felt a little more human. The drive to Jake’s felt shorter than usual and I was grateful for that. I was grateful for any small miracles the universe was willing to throw my way at this point.

“Morning.” Jake was entirely too chipper for this morning.

“You’re one of those peppy morning people.” I stuck a little fake sneer on the end of that sentence.

“You’re one of those bitchy non-morning people.” He looked down his long nose at me, keeping a straight face for about thirty seconds before we both burst out laughing. “God, you’re gonna be fun to live with.”

“Don’t talk to me before I have a cup of coffee and I won’t be a bitch to you, I promise.” I had to stop myself from holding out my pinky to him.

“I’ll have to remember that. So do you wanna see the rooms?” I followed him down the hall to the two rooms he said he used as guest rooms.

“This one will be good for Lily. She’ll like the window seat.” I paced it off, seeing the general size so we could see about furniture later. The one directly across the hall from hers would be mine then. Jake’s was next to mine, then a shared bathroom.

A little dog came tearing around the corner and jumped on me, doing its best to lick my face.

“This little girl is Trixy.” Jake laughed, picking her up.

“She’s a friendly doggy, huh?” I scratched her under the chin. “Lily’s gonna be so happy.”

Even though I would have liked to think that Lily was intelligent enough to not stick a knife in a light socket, we still took the time to put covers on all the light sockets and put locks on the cabinets. Then we moved the furniture out of Lily’s new room.

“We can’t do this by ourselves.” Jake pulled out his cell phone and dialed. “Ash? Can you call the guys and tell them to come over? Sky and I need a hand with some of the furniture.” He hung up. “Now we have some free manual labor.”

“I was gonna suggest driving behind Home Depot and picking up some guys, but this works too.” I shrugged. Jake laughed and got on the other side of the dresser. He was pulling, I was pushing. I was pretty sure I had the bad end of this deal. It was a heavy dresser made of dark wood and almost as tall as I was. We pushed it across the hall and into my new room. My arms were sore by the time we got it pushed up against the wall, which tells you how much physical activity I do. I mean, I go to the gym and stuff like that, but I’m no bodybuilder.

“I hope your friends are buff, otherwise we’re screwed.” I whined, rubbing my upper arms.

“Well, you can look for yourself cuz they’re here.” He went to open the door.

Four guys, all tattooed and sporting long dark hair, spilled through the door, followed by a girl with red hair that I knew well.

“Sammi?” I peered at her.

“Hey Sky!” She gave me a tight hug.

“So Jeremy is….” I took a quick look around. “Jinxx?”

“That’s me.” He had a long hooked nose and lips that I couldn’t help comparing to the Joker’s. I immediately felt bad about it.

“Nice to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you.” I said. “Like Sammi never shuts the fuck up.”

“Oh, like you ever do either Sky.” Sammi poked me in the ribs.

“Someone wanna introduce us to the pretty girl?” A tall guy who towered over me with striking blue eyes said.

“Andy, Christian, this is Sky. Sky, the giraffe boy is Andy and the guy with the bandanna is Christian.” Jake said. “You already know Ash, and Jeremy apparently.”

“Nice to meet you guys.” I smiled.

“This is my new best friend.” Ashley wrapped both arms around my waist.

“Dream on Ashley. She likes Batman, we’re clearly meant to be.” Andy pointed at the Batman tattoo on my forearm.

“Okay, quit hitting on her.” Sammi stood up on her tiptoes and kissed my cheek. “If I was ever to leave Jeremy, it’d be for Sky.”

“I feel the love.” I muttered to Jake, who laughed and pulled me out of Sammi and Ashley’s grips.

“I didn’t call you over here to hit on her. I wanted you to help us move furniture.” Jake said. “Now come on manly men, the best way you can impress Sky is with a show of your strength.”

“Way to make me seem unshallow Jake.” I grumbled, following them back in. Sammi and I mostly stood around while they moved furniture around. I was getting really warm even though we weren’t doing anything.

“You must have the heat up on like 90, huh Jake?” I peeled my hoodie off, leaving me in just my tank top. All the guys were looking at me like I’d just done a striptease.

“They must not see girls often huh?” I whispered to Sammi.

“Excuse me, I see plenty of girls.” Ashley smirked.

“Go away manwhore.” Sammi stuck her tongue out at him. “Do you need to pack stuff up at your house?”

“Lily’s room has been all packed, I’m just going through my stuff and…Jules’s.” It sent a weird shooting pain through my heart to say her name. “We should go pick up the boxes and start bringing them over.”

“You guys keep moving furniture around, we’ll be right back.” Sammi almost dragged me out to my car.

“Jesus woman, you’ve had like four Red Bulls today haven’t you?” I turned on the car and backed out of the driveway.

“I’m glad to see you smiling.” She shrugged. “It makes me happy.”

“Thanks Sam. I miss Lily.”

“She’ll be back soon.” She looked thoughtful for a moment. “I’m trying to picture Jake as a parent but I can’t.”

“Are there any bad habits I should know about?”

“He drinks and swears. Not excessive drinking, before you freak out. He’s a good guy.”

“Thanks Sam. Jules just threw me a curveball with this one.” I turned onto my street.

“If Jeremy and I had a kid and we both passed away, I’d want you and Jake to take our kid.”

“Should I feel flattered?” I didn’t feel flattered at all. Freaked out was a better description.

“If you like.” Between the two of us we got all the boxes loaded into my car. It was a tight fit and we’d had to make like 4,000 trips, but it was done.

“Okay, now you guys get to take all the boxes out. I’m done.” I flopped face down on the bed.

“Ditto.” I felt a thump as Sammi fell on the bed next to me. Their footsteps faded away and I heard the front door open.

Literally ten seconds later, someone came back in.

“Sky, we need your keys.” Jake said. I pointed at my back pocket, where my keys clearly were. “You want me to pull them out?”

“Clearly Jake.” I felt him pull on the keys gingerly, finally giving up and putting his hand in the back pocket of my jeans to pull them out. “Now that you’ve had an ass feel, be a darling and get the boxes.”

I’m relatively certain I fell asleep, because the next time I opened my eyes it was dark and there was a blanket covering me. Someone had thoughtfully taken off my shoes and my jeans.

I hoped to God Sammi had stripped me, because I wasn’t wearing my nice underwear today. I was too warm and too comfortable to even think about getting out of bed and going back to the empty house.

Especially since I could hear the soft, unmistakable sound of someone else in the house breathing.
I’d missed that sound.