How to Love

While Jake was in the shower, I changed into my pajamas (a carefully selected t-shirt and yoga pants) and straightened my room up a little. I didn’t have anything particularly incriminating on display, so I settled for rearranging the small items and making sure the books on my bedside table were stacked neatly. As I was moving things, I realized that I should have dusted a little when I’d had some free time that afternoon, but I hadn’t gotten around to it. I was silently cursing myself when Jake knocked from the opposite side of my bathroom door. “You decent?”

I confirmed that I was dressed and he came in, rubbing his hair with a towel, instantly drying it. He gestured towards the bed. “Which side do you sleep on?”

“Actually, I usually sleep in the middle,” I answered. “I like the crack in between the beds. It’s surprisingly comfortable. But when someone stays over, I usually sleep on the side closest to the window. So if I drift over too close to you, I apologize in advance. I’m usually pretty good about not doing that, though.”

“I sleep in the middle, too,” he kind of laughed. “So if I move too close to you, just kick me and tell me to move my ass over or something.”

“Honestly, you could probably sleep directly next to me and it wouldn’t bother me,” I said. “Once you’ve shared a bed with Alexander, everyone seems like an excellent bedmate. He sprawls out diagonally and ends up pushing me right to the edge of the bed, and just moves the whole night. Plus one night, he got really close to me and muttered something in his sleep about boobs, so I just went and slept on the floor.”

Jake raised his eyebrows. “That’s funny, but also kind of creepy. I don’t want to know what he was dreaming about.” He held up the towel. “Anyway, what should I do with this?”

“You can just hang it on the shower door to dry,” I told him. “I’ll deal with it tomorrow.”

Jake headed into the bathroom and hung the towel up as I’d directed and he returned looking somewhat uncomfortable, clearing his throat. “So this is kind of awkward, but I really don’t want to sleep in my jeans. Do you mind if I sleep in my boxers?”

“Go ahead,” I agreed. I turned away from him and headed over to my closet to grab some spare pillows. “How many pillows do you want?”

“One’s fine,” he said. I could hear him unbuckling his belt and kicking his jeans off. “Are you a cover hog?”

“According to Liz, no,” I shook my head, reaching up to my top shelf to hunt for a pillow. I finally found one, thankful that I’d been able to find one without any cigarette burns on the pillowcase. Matt used to have a bad habit of smoking in his bedroom and dropping his cigarettes on his pillow, thus ruining almost every pillowcase we had. I emerged from the closet, tossing the pillow over to Jake, stealing a glance at his boxers as he caught it. He had really toned legs. “Why, are you?”

“Not in the slightest,” he answered. He sat down on my bed, his weight causing the springs to squeak slightly. “I’ll probably end up pushing them towards you, actually. I overheat pretty quickly.”

“I usually do too,” I nodded. “But the silk is actually pretty cool, though, so I don’t have a problem. Cotton’s the worst for me.”

“That’s surprising,” Jake said. “Silk’s usually hot.” I wondered how many different sheets he’d ever slept on with some other girl, or if he ever had. So far, we hadn’t talked about sex. It wasn’t that we were exactly avoiding it, but it had just never come up in conversation, though I had a hard time imagining him being a virgin. “How dark do you usually keep it in here?”

“Pretty dark,” I replied. “The only light I let in is off the street, which isn’t very much. If it’s too bright, you can face away from the window, and it’s not even noticeable.” I was practiced in that, but mostly in the early mornings when the sun was coming up.

“Speaking of your window, why are there paper towels covering it and not curtains?” Jake asked.

I felt myself blush shyly. I couldn’t quite remember why my dad had taken the curtain rod down and replaced the window coverings with paper towels, though I’d always thought it looked stupid. Still, I’d grown accustomed to it and often times forgotten that it was there. “I don’t really remember. I think it’s from when we got new windows put in and my dad never bothered to put curtains up again. But I’m not entirely sure, it was a while ago. Why, is the light gonna bother you?”

Jake shook his head. “No, not really. I prefer it pitch black, but a little light’s not gonna cause me any insomnia.”

“You’ll probably be singing a different tune in the morning,” I laughed. I walked around to my side of the bed after opening the door to the hallway. I sat down on my side and adjusted my pillows as I liked them before pulling the sheets back and climbing underneath them. “Do you need music or anything to sleep? Some of my friends do.” There was that word again, friends. I should have probably adjusted that sentence to something more accurate, like people I see once or twice a year, but friends sounded casual enough.

“Nope,” Jake said. “Silence is perfectly fine. A little white noise is okay, though. Like the fan or the heater or whatever. That doesn’t bother me.”

“I like to have the TV on as white noise when I can’t sleep,” I said. “If I don’t need to get up early, I might watch an I Love Lucy rerun, but if I really need to go to sleep, I like C-SPAN. Puts you right out.”

“C-SPAN,” Jake repeated like he’d never considered that before, and he probably never had. I’d learned that trick from my dad when I’d had insomnia problems in early adolescence. “I might try that the next time I need to fall asleep fast.”

“Works like a charm,” I confirmed. “Speaking of, you ready to hit the hay?”

“Give me a second.” He slipped under the sheets and got situated, lying on his back. “Sweet Jesus, these sheets are comfortable.”

I clicked the lamp off with a chuckle and laid down. Jake was completely quiet except for some soft, steady breathing. I found myself wondering if he’d already fallen asleep, but then he started talking. “I can’t help thinking this is some sort of test. Like your dad wants to see if he can trust us or something. Maybe he has some kind of powers and he can control the weather.”

I laughed at that. “Yeah, I’m getting the same feeling, though I think it’s really unlikely he’s controlling the snow. But I know he’d never make Alexander or Matt leave their door open if they had a girl over.”

“It’s not bothering me.” I felt Jake shrug, though he was safely on the opposite side of the bed. “He’s just doing his job.”

“He’s a little overprotective,” I told him. “I mean, he’s gotten better since everything with my mom, but before that he was a little ridiculous. I used to have to text him whenever I was out with my friends everytime we were leaving to go somewhere and everytime we got where we were going. If I forgot, God forbid, you’d think I’d robbed a bank.”

Jake laughed. “Well, he loves you. Your brothers, too. You’re lucky your family all looks out for one another.”

“I know I am.” As much as my brothers could get under my skin sometimes and as frustrating as my dad’s behavior could be, I couldn’t imagine not having a close family. It had to be pretty lonely.

“Matt pretty much thinks you’re the shit,” he continued. “Alexander, too. But Matt’s a lot more vocal about it.”

“I happen to think they’re pretty awesome too.” My heart felt warm at the sentiment. “Matt’s more like my buddy, though. Alexander’s a lot more brotherly. He’s the one that taught me how to drive, actually. Matt got too frustrated and my dad was too busy.”

“I can see it,” Jake said. “Matt seems more protective of you, though.”

“Matt does it more jokingly than anything, I think,” I clarified. “I mean, I know that if I ever needed him for anything important, he’d be there in a heartbeat, but Alexander’s different about it. I guess Matt’s more likely to warn me about being cautious and Alexander’s more likely to take action if the situation were to arise. Like Clay’s party for example. Matt told me to keep my eye on my drink-”

“Which you did not do,” Jake interrupted, a smirk evident in his voice.

“Which I always do, except that that was the one rare occasion I forgot,” I scowled. “That’s not the point. Anyway, Matt’s the one always giving me safety tips like that, but Alexander just threatened to beat up any guy at the party that hit on me.” If he only knew about Ryan.

“Well, I’m glad I didn’t really hit on you that night,” Jake scoffed. “I prefer my neck to not be broken. But like I said, you’re lucky your family’s so cool. I’d kill for mine to be like yours.”

“I thought you liked your sister,” I commented with a frown.

“Well, I do like Michelle,” Jake said. “She’s cool. But she has her own friends that she hangs out with, and I’m pretty sure that if I ever asked if I could tag along, all her friends would think I was either a creep or trying to hit on them. Plus there’s the whole comparison thing with my parents. I don’t feel like I need to apologize for not having a 4.0 in high school, or not knowing what I want to do with my life and deciding to put off college until I had some semblance of an idea, or for not having a high-paying job right away, or for not having like nine thousand friends to go out with all the time.”

I was quiet for a moment, just listening to him breathe again. It didn’t sound peaceful, though; now it just sounded irritated. “If it makes you feel any better, I’ll bet you ten tacos that you have more friends than I do.”

I heard him chuckle, his mood lightening almost instantly. “Okay, you’re on. I’ve got four close friends. The rest of them I don’t see much because they either went to college far away or work a lot.”

“I’ve got you beat,” I said. “I have two friends. You and Liz.”

“Who’s your best friend?” he asked teasingly.

“Liz,” I replied without missing a beat. That was a question I never had trouble answering. “You don’t go through all of the shit that we’ve been through together without forming a profound bond.”

“Study buddies is a profound bond,” he muttered as if he was offended. “I’m taking her flowers back.”

I laughed. “Study buddies is a profound bond in a different way. But Liz was there for me through all of the stuff with my mom, and then her mom had her share of health scares too, and then of course there’s all the stuff with Andrea. She just knows me better than anyone and I’ve never had anyone outside of my family care about me as much as Liz has.” I chuckled again. “This is gonna sound stupid, but earlier in the summer I mentioned something about wanting a certain book in passing. Like a month later, Liz and I went out somewhere and when she picked me up, she handed me the book and said that someone donated it to her work and she put it aside and bought it for me. I mean, I only said something about it once. I didn’t expect her to remember. But she did, and I was really touched.” I put my hand over my face. “God, that sounds so sappy and stupid. But she just knows me.”

“I wanna know everything that she does,” Jake said quietly, turning on his side to face me. He propped his head up, resting his elbow on the pillow. I did the same.

“Even the girl stuff?” I joked, remembering the many, many times Liz had taken me to the gynecologist and to several different doctors, even escorting me for blood work and the stupid ultrasound I’d had in December.

“Maybe not that,” he smiled, “but I’d like to know everything else.”

I’d never had anyone outside of my family take an interest in me like that right away. Ryan certainly never had, nor did the boyfriend I had one I was fourteen. Even when I’d first met Liz, we were kind of thrust into our friendship because of Andrea. We’d eventually gotten to know each other through joking and late-night talks, finding that we had a mutual hatred of, well, everything and everyone. Liz was probably my favorite person in the world, but I didn’t have that instant connection with her at first that I seemed to with Jake. I had to admit, there was something that felt really good about someone wanting to genuinely know about me and my life. “Where do you want to start?”

“Tell me about your mom,” Jake requested, and then paused. “Only if you want to, though. I saw her picture on top of the fireplace in your family room, plus you’ve said some stuff about her. I was just curious. She was beautiful though.”

“Up until she got sick, yeah,” I agreed.

“Easy to see where you got it from,” Jake added. I had to wonder where that comment came from, since my mother was the raven-haired picture of perfection with her alluring, dark eyes and fair skin. I didn’t look anything like her, aside from the skin tone. He broke me of my curiosity when his foot found mine under the covers and kicked it playfully. I was thankful that it was dark and he couldn’t see me blush.

“I don’t look anything like either one of my parents,” I declared with a slight headshake. “I actually don’t look like anyone. Everyone in my family has dark hair; mine is blonde. We all have different facial features, too, although Alexander kind of looks like my dad, except he’s got my mom’s eyes. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think I was a product of the Fed-Ex man.”

“Yeah, well, you’ve got your dad’s eyes,” Jake shrugged. That was true; Matt and I had both inherited my dad’s clear, blue eyes. “And you don’t have to have all the same features as your parents. You just remind me of your mom, that’s all. Same smile.”

“My dad used to say that sometimes,” I said. “I used to hate getting compared to her, though. Drove me fucking nuts.”

“I take it you didn’t get along with her then?” Jake asked, furrowing his eyebrows.

“Not really,” I shook my head. “Not until the end, anyway. We never bonded when I was baby. I always had a better connection with my dad. I think she was kind of jealous, because as she used to tell it, when I was born he followed me out of the room when the doctors went to clean me off and just left my mom.” Jake chuckled at that, so I did too. “I just used to butt heads with her over everything. I guess we were too alike to really get along. But once she got sick – she had pancreatic cancer - I felt awful about it, especially when we found out she wasn’t gonna make it. A few months before she died, I used to just sit in the family room with her. Sometimes we’d just watch TV and other times we’d talk about stuff. At first it was mostly about school for me and her talking about her latest doctor’s appointment, but then she started to tell me stories about her and my dad and how they got together and all that. I came to really look forward to those talks though, and just when we were getting to be close, friends even, she passed away.”

“I’m so sorry,” Jake said. At some point when I’d been talking, Jake’s hand had crept to mine and was rubbing the side of my hand with his thumb.

“I am too,” I told him. “I always hated when people said that, though. Especially at the funeral. People I hadn’t seen in years were just saying it to my family and me constantly. Like, are you really sorry? Or are you just saying it because you don’t have anything else to say? And what do I say to that? Thanks for caring?” I rolled my eyes. “And if I respond with what I just said to you, doesn’t that make it seem like I’m wallowing in self-pity about the whole thing? It’s irritating. There’s no proper response to grief.”

“I think you’re over-complicating it,” he said finally.

I scoffed. “Yeah, well, I do that a lot.”

“I could tell that the first time I met you,” he nodded. “You had that kind of energy about you. Plus you struck me as ridiculously intimidating.”

“Intimidating,” I repeated. “How so?” I never thought of myself as an intimidating person. I took myself seriously when it came to anything to do with the funeral home, and true, I could get irritated easily, but that adjective had never crossed my mind.

“Well, you just struck me as really independent and intelligent,” Jake mused. “And you didn’t seem like you cared about whether I liked you or not, which was kind of weird to me at first, but also a turn-on. And then there’s the whole thing about you being completely gorgeous.”

“You think I’m gorgeous?” I was kind of surprised at that. I didn’t think of my appearance all that much, not in terms of attractiveness anyway. I was never quite able to make up my mind as to whether I was good-looking or not, so I didn’t dwell on it. I liked the color of my hair and I was fortunate enough to have near constantly soft and clear skin, getting maybe one zit a month. But I was also short and didn’t like my legs. I wore a size five, had the same hairstyle since I was thirteen, and used a minimal amount of makeup. I was average at best.

“Of course,” Jake said, like he couldn’t believe I’d see myself any other way. “Completely. Why, you don’t think so?”

“Not especially,” I shrugged. “I mean, I don’t think I’m ugly, but they’re not gonna make me Playboy centerfold anytime soon. I just kind of blend in like a background person.”

“I don’t know why you think that, but there’s always somebody who notices the background,” he rolled his eyes with a smile. He was still holding my hand, safe and secure. I wished he’d never stop. “Besides, as I understand it, you’re pretty popular with the guys in the smoking section.”

“The smoking section doesn’t count,” I told him. “They’re all creepy. Plus one of the guys that regularly hit on me was like thirty-five with a wife and kids. And the other had severe psychological problems.”

“I’ll give you that one,” Jake frowned. “That’s kind of fucked up. What about that boyfriend you said you had?”

“Please,” I scoffed. “I was fourteen and we dated for all of three months and then I broke up with him. He was constantly touching me and in my space. It irritated the hell out of me.” Jake immediately stopped rubbing my hand and started to draw his hand back, making me laugh. I put my hand over his, pulling it close. “You’re fine, don’t worry. I just mean that we couldn’t be doing anything without him being all over me. We couldn’t even watch a movie without him practically ending up in my lap. Plus, he was constantly texting me wanting to know where I was and who I was with and what I was doing. That’s just irritating.” I laced my fingers through his. “This is pretty much perfect, though.” He brought our hands up to his face, kissing the back of mine. “So what about you?”

“What about me?” Jake asked. “I’ve never had any boyfriends.”

I laughed again and rolled my eyes. “Don’t be a smartass. I mean girlfriends.”

He hesitated a moment before sighing. “That’s a conversation for another time. Like you said, this is a perfectly nice moment. I don’t want to ruin it with all that crap.” He chuckled at my expression which must have been one of pure worry since my mind was racing. “Don’t worry about it, okay? It’s not a big deal anymore. It would just take a really long time for me to tell you the story, that’s all.

Somehow it seemed to be more serious than he was letting on, but I relented for the moment. “Okay.”

He seemed to sense my displeasure at this. “I promise I will tell you. Just not now. It’s a downer.”

“But-” He cut me off.

“Please just drop it,” Jake pleaded. “I’d literally rather talk about anything else.”

“Fine,” I sighed, realizing that this would be a losing battle. “What would you rather talk about?”

“I don’t know,” Jake said, kicking me. “You think of something.”

“Why didn’t you show any interest in Liz that first night?” I asked. I’m sure he thought that had come out of nowhere, but it was something I’d been wondering about since I’d met Jake at the gas station that night. It felt like forever ago, but it had really only been about two weeks or so.

“I just wasn’t into her,” he shrugged and then backtracked as though he thought I might be offended, like I thought he was insulting Liz. “I mean, don’t get me wrong here. She’s a pretty girl and all, I’m just not into the whole tattoo and piercing thing.” I could understand that. Liz had fairly large gauges, though they weren’t ridiculous, and she did have a tongue ring and a septum piercing, even though I hardly saw her wear that one anymore. Plus, she had about three tattoos which she kept mostly covered, except for when her shirts were lower in the back. “Like I said, you just caught my eye, that’s all. But I do like Liz. She’s very opinionated.”

“That’s an understatement,” I rolled my eyes. That was putting it both mildly and politely.

“Despite the appearance, she’s definitely a flower type of girl, though,” he continued. “Do you think she liked them?”

“I think so,” I said. “I know her. If she didn’t, she would’ve conveniently forgotten them.” I put air-quotes around forgotten. “How could you tell she’s a flower person, anyway?”

“Well, I’ve noticed her wearing flowers in her hair the last few times I’ve seen her,” he started to explain. “Plus she’s got that flower design on her shoulder. I don’t think she’d have those if she didn’t like flowers. Aside from that, she just seems like she appreciates the simple things. Flowers are simple. It was that or chocolate, and she doesn’t strike me as a chocolate person.”

He’d pretty much hit Liz spot on. “You seem to have women down to a science,” I commented, feeling a little twinge of jealousy as I wondered how many women he’d have to date to know so much.

“I have people down to a rough science,” he agreed. “I definitely owe that to Michelle and her various friends, though. But a lot of it is just reading people, and I like to observe.”

“Obviously,” I said. “So, say you’d never seen me drink wine. How would you know I was a wine person?”

“Easy,” Jake said. “You’re seventeen, but you’re more mature than most people I know, so I’d peg you for an old soul, and wine has its place in history. You strike me as a romantic, but not overly so, which I know you’re mentally denying right now, but it’s true. Wine is good for a mildly romantic occasion like that. If you were wildly romantic, I’d say champagne, but you’re not, so wine it is.”

“That was elaborate,” I raised my eyebrows.

“And it gets more specific,” he continued to explain. “I couldn’t remember if you liked the rosé or white, but both are fairly sweet, and in my experience, women tend to like the sweeter wines so I could rule red out. And then I figured I could rule out white because it’s too simplistic looking, and you are far from simple. So rosé it was.”

“You bought all three,” I reminded him.

“I knew your dad would like the red,” Jake said. “I tend to think of red as more for relaxing and mellowing out, and your dad frequently looks like he needs to chill out. And the white I bought because while you’re not simple per se, but you appreciate the simple stuff like Liz does, like paying for dinner. Plus, I could’ve sworn someone liked white. As I said, it’s not an exact science. There’s a lot of room for error, but I’m not usually too far off.”

“Doesn’t seem like it,” I agreed. “You were spot on about all of us. Especially my dad.”

“I’d imagine funeral directing is a stressful job,” Jake nodded understandingly.

“It can be,” I said. “You get some families that are so ridiculously difficult. You get doctors that are complete assholes, and you can get other funeral directors who are so completely pompous, it’s mind-boggling. But I guess you get that in any business.”

“I think Jocko’s is a testament to that,” Jake joked, smiling. “You’ve got chefs who think they’re the best but actually suck, bartenders who think they’re the shit, and impatient waiters. It takes its toll on you.”

“Definitely,” I said. “It gets depressing at times. But it helps to have people around who lighten up the mood.”

“Like Larry the embalmer, right?” Jake laughed. While my dad had his embalming license, sometimes we would have so much business at once that my dad had to concentrate on directing, not embalming. When this happened, we’d call his friend Larry. Larry was peculiar but nice, and always wore Hawaiian shirts and a sombrero while he was working. Jake had met him exactly once, but he thought Larry was hilarious.

“Yeah,” I chuckled with him, adding, “and you.”

“Me?” He seemed surprised.

“Yeah,” I repeated. “You. Seriously, it’s been a long time since I’ve really seen my dad smile or joke around or anything and you pulled that off on your first day. You just seem to put him at ease or something. We can actually have a conversation beyond ‘Hi, how was school?’ and ‘Could you pick up milk after you file that death certificate?’ and ‘Have you heard from your brothers? Is Alexander mad at me? Is Matt making good choices?’ and my personal favorite, ‘Goddamnit, I can’t believe you fired another doorman.’”

Jake choked on a laugh. “I’m sorry, that shouldn’t be funny at all.”

“Go ahead, laugh it up,” I grinned, rolling my eyes. “You try living with a man who goes through a gallon of milk every day and a half. I don’t even know what the hell happens to it.”

Jake and I spent the rest of the night talking effortlessly like that. We discussed families, Jake informing me that his dad was a divorce lawyer and his mom was a gynecologist, or as he so eloquently phrased it, “the doctor that looks at vaginas all day.” He told me stories about his grandmother and how she practically raised him since his parents were always so busy. I told him about having a lot of socially anxiety when I started school as a kid because I was never around other people my own age growing up, and how Matt used to try to get me to socialize and would finally give up when I was on the verge of tears. He had stories about crazy parties and experiences he’d had with his friends, while all I had to offer up in that department was playing cards with Matt, Liz, and Andrea every Tuesday night during the summer while Matt worked the graveyard shift. Finally around four-thirty, we both fell asleep, mostly because we had to wake up early to go to class. If that hadn’t been the case, I had a feeling that we would have talked long into the morning. I wanted to know everything about him, and he seemed to want to know the same about me. Still, we’d have to save it for another night.

When I woke up the next morning, I felt peaceful despite feeling exhausted. As I started to really drift out of sleep, I noticed that I had moved to the middle of my bed at some point during the night, as I’d predicted I’d do. Jake was sleeping right next to me with an arm around my waist and was breathing softly on my neck. Apparently he couldn’t resist the pull of the center of the bed either. I relaxed against him, feeling completely content. But then I caught sight of my clock and had a mini-heart attack when I saw the time. Our psych class was supposed to start in thirty minutes and my alarm had never gone off. I was about to wake Jake up and leap out of bed to get ready when I noticed a note on my bedside table. I picked it up, blinking sleep from my eyes as I started to read Alexander’s unintelligible script.

Dad had me shut your alarm off. The apocalypse is upon us; Tri-High is closed. Fuck that place.

I sighed in relief, stifling a small laugh as I set the note down. Despite the weather the previous night, I was shocked that Tri-C was closed. Even during Hurricane Sandy when no one had had power, they were still open.

I laid next to Jake for a few more moments, enjoying the feeling of his arm across my side. I wished we could stay like that forever, but we’d have to show face eventually. I slipped out from under the covers, careful not to shake the bed too much, and glanced outside. The streets were completely blanketed in white, and the snow was still coming down hard.

I went out into the hallway, tip-toeing over the creakiest floorboards, and headed into the kitchen to get some breakfast. Alexander was sitting at Dad’s usual seat in the kitchen while Dad sat in the family room, glued to the weather report.

Alexander and I exchanged morning greetings while I dug a box of cereal out of one of the cabinets and poured myself a bowl. I took my seat across from Alexander. “Thanks for shutting my alarm off.”

“Sure,” Alexander nodded. “I was shocked that Tri-High was closed. I was convinced that those fucks would still have class if the city was rampant with fire.” I was never sure if he called the school that because it was overrun by stoners, or because approximately half of the student body was comprised of assholes who had never dropped the high school mentality. “Also, I was surprised to see not two lumps, but one in your bed this morning.”

I blushed, flustered. “We must have drifted that way while we were sleeping. When I fell asleep, I was on my side and he was on his.”

“Right,” he said teasingly, as if he didn’t believe me. “You know, I was half expecting to hear the headboard banging against the wall last night.”

I rolled my eyes and threw a handful of cereal at him. “You’re an ass.”

“The biggest,” he agreed with a nod. He picked a few pieces of cereal off of his shirt and ate them. “It’s in the job description.”

“No, I’m pretty sure that you’re supposed to be nice to me,” I shook my head. “You should take a page from Matt. He creates embarrassing situations but doesn’t embarrass me personally. You could learn from him.”

“There’s no fun in that,” Alexander shrugged.

“Whatever,” I rolled my eyes again. “I’m going to eat with Dad.” I picked up my bowl and went into the family room, sitting on the opposite end of the couch as my dad.

“More snow,” he said absent-mindedly. “Guess Jake and Alexander aren’t going anywhere soon.

“Guess not,” I munched on my cereal.

“You could probably go back to bed when you’re done eating,” Dad said. “I’m already caught up on everything, and it’s not like you have school.”

“Yeah, I’ll probably do that,” I agreed. “We were up pretty late last night.”

“Doing what?” Alexander called from the kitchen, and Dad started making kissy faces at me along with him.

I glowered at both of them. “Yeah, real mature. I hate all of you.”