Shine - Part Seventeen
This episode is part of a larger story, Soft Touch. If you haven’t yet, you can go back and read it from the beginning right here.
“So, we got the marshmallows,” Ralph is saying, looking down at the list on his phone. “Why we need those for a wedding, I don’t fucking know. We still need to go grab some - Noah, stop it.”
“Stop what?” Noah asks, all innocent.
Ralph looks up from his phone with a blistering glare on his face. It’s lost completely on Noah, who goes on dancing in a little circle around him, like they’re hanging out in a nightclub and not in mine and Aiden’s kitchen.
I’m watching Noah from where I’m kneeling on the kitchen floor, suppressing a laugh. One hand hovering over the spread of flowers I was separating from their stems, the other held out to keep Luna back.
Ralph turns his head so that Noah can get an eyeful of his dark, irritated expression. “Are you done yet?”
“Whatever, man.” Noah goes on dancing and bouncing in a circle around Ralph, like there’s a deep bass beat that only he can hear going on in the house. “I’m in a good mood.”
Ralph lets out a deep, aggrieved sigh, then drops his eyes to me.
“Anyways, Jamie, Melanie said to ask you if there’s room in your fridge for us to store some of the - Noah, enough, you fucking nitwit-” Ralph makes a swipe for Noah, who speedily dances out of his reach. “You’re on your wacky shit today, huh?”
“Like I said, bro, I’m in a good mood. I’m having fun.” Noah grins happily at Ralph, then dances closer to him, getting up in his face. “Don’t pretend you aren’t, too.”
Ralph glares at Noah like he could snap him in half, and Noah goes right on dancing.
Then - with the suddenness of someone falling through a door that they’d been trying to force open - Ralph dissolves into helpless laughter. He drops his head instantly, but Noah and I both saw his dark scowl collapse.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Noah laughs, gliding around Ralph in an impressively smooth moonwalk. “Always with the sour face, but he’s having fun.”
“Noosh.” Ralph tips his head back and pinches the bridge of his nose, struggling to get a hold of his expression. “Ugh, dude, we’re on a schedule, we don’t have time for-”
“For what, this?” Noah lifts his arms in the air and sways his hips around. “Sure we do. There’s always time for this, man.”
“Jesus fucking Christ.” Ralph lets out another laugh into his hands, even though it sounds like he’s trying hard not to. “Keane, please help me out.”
I hear the pleading note in Ralph’s voice, like he really is asking me for help. I could swear that he’s not used to laughing and smiling like this around other people, or else he’s wildly out of practice. I have a feeling that’s why he suddenly started scowling instead. That’s more familiar, probably.
Even now, Ralph looks a little bewildered by his own laughter, his own smile.
“Hi, yes, we have room in the fridge,” I laugh, trimming another stem off of a flower. “Bring over whatever it was Mel needed us to store. We also have, um - a cold room, sort of, upstairs.”
“That means we’re gonna have to come back over here in a little bit.” Noah rolls a wave through one arm, then the other, then spins slowly on his heels. “Is that annoying? That we’re making like, our fifth stop here today?”
“Oh, no, you’re fine! People have been in and out nonstop.”
It’s no exaggeration. I was gone all morning, ticking errands off my list, but ever since I came back and started working on the flowers, I’ve had visitor after visitor.
Ripley, Aiden, Noah, Raj, and Ralph have made multiple stops to drop things off, or to briefly regroup and split off into different pairings. Kent showed up to borrow a specific kind of pan for something he’s cooking for the wedding, so Ellen was running around for a little while. Mel and Dahlia stopped in at one point to use our house as a place to reorganize everything they had in Mel’s car, and they brought Nikita with them.
The sun is falling now, bringing an end to a loud, busy, beautiful day.
I know all the disruptions should be bothering me, since I’m trying to work, but I catch myself smiling every time someone lets themselves into the house and calls out a hello to me.
“You, though, you’re a problem,” I tell Luna, practically holding her by her whiskered face to keep her back from the flowers. “Destruct-o-Cat.”
“Just close her in a different room, man.”
“I tried that, Ralph, but this is a weird house, and Luna knows it better than we do.” I poke her nose, and she nibbles gently at my finger. “You close her in a room, you find her following you down the hallway two seconds later.”
Noah shimmies down and forward, puts his face near Luna’s. “You’re keeper of the secret passageways, huh, cat?”
“Mrrrrrrooow?” Luna answers, sitting up on her hind paws to sniff his tattooed face.
“Alright, we don’t have time to be asking cats questions.” Ralph takes a fistful of Noah’s ripped-up shirt, uses it to pull him a step back. “Jamie, just - find a way to distract her.”
“Noah?” I look at him hopefully. “You’re the master. What would you do if you needed to distract someone for a couple of hours?”
Noah shrugs his shoulders, incorporating it into the slow-motion dance move he’s in the middle of. “Give ‘em a tab of acid, set ‘em down in front of a tapestry?”
“Wonderful,” I groan-laugh, rubbing my eyes. “Super good suggestion, dude. Let me just give my cat a tab of-”
I break off hastily as Aunt Sarah steps into the kitchen, holding two neatly wrapped trays.
“Hello, Ms. Aiden’s Aunt,” Noah calls, with a flourishing little salute and bow.
“Hi, Noah,” she laughs, setting the trays down on the nearest countertop, watching as Noah goes on dancing, despite Ralph trying to use his shirt to hold him still. “Oh - and Ralph! You boys come here, so I can see you.”
Ralph takes a few hesitant, uncertain steps towards Aunt Sarah, and Noah bounces after him.
“You two have both gotten so big!” Aunt Sarah tips her head back to look up at them, tossing a strand of her silver hair out of her eyes. “Look at you! All grown up, and so handsome!”
Ralph blinks at her. Noah catches his eye and fixes him with a big grin, and he breaks into a tiny smile, too.
“Hear that, dude?” Noah whispers loudly, elbowing Ralph in the ribs. “We’re handsome.”
Ralph presses a hand over Noah’s mouth, and Luna tries to wriggle out from my arms.
“Aunt Sarah, help me,” I say desperately, catching her just in time. “This cat has unimaginable destruction on her mind.”
“Is that so?” Aunt Sarah gives me a skeptical look, then points to Ralph and Noah. “I had these two running around my house when they were fourteen, Jamie. And all the way up until they were eighteen. There’s no destruction I can’t imagine.”
“Thought you might be mad at us about all that,” Ralph says quietly, beneath his breath.
“More happy to see you doing well, honey.” Aunt Sarah touches a gentle hand to Ralph’s face, gives his cheek a little pat. Ralph stares at her with obvious surprise and relief as she turns back to me. “Jamie, I may have the solution to your problem.”
“What’s that?”
“Hang on, he’s sniffing around the living room - come here, little one!”
I blink in surprise as Nugget comes bounding into the kitchen, panting wildly, his tail wagging. Luna’s eyes instantly flit away from the flowers and right to him. She springs to her feet, then jumps up onto the windowsill as Nugget eagerly comes scrambling over to lick my face.
“Hey, buddy,” I laugh, scratching his soft brown ears. “Is Aunt Sarah watching you tonight?”
“Your mom said she needs to focus, and he was a distraction,” Aunt Sarah explains. “She’s cooking something complicated for you and Aiden to bring to the wedding.”
“Oh, my god,” I groan affectionately, tipping my head back. “I told her not to - she doesn’t have to cook something for a wedding she’s not even going to, even if it’s potluck!”
“You know your mom better than to think that would stop her, sweetheart,” Aunt Sarah chuckles.
Noah’s grey eyes have wandered to a box of long, narrow green leaves on the kitchen counter. “What are these for, Jamie?”
“Noah!” I spring to my feet and hastily wrench the box back. “I told you not to look too carefully at anything, man! The flowers are gonna be a surprise!”
Noah arches a pierced eyebrow. “I mean - I still can’t tell what the fuck you’re doing.”
“Good!” I spread my arms out, as if that could block the whole kitchen from his view. “Now, go get whatever you guys need to put in our fridge. You’re on a schedule, right?”
Noah, who’s apparently not done dancing yet, sweeps Aunt Sarah around in a swift, swirling, waltz-like move - drawing a surprised gasp of laughter from her - and sets her down out of the way of the door.
“Noah!” she sputters, in a tone that suggests he’s about to get told off. And then, as Ralph snatches one of the honey biscuits from the tray she brought in - “Ralph!”
But Noah and Ralph are out through the door in a flash.
Aunt Sarah cups her hands around her mouth to shout into the living room. “You boys get back here right now!”
Noah leans back into the kitchen, seizes two biscuits for himself, then pops a kiss onto Aunt Sarah’s cheek. He stuffs a third biscuit into his mouth, then disappears again before she can react at all.
“Oh, honestly!” Aunt Sarah makes an outraged noise, but it melts into a laugh. “Those two! Hasn’t anything changed at all?”
I smile to myself as I hear a mingled wave of laughter from Ralph and Noah before the front door slams. “Lots, actually.”
“The way they go through food! You’d think I had so many sons, all of a sudden!” Aunt Sarah pauses, lets out another, quieter laugh, then covers up the tray of biscuits again. “These were supposed to be for you and Aiden.”
“Aw, thank you - wait, what’s the tray beneath it?”
“Oh, nothing. I made some treats for the wedding tomorrow, just a little something to contribute-”
“What?” I let out a startled laugh. “No, Aunt Sarah, you and my mom both? You guys didn’t have to make anything!”
“If my s- my nephew is going to be the best man in a wedding, I’m going to contribute something to the food,” Aunt Sarah insists. And then, hopefully - “I already made it, you may as well bring it along.”
“It’s fine, we’re never gonna complain about having more food,” I laugh, setting the tray of honey biscuits aside so I can take the lid off of the second tray. “It’s more just that you didn’t have to go to all this trouble-”
I break off as I get a look at what’s on the second tray. They were covered with a cloth, but when I gently lift it away, I’m looking down at rows of little marzipan sweets. They’re the palest yellow in color, almost white, and rolled in a glittering coating of rocky white sugar. They’re roughly round in shape, but wide on one end and slightly pointed at the other, and each with a sliver of pistachio poking out of the wide end. They look like smooth little mulberries, and they send up a soft scent of rosewater.
“Oh, nevermind,” I say immediately. “Forget what I said before, I’m glad you went to the trouble. Can I try one right now?”
“Save them for tomorrow,” Aunt Sarah laughs.
She crosses to the stove, where I had put water on for tea, and reaches over it to take down two mugs. I turn to find Luna still perched on the windowsill, watching warily as Nugget pads around the kitchen, stiff with age, but with his old puppy enthusiasm.
“Mind if I keep working?” I ask Aunt Sarah, who’s already busy making two mugs of tea.
“Of course, honey, keep going. I know you have a mountain of work to get through.”
I cast her a grateful look, then carefully lift the fabric I was using out from where I hid it behind a cabinet when Noah walked in with Ralph. I spread it out on the kitchen floor and kneel down beside it again.
Aunt Sarah stops when she sees it, then lets out a soft exhale. She leans over it for a silent minute, her eyes traveling slowly over what I’ve done so far.
“Beautiful, Jamie,” she murmurs approvingly, touching a hand to the top of my head.
I smile to myself as she turns back to the tea.
Nugget trots over to investigate what I’m doing. As soon as he sees me surrounded by flowers, he slows down. He spends a lot of time out in the garden with me and my mom, and he knows I’ll be here, doing this, for at least a few hours.
He stretches out on the floor beside me, rests his chin on his paws, and closes his eyes for a nap.
Luna sees that he’s stopped moving around. She hops down from the windowsill, comes over to sniff suspiciously at his face, then seems to realize that he’s soft and warm.
She flops against Nugget and cuddles up, closing her eyes. His tail thumps on the floor happily before he lets out a lazy little snore.
Satisfied that I’m not going to be disrupted for a while, I pick up my glue gun, then run an eye over my work.
Aunt Sarah bends to hand me a mug of tea, then straightens up to have a sip of her own. “You seem nervous about it, sweetheart.”
“Oh, just-” I hesitate, anxiously pushing a hand through my hair. “I’m just trying to do something different. A lot of people prefer more formal, uniform designs for their wedding flowers. And I can produce that, the conventional elegance thing, I’ve done it a ton of times, but it’s - not what I’m doing, here.”
“Good,” Aunt Sarah says firmly. “That wouldn’t suit Noah or his fiancés, would it? That would be too rigid for them. This flows, this is - natural.”
I blink up at Aunt Sarah, caught by surprise, then break into a relieved smile. She smiles back at me, then takes another sip from her tea, leaning back against the counter.
“I mean - is it a formal wedding?” she asks.
“Knowing those three?” I straighten out a corner of the fabric. “The opposite, probably.”
“Well, there we are.”
“Hope these flowers are good to dance around,” I tell her. “Because it’s looking like Noah’s gonna want to dance.”
Aunt Sarah lets out a laugh, shaking her head. “Say what you will about Noah, but that boy has rhythm.”
“I know, he’s good, right?” I laugh with her, adding a dot of glue to the fabric. “He makes me want to dance, too. Apparently we can’t say the same for Raj, though. He dances like someone’s drunk uncle, according to Noah. Which I’m equally looking forward to seeing.”
“I suppose I must dance like someone’s drunk aunt,” Aunt Sarah muses.
Aiden steps into the kitchen, arching a dark eyebrow when he finds me and Aunt Sarah laughing together.
“Um. Hi, Auntie.” He crosses the kitchen and gives her a hug from behind, briefly disappearing her into his giant arms. “So you’re just over here having tea with Jamie? When did this start happening?”
Aunt Sarah and I exchange a look. It’s been happening a lot, actually, now that we live within reasonable walking distance to her house. It’s to the point where I didn’t even think twice about it when she came in here and started filling up two mugs. And she didn’t, either.
“Not - nnnn - not that long ago,” I answer hastily. “And not that often, not like - yeah. Not super often.”
“Right, okay,” Aiden says, seeing through my attempted lie like glass. He huffs out an affectionate laugh, letting Aunt Sarah go. “Guess I should’ve clarified that I’m not complaining.”
Actually, he’s looking at me with obvious warmth in his blue eyes.
“Tell me you’re here to stay, this time?” I ask hopefully, then break into a big smile when Aiden nods.
“Last of the wedding errands are done.” He rolls out his neck, a look of satisfied exhaustion on his face. “Think Ralph and Noah are doing one more lap, and then we’re packing it in. Although I’ve still gotta cook some food for us to contribute.”
“My mom beat us to it. And your aunt did, too.”
Aiden’s gaze drops to the platter of marzipan sweets Aunt Sarah brought over, and he huffs out another warm laugh.
“Thanks, Auntie. You can bring it yourself, though.” He holds up his phone. “Noah just texted me to ask if it would be weird to invite you. He said if it wasn’t, I should.”
Aunt Sarah blinks in surprise, then beams up at Aiden.
“Besides, I’m making my own food for me and Jamie to bring,” he adds. “Kunafa.”
“Oh, yum!” Aunt Sarah’s beaming smile spreads wider. “You can top that with rose petals, you know, it would be very romantic for a wedding-”
“Yep, I was gonna steal some from Jamie.”
“The hell you are!” I call over my shoulder, and Aunt Sarah lets out a soft laugh.
“Better leave you to it,” she says, setting her mug aside. “You know, Aiden, for Kunafa you really should start prepping forty-eight hours ahead, depending on which cheese you-”
“I did, Auntie,” Aiden half groans, half laughs. “I remember how to do it. I’ll text you a picture when it’s done.”
Aunt Sarah smiles warmly and happily, touches Aiden’s cheek, then picks up the tray of marzipan sweets.
“I’ll just - bring these tomorrow, then,” she says brightly, folding her fingers around the tray. “See you there!”
It’s only after she’s gone that I realize she left Nugget here, but I suspect that was on purpose. She knows that moving him would dislodge Luna and cause me instant problems.
Speaking of -
“Psst.” I flap a hand at Aiden, then move slightly out of the way so he can see Luna and Nugget sleeping curled up together. “Look!”
Aiden stares at the three of us for a long moment of wide-eyed silence, then wordlessly slips his phone out of his pocket and takes a picture.
“What-?” I laugh, as Aiden drops his gaze to his phone to look at the photo. “Aiden! C’mon, I look like a mess.”
“Sorry, just…” He stares at the picture, then shrugs, all casual. “Thought I’d send it to Mellie, let her see how things are going over here.”
I roll my eyes at him, trying not to laugh again. “And you say I’m a bad liar?”
Aiden groans deeply, tipping his head back. “I’m sorry, I just - you three look so fucking cute. Holy shit.”
I look like a disaster, actually. I’ve been working on the flowers all day, so my hair is all messy, my flannel rolled up to my elbows and stuck with stray leaves. The t-shirt beneath is all rumpled up, damp in some places with water from the different flower containers. My fingertips are stained green, and probably still will be for the wedding tomorrow.
And I know that I look exhausted.
“Um - thank you,” I tell Aiden. “For your compliments, even if they’re full of lies.”
“S’no more a lie than anything you’ve ever said, Keane.”
I stop and lift my eyes to Aiden, biting my lip as I stare at him. Then I let out a loud groan, dropping my eyes back to the fabric.
“Aiden! I still have a million more things to do on these flowers, I can’t have you distracting me! Don’t get me turned on right now, because I need to focus.”
Aiden’s eyebrows furrow in a baffled way. But he huffs out a laugh, then shrugs his broad shoulders. Muscle shifting beneath his henley, straining the soft fabric of the sleeves just a little.
“Ugh, Aiden!” I toss my hands up in the air. “I told you not to turn me on!”
Aiden, who had just leaned back against the counter and was in the middle of taking a sip from his water bottle, holds out his hands in confusion, like - what did I do?
“You know what you're doing! Walking around here - dressed all sexy-”
Aiden looks down at his henley and jeans. “What-?”
“Oh, actually-” I spring to my feet, then rush to Aiden and catch his hand. “Need your help with something real quick!”
Aiden sets down his water bottle as I drag him out of the kitchen and into the living room, where the big mirror I got at the thrift store is laid out on the floor.
Before Aiden can prepare himself at all, I seize two handfuls of his henley and drag him down to me. As soon as he’s close enough, I let the fabric go and wind my arms around his neck, then kiss him.
A hard, urgent, deep kiss, intense and ferocious.
Aiden is caught by surprise, but he instantly wraps his arms around me, his breath picking up, then catching when I give his lip a hard bite. He backs me up against the wall, and I bury my fingers in his hair, then drop them to steal through his clothes, stroking him until his body is flattened against mine and there’s no room for my fingers -
The mirror shatters behind him, and I break off the kiss, panting.
“Perfect, thank you!” I dart out from Aiden’s arms and snatch the mirror up, careful not to dislodge any broken glass from the frame. “You’re the best!”
“What-?” Aiden follows me back into the kitchen, then lets out a burst of indignant laughter when I start hot-gluing the tiny, broken pieces of mirror to the fabric. “Seriously, Keane? We really better hope the thing about broken mirrors and bad luck isn’t true.”
“Babe, you’re a Guardian.” I look up at him with an adoring smile on my face. “You are luck.”
Aiden stares at me for a second, then huffs out a little laugh.
He slowly comes over and drops down to his knees by my side. Rests a huge, warm hand on my back, watching me work for a quiet moment.
“Why are you doing this in the kitchen?” he rumbles softly, smoothing his thumb over my shoulder blade. “You have that whole room upstairs. Don’t you want more space?”
“But you’re gonna be cooking. I’d be up there, and you’d be down here.”
“Yeah…? So?”
“So…” I shrug, keeping my eyes on my work, scarlet color climbing into my cheeks. “No.”
Aiden is behind me, so I can’t see his expression. But after a moment he tips forward, leans over my shoulder, and brushes a very soft, lingering kiss onto my cheek.
He ruffles my hair as he straightens up, then silently goes over to preheat the oven.
I take a deep breath, trying to sink all of my focus into my work. I’m almost surprised at how easily it happens.
It’s something about knowing that Aiden is nearby. Hearing the comforting clink of him setting out dishes. Feeling the heat of the oven warming the kitchen, countering the cool breeze drifting in through the open back door. The light in here is low, and I was squinting a little, but a few fireflies drift to me after a moment, as if rolled through the air on a breeze. They hover near my hands, every now and then bumping against me and giving my skin a little kiss of warmth.
Luna lazily bats at one, then decides that sleep is more important. She rests her chin on Nugget’s furry stomach and yawns deeply, closing her eyes again.
I look at the fireflies for a moment, then look up at Aiden. He’s already at work, his head bent over the saucepan on the stove. He’s carefully adding lemon zest to it, making some kind of sweet-smelling syrup. His ocean eyes are focused, intent. Peaceful.
I sift through my flowers, then get up and go over to Aiden. I tug on his sleeve, and he looks down at me, then stops when I hold out the rose.
Aiden stares at it, then lifts his gaze to meet mine, his blue eyes full of surprise.
“For the Kunafa,” I explain, for some reason blushing deeply.
Aiden slowly breaks into a sweet, warm smile. He takes my jaw in one huge hand, bends down to kiss me before he takes the rose.
I’m smiling hard as I go back to my work. I pick up another rose and cut it neatly from its stem, breathing slowly and deeply. This is the best environment I can possibly work in, and I need it.
Tomorrow is going to be wild, I know, but also full of love.
With my Companion Plant close, I set about making sure that the flowers come out the same way.
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