Imperfect Chemistry (14 page)

“Do you like kids?” Katie again.

“I like you,” I answer.

“Why aren’t you married?” she asks.

That’s when Jensen decides to make an appearance, plate in hand. “Is there room for me in here?”

I scoot over and he sits next to me in the booth and starts shoveling food in.

“Can’t stand the heat?” I ask him.

“Sam,” he says, shaking his head and trying to finish chewing the food in his mouth before continuing.

I save him the trouble. “Put a pea in his nose?” I ask.

Jensen looks at me sharply.

“While everyone was saying what they’re thankful for?” I continue.

“How did you know that?” he asks.

“The old food in the nose trick. It’s a classic. My brothers have been doing it to each other since we were kids, trying to see who will break first and get my dad to yell.”

“Can I put a pea in my nose?” David asks.

“No,” Jensen and I say at the same time. We smile at each other before continuing the meal.

After dinner we end up in the living room. The TV is on and football is over. Now we’re watching some Christmas cartoon movie and most of the kids have congregated under blankets and pillows on the floor. I’m on the couch with Jensen, Sam between us. Ken is in the recliner and Tom disappeared with his wife, as they are inclined to do when they have a moment of free time and babysitters aplenty.

Dinner was good, as it always is, and I’m spared having to help with the dishes by a bevy of relatives who insist on providing relief for my mom in the kitchen. 

“Where’s my little Scooby?” Grandma says from the wide entrance into the living room.

“Which Scooby is she referring to?” Sam asks me quietly out of the corner of his mouth.

“How am I supposed to know?” I ask in a normal volume.

We’re spared figuring out drunken Grandma’s request because one of the kids gets up off the floor and runs to her.

“She literally had six martinis at dinner,” Sam says.

“How is she still alive?” Jensen asks.

“The world may never know,” Sam says, shaking his head. “Ken has a theory that she’s a reanimated corpse.”

“Sam!” I scold.

“What?” He looks offended. “It’s Ken’s theory, not mine!”

A snore emanates softly from the recliner.

“Speaking of the devil. He’s out!” Sam says, again in sotto voice.

“How, exactly, are you planning on getting him into the car?” Jensen asks, whispering.

Sam turns towards him and I can hear the grin in his voice. “You look strong.”

***

“I can’t believe you’re making me film this,” I say.

“Just shut up and get ready,” Tom says from the driver’s seat. I’m in the front passenger seat of his sedan, sitting next to him with a smart phone in camera mode, trained behind us. They’ve placed Ken in the middle of the backseat, Jensen on one side, Sam on the other.

Ken’s still miraculously asleep. He’s been this way since he was a child, according to my parents. He’ll sleep anywhere and it’s nearly impossible to wake him once he’s out. Add to that the tryptophan from the turkey and the fact that all my brothers have been drinking since lunch, and you have a recipe for disaster. Or a possibly the best prank ever.

We start at the end of the street, Sam insisting on gathering as much speed as possible.

“You guys ready?” Tom asks.

“Yep,” Jensen says.

“Ten-four,” Sam says.

I sigh.

Tom grins at me and starts driving the car down the road, gathering speed as we go before careening down the driveway and braking suddenly, sending everyone jolting. That’s when we all start screaming.

Ken is lurched awake to a car full of screaming lunatics, now only inches from the closed garage door.

“What the fuck!” he yells, his eyes wide and panicked and all caught on film.

The boys immediately start laughing and as soon as Ken realizes what they’ve done and that the car is no longer in motion, he starts doling out punches to arms and legs. Jensen and Sam attempt to restrain his flailing limbs in between bouts of laughter.

Then Dad opens the driver’s door. “What are you kids doing?”

Tom is laughing too hard to respond, so I hold up the phone. “We caught it on camera. Want to watch?”

Science never solves a problem without creating ten more.

–George Bernard Shaw

After the prank, we all head back inside and share the video with the rest of the family. After that, there’s more talking, dessert and coffee. Only when the kids have all passed out on the living room floor and wherever they could cram on couches, do people start to leave.

I hug all of my
brothers good-bye. Ken is still a little upset about the whole car thing, but he seems to be getting to the point where he can laugh at himself, too.

After saying goodbye to a multitude of relatives and getting ready for bed, I’m upstairs reading when Mom comes in to say good night.

“Did you have a nice time, honey?”

“Yes.” I put the book face down on my lap. “It was good.”

“How about Jensen?”

I frown. “I think so.”

She nods. “You might want to check the usual places in his room before he goes to bed. He doesn’t know how sneaky your brothers can be.”

“I think he’s getting the idea.”

“Plus, it gets colder in the den since it’s over the garage. You should bring him some extra blankets in case he gets cold.” She walks in the room and sets a folded blanket down at the foot of my bed.

“Okay,” I say. Is my mother encouraging me to go see Jensen by myself in a room with a bed at night? What is this world coming to?

She leaves with a smile and a good night and I sit there for a second, dumbfounded. They must really like him. I should probably disabuse her of the notion that we’re together, because that’s obviously what she’s thinking.

I get out of bed and grab the blanket and head down the hall to the den.

The door is slightly ajar, and there’s a light on. I knock gently before opening the door.

He’s sitting on the side of the bed, looking down at something in his hands.

“Hey,” he says, smiling at me. He’s back in his flannel pajama pants and the soft gray shirt from last night.

“I brought you an extra blanket,” I say. I don’t want to lurk in the doorway, so I walk in and sit next to him on the bed, setting the blanket next to me. “What are you doing?”

“Looking at postcards. I found them in the bottom of my bag where I’ve been throwing them and trying to forget they exist. Liam has been sending them to me since he left.” He hands me the stack of cards and I take them carefully. They’re photographs that have been turned into post cards. There’s the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, and other various locations around Europe. But they all have one glaring thing in common.

“What’s the orange circular object in all the photos?”

It looks like a small bean bag or something, but with eyes.

“That is the orange head.”

“Orange head,” I repeat.

He smiles. “Have you ever seen the movie
Amelie
? It’s a French film.”

I shake my head. “No.”

He takes a deep breath before continuing. “It’s about a woman named Amelie. After her mom dies, her dad is kinda reclusive. He’s never travelled, but he’s always wanted to. Amelie has a friend who’s a stewardess, and Amelie gives her a garden gnome from her dad’s front yard. The stewardess takes pictures all around the world of the gnome in different countries at various famous sites, and Amelie leaves them for her dad to find.”

“Okay.”

“The orange head is our garden gnome. But really, it’s Liam trying to make amends.”

“For Chloe?”

“Yeah.”

“Is it working?”

“I don’t know.” His eyes meet mine in the dim light, and a frisson of tension pulses in the air between us.  “You’re really lucky,” he says, changing the subject. “Your family is amazing.”

I’m surprised, after all the pranks and shenanigans that have been going on all day, that he would be able to express anything positive about them.

“They’re a little over the top,” I say.

“But they love you.”

“Yes. I’m sure they do.”

“They stole a snow plow to come get you,” he reminds me.

“That is true. But I’ve always felt out of place with them. They’re loud and spontaneous. All of the pranks they pull…they’re very ridiculous. It’s like I was adopted.”

“You shouldn’t worry about being out of place. They’re your family and they love you. Just be yourself.”

“I couldn’t be any other way.”

He watches me for a second with those dark eyes that only look green in the light, and I suppress a shiver.

“You really couldn’t be any other way.” His hand is on my knee and he’s facing me. “It’s one of the things I really like about you. There’s no prevarication. No deception. No hiding what you’re thinking. Except for that whole thing with Tony, but even then…”

His hand on my knee begins to travel upward. I don’t quite realize I’m leaning towards him until I’m so close I can see the small crease in his bottom lip. He inclines in my direction and I shut my eyes, waiting.

He lets out a small groan and leans back.

“We can’t,” he says.

My eyes fly open in time to see the expression of frustration on his face.

“We’re in your parent’s house and…They’ve been so great, you should probably leave. Because I know what happens when we kiss and we can’t do that here.” He scoots away from me, towards his pillow. “I’ll just sit on my hands over here and you should run away. Quickly.”

I can’t help the grin that grows on my face. Now, I feel slightly better about my own loss of control around Jensen since it seems he shares the same difficulty.

“Quite the gentleman,” I tell him as I stand.

“Yep.” He’s not looking at me.

“Good night,” I say, hand on the doorknob. “Watch out for mousetraps when you’re putting your hand in drawers. Or under your pillow. Or anywhere a mousetrap can fit.”

He gives me a bemused smile. “Okay.”

I watch him for a brief moment. He looks so enticing in the bed with his rumpled hair and dark eyes. I force myself to look away before stepping into the hallway and shutting the door gently behind me.

Once I can’t see Jensen anymore, and I’m safely ensconced in my childhood room, my brain starts whirring into action. This means he likes me, doesn’t it? Well, I’ve established that I like him, but what does he think? He’s never stated anything specific. Am I just a product of convenience and proximity, or is this going somewhere?

Oh dear. I’m turning into a girl.

I shove the emotion-fueled thoughts out of my mind.

Does it really matter? The most important part of this is that I’m happy. He’s happy. I’m having fun. I’m accomplishing precisely what I set out to obtain – emotions. I like that Jensen fits in well with my family. He goes along with their absurd antics, he’s a gentleman in my mother’s house, and he’s fun to be around.

I climb into bed, moving the sheets aside, pausing for a moment to remove a plastic piece of fake vomit and toss it on the dresser.

Actually, I feel a little remorse about my own judgmental attitude towards my family and their antics. Jensen thinks I’m lucky; as a matter of fact, he wishes he had a family as ridiculous as my own. Maybe…maybe they aren’t so ridiculous.

Nothing shocks me. I’m a scientist.

–Indiana Jones

The day after Thanksgiving, we have a giant breakfast of fruits, meats, bagels, and almost any other breakfast food you could possibly imagine because my mom can’t do anything by half. After that, Jensen is loaded down with leftovers—for some reason, I get nothing—and we are loaded into Sam’s truck to be taken home.

The plow was returned to its rightful owner at some point the day before, and the roads have been mostly cleaned. The snow has melted enough that the streets are drivable.

Sam drops us off in front of the duplex and takes off, leaving us alone on the porch.

“Well.” Jensen shrugs
his backpack on. “I guess I’ll see you later?”

“Yes,” I say, while searching for my keys in my bag. “Bye,” I call out over my shoulder before unlocking my door and entering my side of the duplex.

I’ve just tossed by bag on the couch and I’m checking the power—it works, thankfully—when there’s a knock at the door.

I open it and Jensen is standing with his hands in his pockets, rocking back on his heels.

“So,” he says. “Do you have any plans later?

“I just got home, how could I have made plans already?”

He laughs. “Right. Would you like to come over for dinner later? I have some delicious leftovers.” He offers with a shrug and a smile. “Maybe we could watch a movie?”

“Okay.”

“Okay. So at like five?”

“Okay.”

“Okay, I’ll see you then.” He steps backwards and nearly trips over a slightly raised board in the deck and then laughs at himself.

I smile, but I feel a little confused by the whole conversation and I shut the door before he gets back into his place.

That was weird. Was he nervous? 

***

I spend most of the day catching up on my e-mails and cleaning. I’m ready and hungry by four thirty, so I head over to Jensen’s.

He answers the door and says, “You’re early,” before stepping back to let me in. It’s still cold outside, and he shuts the door quickly. The mattress is no longer in the living room, but there’s still a fire going in the fireplace.

I shrug. “I didn’t have anything else to do, and I’m hungry.”

“I’ve never looked forward to leftovers so much in my life. Your mom is an amazing cook.”

“I guess when you’ve raised four boys you learn how to cook big meals.”

“Make yourself comfortable,” he says. “I’m going to throw our plates in the oven.”

“Okay.” I sit on the couch. There’s a DVD case on the coffee table. I pick it up.

“Is this what we’re watching?” I call out.

He sticks his head out of the doorway separating the kitchen from the living room and grins. “Yep.”

We watch the movie, eating our leftover plates in the living room and sitting on the floor.

When it’s over, Jensen shuts it off and turns to me. “So?”

We couldn’t talk much while it was playing since it’s subtitled.

I think it over a little. “I liked it. I liked that Amelie is an introvert, but it doesn’t stop her from trying to help people. It made me feel happy for her, at the end. It’s interesting how movies instigate emotions in us.”

“She reminds me of you,” he says. “Her curiosity, her need to understand and help others. Her eyes.”

I’m not sure how to respond so I stand and start cleaning up. I help him put the dishes in the dishwasher, a task we do mostly in silence, only breaking it occasionally to discuss various parts of the movie and then we end up back in the living room.

“Can I ask you a question?” I ask, when we’re seated next to each other on the couch, our knees only inches apart.

“Of course.”

“You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”

“Well, if I don’t want to, then I won’t. Go ahead.”

“Will you tell me about Chloe?” I ask.

He stretches his legs out in front of him and leans back a little on the couch next to me, settling in. “What do you want to know?” he asks.

“Anything you’re willing to share.”

“More of your research?” he asks.

“Partly,” I admit.

He searches my eyes for a long moment and then nods. “We grew up together. We lived next door to each other, and when we were little, our parents would put us together if one of our nannies was sick.” He shrugs and takes a breath and thinks for a few seconds before continuing. “I used to find frogs in the pond in front of my house and try to scare her with them, but she would just pick them up and put them back outside and scold me for taking them from their home.” He laughs at this. “Then when we started school, we were best friends until around middle school. That’s about the time when we both started finding friends our own gender, and hanging out so much became a little awkward. But, we were still friends, and then it just…changed into something more.”

I can see that he’s thinking again and I stay silent, waiting for him to continue.

“I was fourteen and we went to the beach house. Her parents own a house in Northern California, right on the ocean. It was the summer before our sophomore year of high school, and it was the first year she wore a bikini. That’s when I noticed she was turning into a woman and was no longer the annoying girl who used to make me attend all her goldfish funerals. She was no longer a child or a gawky middle-schooler. At some point between eighth grade and age fifteen, we both changed. I remember thinking she was beautiful.”

“That’s when you started dating?”

“No.” He smiles at me. “I had to chase her a bit. But we were friends, good friends. And then one night after a school dance, we were making nachos in her kitchen and I kissed her.”

I wonder for a minute what that would be like. Having someone so close to you and then falling from friendship into romance. I can’t really picture it.

“When did you know that you loved her?” I ask.

He sighs and leans his head back against the back of the chair, looking up at the ceiling. “You see, that’s the weird thing. Looking back, I’m not sure I ever did. At least, not in the way a man should love a woman he’s dating. I still love her, and I will always care about her, despite everything, but it’s more like how you feel for a sister or something.”

“But at the time, you thought you were in love with her?”

“Oh, yeah. The thing with Chloe though, there was always some part of her she held back. It felt like…like she didn’t fully trust me or something. I don’t know how to explain it. I showed her everything, every bleak and broken part of myself, but there was always something missing on her side.” There’s a pause and then he says, “Her dad died when we were sixteen. It was tough, for a long time. Her mom became really controlling, not wanting anything to happen to the only person she had left and it sort of smothered her. Eventually, Chloe wanted to find a way to escape and she sent out all kinds of signals that she needed help, but I was too caught up in my own life and my own problems to pay attention. But Liam noticed.

“And that wasn’t the only part of our problems, really. I think that we were together for so long, I didn’t know how to be by myself. We both probably didn’t know how to be alone. And our parents were ecstatic about us being together. They practically planned the wedding when we were born. Her dad loved me, and then he died and neither of us wanted to disappoint anyone. Then, with Chloe and Liam…” He stops and clears his throat. “When everything changed it was—” he breaks off. “I don’t know. I hope that Chloe really loves him and that she wasn’t just looking for a way out.”

“A way out of what?”

“Us. Her mom. Her life. Everything.”

I think about what he’s said. It would be strange, to be so close to someone, but not. “If her feelings for you had changed, why didn’t she just tell you?” I ask.

“Very good question. But that’s the thing, I don’t think her feelings had changed. I don’t think she ever loved me. And looking back, I think she was terrified to hurt me and to disappoint her mom. But of course, it ended up being much worse than just breaking up. I lost my two best friends in one fell swoop.”

“You don’t think you’ll be friends again, someday?” I ask.

He shrugs. “I don’t know. I hope so.”

We’re both quiet for a second and he shifts a little,
leaning towards me.

“Your turn.”

“Okay.” I clasp my hands together in my lap and wait for his question.

“You’ve never been in a serious relationship?” he asks.

“No. I’ve never been in any relationship.”

“What about the science camp guy you told me about before?”

“What about him?”

“You said you’d kissed him.”

“Yes. It wasn’t serious. There were no emotions involved, it was purely experimental.”

“And?”

“And nothing.” I shrug. “We were both curious about kissing and other things and we tried it. It was very clinical and scientific.”

“That sounds horrible.”

“It wasn’t great,” I agree.

“Wait. Other things? What ‘other things’ did you do?” He seems fascinated. Since he’s shared so much of himself, I suppose I can give him this. It doesn’t bother me to share.

“You know,” I say. “Intercourse.”

His mouth drops open. “You had sex with him?”

“Yes.”

He stares at me, open mouthed, before leaning back on the couch. “So, you just slept with him?”

“Yes.” I repeat. “It wasn’t a big deal.”

“I guess not.”

He seems upset, but I’m not really sure why.

“It doesn’t bother you?” he asks finally.

“What?”

“That your first time wasn’t with someone you, you know, love?”

“I’m twenty years old and I have yet to fall in love. If I waited for that, I could be waiting forever. Besides, you just admitted you never really loved Chloe. So really, we’re no different.”

He’s silent at that. I’m watching him, but he’s not meeting my eyes.

“Jensen,” I say finally.

His wary gaze meets mine.

“You were with Chloe for,” I remember his words and do the math in my head quickly. Fifteen to twenty-one. “Six years. You had sex, right?” I can’t believe I’m asking this questio
n. Of course they did. Even I—socially stunted as I am—know that people don’t engage in a romantic relationship for that long without having sex.

He still doesn’t say anything. He puts his hands over his face and takes a deep breath before removing them and looking straight at me.

“No,” he says. “We never had sex.”

Now it’s my turn to be shocked.

“We did other things,” he adds, but it barely registers.

“No,” I say.

“Yes.”

“But you’ve had sex since your relationship terminated, right?”

There’s a very brief pause. “No.”

“But, what about Law School Lothario?” I ask, louder than I intend to.

“What?” He chuckles.

“Freya told me you’ve been a total playboy since you and Chloe broke up. So much so that you’re known as the Law School Lothario. And how could…how could you have been together for so long and…it just, it doesn’t make sense.” The next words shoot out without running through the filter that supposedly exists between the brain and the mouth. “How could she resist you?”

He smiles at that and leans back against the couch, arm stretching out on the top of the sofa behind my head. “Well, when you put it like that.” He offers me a charming grin.

“But you must have been with someone since Chloe.”

“No. Well, I went on a couple of dates, but nothing happened.” He sighs and his head thumps back against the couch. “I can’t believe I told you that.” His grin slips and he leans towards me, arm still behind my head, fingers now brushing my hair.

I shake my head. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of. I’m just surprised.”

“Chloe told me, when she told me about Liam, that she never felt the way about me that she feels with him. She’s always thought of me as a brother, and I guess you don’t want to have sexual relations with brothers.” He gives me a pointed look.

“Definitely not.”

“Whenever things got physical between us, she would pull away and I didn’t mind, we were so young when we first got together. And then her dad died and we were almost never affectionate with each other. I mean, not in a sexual way. She needed someone to hold her more than she needed sex.”

He chuckles softly and leans his head back on the couch, looking up towards
the ceiling. “Ah, man.”

“What’s humorous?”

“This is probably the most emasculating conversation I’ve ever had in my life.”