Slow Burn Part 22

Well, fine. I'd much rather finish my Biology report, anyway.

Chapter 20.

"Oh, my G.o.d. What are you doing to that onion?"

Dean looks up from the cutting board, holding the knife at an awkward angle. "Chopping it."

I stare at the mangled mess he's made. The whole kitchen smells strongly of onions, and my eyes start to water. "That's not chopping. That's, like, onion murder. I'm not putting that mess in my omelet."

"I told you, I'm no good in the kitchen," he says.

Dean Youngblood is in my kitchen. I seriously forgot he was coming over, and was in the process of making myself an omelet. I'm wearing the skintight shirt I've had since I was seven-and can't bear to get rid of because it still plays the "Little Red Monkey" song when you press the banana-and my enormous Aunt Flo shorts. It's got giant red flowers on it, and I could smuggle a toddler in it, no problem. What possessed me to answer the door dressed like that, I'll never know. I won't even talk about my hair.

Look how cute Dean is, standing there. Of course, there's no disputing he's gorgeous-but cute? I don't think I've ever mentally applied that term to him before. But he is cute now, looking around uncertainly. What does he think of my tiny hobbit house? Must seem pretty shabby compared to what he's used to. And judging from his extreme lack of culinary skills, I'm betting he's never had to prepare his own meals in his life. Sad.

"You can get the leftover chicken fajitas out of the freezer. It's in a Ziploc bag," I tell him. Then I hold my hand out. "Now give me that knife before you hurt yourself. Oh, and prepare to be dazzled by my incredible onion-chopping skills."

Dean twirls the sharp knife in his hand in an impressive display of dexterity. He tosses it in the air, deftly catches it by the handle, and offers it to me with a slight smirk. "In the freezer, you said?"

I smirk back at him, raising my eyebrows. "Yes, ninja boy. Watch how you open the door, though-sometimes the ice trays fall out."

Under my close supervision, Dean mixes the ingredients together, and makes a perfectly edible chicken fajita omelet. We sit down at the table, and I can tell he's prepared to eat in perfect silence, but I ruin that plan by reminiscing about childhood friends. I almost choke on a fajita when Dean tells me about Aaron Davies, his former partner in crime (and a huge perv), is a father of two little girls-and currently serving time for grand theft auto. I wonder if his parents, both big-shot lawyers, represented him in court?

"It's almost eleven," Dean finally says with a glance at his rugged black watch. "We should probably start working on our project."

"Actually," I begin, then pause to take a sip of my diet c.o.ke. "I've already completed the outline-and I talked to Heather and Nick about helping us out, since they've both got that period free. How awesome am I?"

"I don't know," he says warily, sitting back. "Let me see the outline."

"Sure, let's go up to my room."

I try to tell Dean he can leave the dishes in the sink and I'll get to them later, but he ignores me and cleans up after the both of us. So, hm, he's not totally clueless. Must've picked that habit up at military school. It's weird to see him do something so domestic as loading up the dishwasher. Weird, but kinda hot. If his fangirls could see him now, I bet their hearts would melt like b.u.t.ter.

Dean follows me to the stairs, but pauses at the first step. I turn back to look at him, curious.

"Is your mom home?" he asks abruptly, rubbing his chin.

I roll my eyes. "Uh, of course not! You wouldn't be here if she was. She's working the night shift at the hospital. So if you're worried she's going to pop out at you from somewhere-don't."

A thought occurs to me, and I pause at the top of the short flight of stairs. "Um, so where's your mother? Do you get to see her often?"

Dean seems to freeze for a second. His expression is unreadable when he replies. "She's in Seattle, and I haven't seen her in seven years."

"Seriously?" I frown down at him. "Why? Seattle's not that far away, if you wanted to visit her."

His face closes off. I don't think he's going to say anything, but then he shrugs his broad shoulders. "She's not allowed to see me."

"What? What do you mean?"

"My dad." Dean's voice is completely emotionless. He stares past me, over my shoulder. "He gave her a lot of money to stay away from me-at least until I turn eighteen."

"And she took it?" I blurt out, horrified.

A corner of his mouth crooks up in a wry smile. "My father can be very persuasive."

I grasp the banister of the staircase, and forcibly swallow the biting adjectives that come to mind for a woman who would choose money over her son. Dean watches the struggle on my face, and seems to accurately interpret my unvoiced opinions. I'm sure it looks like aliens are trying to escape through my eye sockets. Fortunately, he looks more amused than offended. I would never call anyone's mother a greedy b.i.t.c.h. Not to their face.

I clear my throat, and search for something neutral to say. "Do you want to see her?"

Dean steps onto the landing with me, so that he's once again, much taller than me. "Someday, maybe," he says with another small shrug. He pointedly looks away in a not so subtle hint that he doesn't want to talk about it.

Curiosity has me asking another personal question. "Do you get along with Johnny's mother?"

"Yeah, we do alright. She's nice."

I open my mouth to something, but then snap it shut again. It's not my business. Instead, I turn down the short hallway to my bedroom. "This way," I say over my shoulder.

I walk into my room (mostly clean, since I'm no slob), but Dean pauses at the threshold. At first, I think he's weirded out about being in his step-brother's ex-girlfriend's room-but then I see the bemused, trying-not-to-be-horrified look on his face.

Oh, I forgot. My room's kind of...a lot to take in. Johnny's been up here, of course, but I used to tone it way down before each of his visits. It slipped my mind, this time.

"My room is my sanctuary," I say defensively, watching Dean try to take in everything at once. "Don't judge me."

Okay, so I love carousel horses. There's an army of plush ones on my window seat; miniature carousels-thirty-seven in all-sit atop every available surface in my room-my desk, the shelves running along two walls, my bookcase...I've got a small carousel lamp, and an adorable carousel alarm clock that plays tinkly circus music when the alarm goes off. I've painted carousel horses on my walls, and the little ones I've carved vie for s.p.a.ce on my dresser.

I can practically hear the psycho stabby music playing in Dean's head as he carefully examines my precioussses. He picks up one of the carves ones-Willow. She's got tiny amethysts for eyes, and smells like oranges because she's closest to the side of the bookcase which I regularly clean with Citrus Blast Deep Cleaning Solution.

"You made these?"

Willow looks especially little and delicate in Dean's big hand. He holds her carefully, turning her to study the intricate curlicues that I painstakingly shaped as part of her mane. If he looks too closely, he'll see the little heart on her left flank where I carved my initials. I resist the urge to s.n.a.t.c.h Willow out of his hand, clasping my own behind my back.

"These are great," he says finally, gently setting her back down.

"Thanks," I say quickly. "My dad used to take me to Queensberry park every Sat.u.r.day to ride that huge indoor carousel. They had a carving cla.s.s in the same building. This old retired guy named Beavis taught us how to make the horses. It's fun. I make them for the kids at the rec sometimes...they seem to like them. You think I'm a huge freak now, right?"

"No." A slow smile curves the corners of his mouth upwards. "I think you like carousel horses a lot."

"Um...yeah." I smooth back my hair self-consciously. "My dad and I-we were gonna try to make a life-sized one, but we never got around to it." I decide to change to subject. "So, I started on the script...let me just get my computer on. It takes forever to boot up."

I sit at my desk, tapping my fingers impatiently as my old computer hums to life. Dean stands behind me, leaning forward slightly. I try not to notice how good he smells, or how close he standing to me. Chills dance across my back, making me shiver a little-and I get that itchy exposed feeling between my shoulder blades. It's not like he's breathing down the back of my neck. It suddenly hits me that him being in my bedroom is really kind of weird.

I'm taken off guard by a sudden surge of guilt. Is it inappropriate for Dean to be here, considering the aberrant l.u.s.tful thoughts I've entertained about him one-maybe five-times?

Just as quickly, I shrug the thought away. So Dean's really good-looking-of course I've noticed. Not like I'm dead, right? Man, and I need to focus.

Shaking my head to clear my thoughts, I concentrate on finding the file for our English project. I click it open, then I move out of the way so Dean can look it over.

He does so swiftly, using the mouse to scroll down the page. "What's with all the one-liners?" he asks after a brief silence.

"I don't know-sometimes when I'm really tired, I think I'm funny. I can change it, though. I can totally be serious."

I cross my arms over my chest, and suddenly a gleeful little voice sings, "Look at the monkey, funny monkey!"

Well, that is unfortunate timing. You know, drawing attention to your shirt is fine when you're seven-but it's a whole different matter when you've got b.o.o.bs-and a guy like Dean is looking in that vicinity. d.a.m.n it, shut up, monkey!

"So, hey," I begin once the song is over. "How about you write the dialogue? You can use my notes as an outline."

He tears his gaze from my chest, and back to the computer screen. "Are we pretending that didn't happen?" he mutters.

"Yes, let's." I hunch my shoulders sheepishly. "In fact, can we forget about how I'm dressed right now? I forgot you were coming over today, but I didn't want you to know-which is why I didn't change my clothes. Anyway, the damage had been done, let's move on."

"Sure," Dean agrees easily enough, but I can see him trying to suppress a smile.

We talk a little more about the project, arguing a little over some of the details-but mostly he lets me have my way. Then we sort of get sidetracked talking about my carousel horses. He looks at all of them and asks lots of questions about the carving process. Seriously, it's like asking the cat lady what all her cats' names are.

It's a little after one when I follow Dean out to his car. I can't believe I didn't even bother to keep track of the time. I'm usually very serious about my sleep time-I'm one of those people that need their eight hours.

"I have to get up in five and a half hours," I say, appalled.

He's behind the wheel of the Pontiac, its engine idling in a throaty purr. "That's plenty of time," he replies, sounding almost teasing. "Thanks for the cooking lesson."

"No problem. You didn't totally suck."

Dean tilts his head back and laughs. "I guess that's the most I can aspire to, huh?"

I grin back at him. "Well, I'm not going to lie to you. But you do have potential. You should practice-make yourself breakfast once in a while."

"I'll keep that in mind. See you tomorrow, Juliet."

"Later, bro," I return, with a wink and a double gun.

I can't believe I just did that. I don't know why I did. I've never double-gunned in my entire life, and I may have winked as a child, but...did I just call Dean "bro?" Where did that even come from?

Fortunately he doesn't comment, and it's too dark to see his expression as he puts the car into gear. That's probably for the best. Oh, well, he's seen my room-it doesn't get much creepier than that, I guess. I hope he doesn't tell Johnny.

Strange, but I don't feel tired at all. So Dean can laugh without his head exploding, good to know. He should do it more often-laugh, I mean. It's a great sound-sort of a s.e.xy honey and whiskey rumble-and it almost makes him seem approachable. I had fun hanging out with him tonight, I realize. But we'll wait and see before busting out the bff bracelets. I don't give those to just anybody, you know.

I push the banana on my shirt, and mumble along to the monkey song as I wander back inside.

Chapter 21.

"Just so you know, I didn't vote for her," Tanya says, her dark eyes serious.

We're watching yet another video in Bio-this one about Mendel and his Laws of Inheritance. It's kind of interesting, but like half the students in cla.s.s, I'm finishing up my homework for another cla.s.s. Mrs. Sepulveda is standing behind her desk, motionless. There's a wispy smile on her face, though, so I guess she's okay.

Tanya is turned all the way around in her desk to face me. She's let her sentient hair loose today, and her wild curls spring joyously around her head. I think her curls are scary as s.h.i.t, but when I asked Nick if he knew Tanya, he frowned and said, "The chatty chick with the s.e.xy hair?" s.e.xy? Boys and girls really must have completely different thought processes.

Back to Tanya.

"Vote for who?" I ask her, barely looking up from my notebook. I have to stifle another yawn. I'm so tired!

"You know...Dani! I hear she's a shoo-in to win homecoming queen, though." She tilts her head sympathetically. "And everyone knows Johnny will be king."

Yeah, I know. It's spirit week here at Leclare, and it's really obnoxious. On Tuesday, a banner came down on my head on my way to my locker, and a herd of chanting cheerleaders almost took me out when I was coming out of Government this morning.

I've been trying to ignore the whole king and queen thing, despite Kara doing her best to throw it in my face every chance she gets. Johnny avoids talking about it, and I certainly don't want to discuss it. What am I gonna do, demand he drop out of the running? I have to admit, though: the thought of them being crowned as a couple-it burns a little.

I try to compose my expression when I look at Tanya. "Are they going to announce the winners at the pep rally, or tonight at the game?"

"Oh, they do it during half time." Tanya tries to run a hand through her curls, and grimaces when one of them bites her. "Are you going to go?"

"Nope, I work."

"Surely you could miss one day! It's such an important game-and you really should be there for Johnny."

I shake my head and stare down at my papers. "I can't, and it doesn't matter because we broke up. We're just friends now."

"Well, are you at least going to the dance tomorrow? It's gonna be epic! My friend, Jamie is on the committee, and she said they're going all out! The theme is 'Zombie Apocalypse,' in honor of Halloween. We're gonna go as hot undead nurses, and Bobo's gonna do our makeup 'cause he's had lots of practice doing it for his band, The Bleeding Dead..."

"Bobo's in a band?" I say, slightly surprised. I've never met the guy, but with a name like that, I can only picture him living in a tree.

"The Bobo's in a band," Tanya confirms, sounding suspiciously proud. I believe I detect a slight flush beneath her olive-toned complexion. Hm.

Why, then, does she constantly try to set me up with him? Weird.

"So, are you going?"

"Uh...can't. I go to my dad's on the weekend."

She shoots me an incredulous look. "Well, tell him you're going to your homecoming dance instead."

"I would, but my aunt's having a thing that night-she just found out she's pregnant, so she's throwing, like, a 'yay, I'm pregnant' party. She'd never forgive me if I missed it."