Page 30 of Hell Bent (Portland Devils #5)

FAMILY TIME

Alix

Somehow, I never made it out of Sebastian’s bed that night.

I meant to, but when he brought me a bowl of that thick, deeply flavored kind of tortilla soup, with shredded chicken and all the mix-ins: fried tortilla strips, avocado, dried cilantro, pico de gallo, lime wedges, and shredded cheese?

And when I said, “I’ll get up,” and moved to do it, and he said, “No. Stay here and be comfortable,” and I said, “But I want to watch your game”?

You know what happened then? He said, “You can watch it in here. Hey, Ben!”

A few seconds, and Ben stuck his curly head into the doorway. “What?”

“Alix isn’t feeling good,” he said. “Let’s eat in here.”

Ben looked at him like he was nuts. “On your bed?”

“Why not? It’s a king.”

“My mom would say that it’ll get dirty.”

Sebastian went to the walk-in closet and came out with a folded sheet. “Get under the covers,” he told me.

“Excuse me?” I really wanted my soup. He’d brought me a big glass of ice water, and I was drinking that, but the soup smelled amazing. See, there’s tortilla soup and tortilla soup, and this tortilla soup was the real deal . “How did we advance this quickly to my being in your bed?”

“Right,” he said, “because you’re so sexually alluring right now. Would you get under the covers so I can put this thing over the comforter and ease Ben’s mind about our hygiene practices?”

“Dude,” Ben said. “You just insulted her again. And bossed her around again, too. My mom says women hate to be bossed.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I was somehow saying. “Depends on the situation.”

Sebastian started to smile, slow and sort of wolfish, if you know what I mean, and Ben said, “You better not meet my mom,” then seemed to remember, because he said, “I mean?—”

I stood up, and Sebastian, of course, had to help me pull the covers back. I told Ben, “You can say that about your mom. It’s OK to be normal and say normal things.”

“But I shouldn’t,” he muttered. “She’s dying.”

“I hate to tell you,” I said, “but people generally stay flawed even when they’re dying.

Or even when they love somebody who’s dying.

It’s OK to get irritated sometimes, too.

Sure, you can be all nice and sweet when everything’s going great, but when everything’s not going great, when it turns to … ”

“To shit,” Sebastian said.

I said, “I was trying to avoid saying that.”

Sebastian said, “Ben and I are guys. We aren’t so good at avoiding saying that.

Yeah, when it turns to shit, you feel all kinds of ways, and they don’t always stay inside.

Help me with this, Ben.” They spread the top sheet over the duvet, and Sebastian said, “Now help me bring in the rest of the food. ”

That was how we came to watch the replay of the game with Sebastian beside me and Ben beside him, food containers all over the bedside tables, and Sebastian explaining the action to Ben in a way I found strangely comforting, even though, once my soup was gone, I had a distressing tendency to drift in and out of consciousness.

It was the sound of Sebastian’s wolf-voice, that was all, the pain relief of the Tylenol and new ice pack he’d provided without my asking, and the warmth of his body next to mine, even though I was under the covers and he wasn’t.

He radiated heat like a … well, like a radiator. Or possibly a Canadian.

It was all weirdly family-like. Very cozy. Very peaceful.

At least until Lexi decided the floor wasn’t close enough to the action.

Sebastian

I was congratulating myself on a truly brilliant idea, given that Alix was falling asleep beside me after I’d rescued her tipping soup bowl for about the third time, and Ben was actually asking me questions about football strategy.

“Slant route because the Niners keep blitzing,” I told him now, “and that lets the QB get the ball off faster. See, they were expecting Kristiansen to run a post route here, get all the way down the field before he turned for the ball. He’s kinda known for that, and it's always better to take the defense by surprise.”

“How do you know?” Ben asked, “if you’ve only been playing gridiron for a couple of seasons?” It didn’t sound combative, though, just interested.

“Practice isn’t just kicking for me,” I said, “or just time on the field for anybody, running plays over and over like you might think. I make about three hundred kicks a week, sure, but we’re also in the gym a few times in there.

OK, you knew that, but you may not know how many team meetings we have.

Offense, defense, special teams meetings too, but also the whole team.

You learn what your offense is planning to do against their defense, and what your defense is planning to do against their offense.

You watch a whole lot of game film, on your own and with the team, with the coaches pointing out what’s going on.

When you’ve done that for a couple of years, it tends to sink in, even if you’re only executing your little piece of it.

Harlan Kristiansen and Owen Johnson could both tell you what the Niners’ defensive strategy was on every play we ran there, and what they expected it to be, too.

For that matter, so could I, because I was playing for the Niners until a few weeks ago. ”

“Do you actually know those guys?” Ben asked. “I mean, Harlan Kristiansen? Do they talk to you?”

I laughed, then said, when Ben looked too quashed, “They’re good guys. And it’s a team. That’s a big focus at the Devils. More than at the Niners, in fact. Everybody knowing each other, understanding each other. Kinda nice.”

“Oh. So here. Why didn’t they?—”

Which was when the earthquake happened. Lexi, whom I distinctly remember telling to lie down on the floor, had been standing with her muzzle resting on the bed, her brown eyes imploring and her tail wagging.

Now, she decided it was time to jump onto it, and sixty-seven pounds of hairy golden retriever landed on my legs.

Alix jolted awake and called out, Ben laughed, and I said, “Hey!” in a way that no dog trainer probably would have, because Lexi paid zero attention to it.

She was, in fact, straddling my body, because Ben’s plate had tipped in the earthquake and his leftovers had spilled onto my carefully placed white sheet.

The leftovers were refried beans and salsa.

Hot salsa, because Ben had insisted on trying the hottest kind.

He hadn’t eaten it, but he’d tried it, which left a whole plastic container of it to spill out along with the beans.

Lexi apparently decided in her dog brain that spilled food was a dog’s job to clean up , because she instantly set to work even as I grabbed the plate and handed it to Ben, who was still laughing.

Which meant she got a lot of that salsa.

Have you ever seen a dog be intensely startled? It happens about like with a person. Their eyes go wide, is the main thing, and hers did. Big, round, brown eyes. After that, she started to pant. Then she bolted off the bed and ran out of the room.

“Shit,” I said, and got off the bed myself as Alix said, “What? Sebastian—” and Ben said, “Oh, man, I can’t believe she ate that! I couldn’t even taste it without drinking a glass of water!”

“That’s why,” I said, “you’re hearing all that slurping.

Hang on.” Out to the kitchen, and a quick refill on Lexi’s water bowl.

Thinking about it, then, and grabbing some leftover rice from another container and dumping it into her food dish.

“Works for people,” I told Lexi as she gobbled down the rice and did some more panting, then went back to the water dish.

“And it’s the best I can do right now. I’m guessing you aren’t going to learn from this, are you? ”

She didn’t answer, just trotted back into the bedroom behind me, jumped on the bed again, and lay down in my spot like she was there to stay and maybe I’d like to try out her purple orthopedic dog bed instead.

Alix was standing next to the bed, the dirty sheet in her hands, while Ben was climbing back onto the bed beside Lexi, reaching out to pet her, and going right back to watching the game.

Me? I took the sheet from Alix, took it out to the laundry closet, dumped it and some detergent into the washing machine, and turned the thing on, then headed back into the bedroom, where Alix was now picking up dishes but also saying, “Give me a hand with these, Ben,” which was good.

He didn’t object, probably because this was the kind of home life he was used to, but got off the bed and started doing it. I took the dishes out of Alix’s hands, though, and said, “I’ll get this. Lie down.”

She said, “I rested, all right? I slept!” Blinking hard, her ponytail messy.

“You’ve rested,” I said, “but you’re not rested. It’s my apartment, and I’ll do it. Get back in bed.”

Ben said, “You’re doing it again, Sebastian. Being really bossy.”

Alix said, “Thank you.”

I said, “Interesting that you’re still operating on outdated gender stereotypes, don’t you think?” I was still picking up debris, a whole armful of it. Ben ate a lot.

“Who, me?” she said. “In what way? I’m objecting because you’re operating on outdated gender stereotypes!”

“No,” I said, “you’re not. You think you need to clean up in my apartment. Why? Because you’re a woman? No. You’re a guest.”

“How about your gender stereotypes? The bossiness and so forth?”

“Well, you had a weenie before,” I pointed out. “You didn’t want him.”

“He was not a weenie!” she said.

“Who wasn’t a weenie?” Ben asked.

“He was exactly a weenie,” I said. “I watched him being a weenie. I watched him with you being a weenie. We both agreed he was a weenie.”

“We did not agree,” she said. “You agreed.”

“Possibly true,” I said. “But you know I was right.”

Ben said, “Who was the weenie? ”

“All right,” Alix said. “He was a little bit passive. I can be forceful, though, so that’s probably?—”

“I’ve got news for you,” I said. “It works better if both people are a little forceful. That way you get to fight it out. Bounce off each other. Argue some. Much more interesting. Passionate. Passion’s good.”

“And you know this,” she said, “due to your vast experience with love and marriage.”

“No. I know it due to my vast experience with me. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to clean this up and then figure out whether I’ve poisoned my dog.”

Ben said, “Why won’t anybody tell me about the weenie?”

Alix said, “I was engaged, all right? To a very nice man.”

“A man she broke up with,” I supplied. “Because he was a weenie.”

She grabbed her ponytail the way she’d done in Target and went something like, “Aaaaaaaa,” as I said, “Luckily for me. Now get back in bed, would you? I need to come back and ask your advice about whether we should be getting Lexi’s stomach pumped.

I have to be comfortable in order to make good decisions, and I can’t be comfortable unless you’re comfortable.

See, that’s another good thing about two forceful people.

You both get to give your opinion. Better results that way. ”

“Committees,” Alix said, “are notoriously inefficient.”

“Dictatorships,” I said, “are notoriously difficult to live in. I get to push. You get to push back. Everybody wins. Come on, Ben. Bacteria starts growing on food left out more than a couple of hours, and one mammal with diarrhea is going to be plenty.”