“I don’t know that Gem is going far enough. Detroit is still pretty close. Yancy can drive there. Anyway Adin you aren’t tied to Hell you know.”
“I am since I met Brad.”
“The gym teacher?” I asked. “The one you were screwing in the driveway when Harriet Mills saw you this morning?”
Adin laughed out loud. “Yes,” she replied. “We were only kissing goodbye.”
“I figured as much.”
“He’s gorgeous Gabby. He’s single. I’m single. I think he’s the one and if either of the two old biddies ever got any they would know the difference between screwing and a sweet kiss goodbye.”
I had to laugh at that snarky comment.
“T
ell Aunt Adin way to go,” Kat absently called out, mouth stuffed full of pizza, still sitting on the living room sofa watching the television. The words were barely discernable her mouth was so full of food.
“Your niece said to tell you it is about time you got laid,” I teased my sister.
“She did not,” Adin replied chuckling. “She’s got class that one does unlike my sister with the sailor’s mouth.”
“Hey, I’ve kept it clean. Seriously, Adin didn’t school just start?” I asked her. The remark about my potty mouth was usually true. We always talked to each other without regard for keeping it clean. Only now with Keegan present I had been keeping it clean.
“Yes, Gabby and don’t you lecture me too. Michaela is already telling me to slow down.”
“It’s just that you met him in August when school started right and it’s only the end of October?” I chided my younger sister. “I know options in Hell aren’t many but…”
“Gabby, I’m not you and I’m definitely not Michaela. I won’t make a mistake and marry the first guy who comes to Hell.”
“Ouch.” Burn.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you but you and I both know that you made a mistake by marrying James Ellerton. He isn’t good enough for you and Michaela well she’s a lost cause,” my sister said bluntly. I hoped that she wasn’t but I was afraid that Adin was correct in her assessment of our older sister as well.
“Are things any better with you and him?” Adin asked with serious concern.
No one wanted to call him by name as if that would make him disappear. If they didn’t acknowledge him then he didn’t exist. “No.”
“Ready to come home?” Adin asked seriously. “You can you know.”
“To Yancy? No way, I need a century to prepare myself to return to her choking embrace.”
“She loves you unconditionally,” Adin offered, which is more than I can say about James.”
“I know. She means well too Adin but like you said minutes ago she drives me bat-shit crazy from this distance what would she be like if I moved back home again. I think I’ve jumped from the frying pan into the fire and I don’t know how to get back to the frying pan. Returning home doesn’t sound so bad most days. I’m trying to figure it out. I promise.”
“I understand.”
I heard the doorbell chime throughout my sister’s small ranch house. From the sound I knew she was walking closer to the front door to let her new boyfriend into her house.
“Brad is here Gab. I’ve got to go.” She hesitated. I heard sloppy, slurping noises of their passionate kiss. I waited patiently. Come on. Then, she said distractedly, “I love you Gabby.”
“I love you too,” I replied softly, jealous of my sister’s new love.
“I love you too,” Kat screamed in the background so that her Aunt would hear her.
“Tell Keegan I love her too.”
“Will do.”