A Chance for Sunny Skies (23 page)

I lifted my eyebrows in question.

He waved his hand. "Apartment stuff, don't worry about it." His face brightened a little, he grabbed my hand, and asked, "How did it go?"

I bit my lip, looked down, and smiled. “I got it.”

Brian jumped up. "Sunny, that's amazing!" He wrapped his arms around me, lifted my feet off the floor, and spun us around once. I couldn’t help but let out a little squeal of surprise and turned red once I realized how many people were staring at us.

Brian didn't seem to care one bit, though, because he pulled me into a long kiss that got a few cat calls and "get a room" comments from around the office. I pulled away before my knees became melty and ineffective.

"Now tell me what's going on with your apartment." I sat down on his desk and motioned for him to return to his chair.

His jaw clenched as I mentioned it and he closed his eyes. "Rats." He shook and made a gagging sound. "They've infested the walls. The Super is setting traps, but the dead ones are starting to smell when he can't get to them fast enough."

"Oh, and you...." I didn't finish the "are grossed out by a lot of stuff" part of the sentence, but he nodded.

"Jack's fine with staying. Honestly, his room already has a smell, so it's no big deal to him."

My chest felt tight as I thought of an idea. "You should move in with me." I could feel my cheeks turn red as the words hung in the air. There was absolutely no doubt in my mind that I wanted it, but I worried that he might think it was too fast.

His head tipped to the side.

"Just until your place is ready," I said, casually. "You know, temporarily." I shrugged my shoulders to show him just how laid back I was about the idea. He worked on a smile, but something held it back. So I added, "It's not like you've spent much time at your place lately."

At that, his smile made it all the way. He looked at me, his blue eyes soft with reminiscing about our weekend.

He nodded. "Okay."

When I finished my second broadcast that evening, Brian came over with his boxes. It felt like his wall-rats had made a nest in my stomach and were digging around (gross analogy, I know), but the nerves in my gut were balanced by the fluttering happiness in my heart and the dizziness of my relationship-drunk brain.

I grabbed a box and carried it inside, pulling it open. "Holy shit," I cried out.

Brian jumped at my reaction and looked up in terror. "What? Is there a rat in there?" His eyes were wild and scared.

I chuckled. "No. You're a complete weirdo is all." I pointed at the most neatly packed box of clothing I'd ever seen. Then I pointed at him. "You really are a freak. Can I take back the offer?" I laughed as he threw a shirt at me.

We loaded his clothes into the few drawers I'd cleared for him and hung up his shirts and slacks in the space I'd made in the closet. When we finally finished and collapsed the boxes (Brian insisted; if it was me, I would've left them in the corner for five months) it was eight o'clock and neither of us felt much like preparing or going to get dinner, so we ate popcorn and drank a few old beers I had in the fridge.

"We definitely need to go shopping tomorrow," he said, finishing his beer and pressing start on another episode of Arrested Development.

I nodded and shoved another handful of popcorn in my mouth, giving him a poofy-popcorn-stuffed smile.

He watched me. "This is fun." He leaned in close. "And you're cute." He kissed me gently on my useless, holding-in-all-the-popcorn lips.

Benny jumped up on the back of the couch and laid down. I chewed my mouthful of food and swallowed, then I rested my head on Brian’s shoulder. He was right; it was fun, like a sleepover with your best friend every night. No offense to Rainy, but Brian came with sex, not just wine.

I sighed. This had been our best decision yet.

I groaned and swore as I stubbed my toe on the vacuum cleaner for the fiftieth-freaking-time. Brian insisted on keeping it out since he had to suck up all of the dust (which he wouldn't stop calling "dander and bug bodies") and hair every damn day.

It wasn't like I was a dirty person. Messy, maybe, but I had vacuumed pretty much every weekend before he came along. A suitable, normal, sane amount, I'd say. It wasn't just the vacuuming, either. He wouldn't let me leave clutter anywhere. Oh, and if I did, he would "put it away for me" which meant that I had no idea where to find it.

Like that moment, when I needed to go to work and couldn't find my purse. I mean, it's a freaking purse. You leave those out. They aren't meant to be put away.

"Where'd he put it?" I asked Benny, but he just flattened his ears at my tone and went back to sleep.

I (dramatically) collapsed onto the floor in the middle of my apartment and fished my phone out of my back pocket. I would just have to text him.

Me:
Purse?????? Need to leave!!!

I waited, tapping the case of my phone in a neurotic pattern until it buzzed.

Brian:
Closet.

I rolled my eyes. I had looked there! I got up and stomped over to it, typing as I went.

Me:
Not!

I flung open the closet door and gulped as I saw it hanging on a hook to the right.

Me:
Nvrmind.

Brian:
=)

For some reason I wanted to punch that freaking smiley face right in its... smiley face. Ugh. I couldn't even get angry properly anymore. I let my head fall back and I took a few deep breaths before grabbing my purse and running out the door.

Once I was on my way in Gerald, I calmed down for a bit. I liked having Brian around, really. For the first week, it had been magic. We had sex everywhere and watched movies every night and I loved starting the day with a smile on my face after seeing his rumpled morning hair.

But then our differences really started to show (who am I kidding, they were under a freaking spotlight). His neat freakiness became annoying to me and I could see him getting fed up with my weird I've-been-a-hermit-most-of-my-life oddities.

Brian had talked to Jack the night before and while they had extracted most of the live rats and rat bodies, he said the smell still lingered which made him unsure if they'd really gotten them all. Each time Brian talked about it, his skin turned a slight shade of green, his mouth puffed up in the beginnings of a gag, and I just couldn't bring up the fact that I wanted my place to myself again. This was our third week together and although I wasn't religious, I found myself praying to the odd-apartment-smell gods, pleading for a quick clean up.

We were only a little more than a couple months into our relationship, for Pete's sake. This was too soon for us to start rolling our eyes at each other and having fights over toothpaste scum in the sink.

I rubbed my forehead and decided that I would take Rainy up on her offer to hang out that night. I needed a break from my place, from Brian, from the me I was becoming around him.

So even though I was a weather girl (yay) and even though I no longer had to see Ken since we worked separate schedules (a million yays), I still walked into work with a frown on my face.

"Morning, darling," Burt said, tipping a nonexistent hat in my direction. I loved that little old man. I smiled and waved before heading back into hair and makeup.

The mute and intense makeup guy from my first day turned out to be Tim and I had already been introduced to hair-guy-Stephan. I loved them, too. Once they had gotten to know me and were no longer mute, I figured they would try to give me tips and say passive-aggressive things about how I needed to tame my hair or wear more makeup (given my past with my mother, I wonder why), but they never did. I loved how they made me look polished and screen-ready, but delighted in my simple every day look, as well.

"Bye bye, you wonderful wild beast," Stephan would whisper to my hair before he slathered gallons of product into it.

Today, he had his hands in my locks before I even had my ass in the chair. I gave him the biggest smile I could muster and his fingers froze.

"Troubled?" Stephan asked, pointedly.

I pursed my lips and frowned.

"Hmmm, what's up?"

I slumped down as he got to work. "We're just at each other's throats with this whole living-together thing."

He nodded and made "mmm hmmm" kinda sounds.

"I can't very well kick him out, but I feel like we're going to break up if we keep fighting like we are." I let my head fall back and Stephan smacked me so I'd put it back where he needed it. "I miss when we had space to ourselves. I feel like I'm old and married already."

He just let me talk and vent, but didn't say much until he finished my hair and Tim came over to do my makeup, carrying the dress they were loaning me for the fancy dog birthday party tomorrow.

"They're still fighting?" Tim asked, setting the dress bag on the chair next to me.

Stephan nodded and turned to me. "Brian's a catch. He's nice and cute. Plus overly-clean is so much better than slob, believe me." He had told me enough stories about his messy ex for me to get it. "Go home tonight and show him how fun being dirty can be."

The guys high-fived and I smiled.

He was right. Brian and I weren't just friends, we didn't just have our shared love of movies and TV shows, we had a physical connection that blew my mind and would definitely blow these problems away. By the time I was all camera-ready, I felt pretty damn relationship ready as well.

"Hello, Willamette Falls!" I smiled brightly at the camera. Even though I felt better, it still seemed fake to be so cheery. "Your weekend weather is looking fantastic. This jet stream," I pointed to the green screen, something I had practiced a ton when I first started, but now had become second nature, "is displacing and the East Pacific High, also known as the anticyclone is building northward. This will result in sinking air and some drying in our region as we move into summer. We'll continue to see these dry low-level northerly winds coming in, so don't count on any of those clouds to stick around to keep you cool in the next few days. This weekend's going to be another hot one." I moved on to the highs and lows. Then I signed off.

Burt gave me a thumbs up and Paul, the station's behind the scenes meteorologist, walked over to me.

"Sunny, that was great!" He was a thin man with curly brown hair and an unfortunate mustache. I could see right away why our station hadn't moved in the direction the others had where the meteorologists were being put on air. Less-than-fortunate looking or not he was a kind man and had spent a lot of time explaining the forecast to me, so it sounded like I actually knew what I was talking about instead of just reading what he wrote on the teleprompter.

The thing was, I really liked all of the weather science stuff. I was learning the lingo and could probably have a mostly intelligent conversation about what caused the different weather patterns in our region. It was so much more interesting than I had imagined.

"Come over here for a second. There's something I want to show you." Paul called me over to a computer desk set up back by the camera equipment. On the screen was a shot of the sky and a formation of clouds. They were small puffballs of white in the blue sky. "These are pictures from the coast earlier today. Do you know what kind of clouds these are?" He looked up at me.

I squinted and bit my lip as I thought, tapping my foot on the concrete floors of the set. "Um... it starts with a C, I know that, but...." I finally shook my head.

"Cirrus clouds," he said, smiling. "Some of my favorite. They're made up of ice crystals, not regular condensation. They sit way up high." His stubby fingers pointed to the wispy tails coming off each of the small gatherings. "These are called 'mares' tails' and it means the ice crystals are spreading out and falling."

I snapped my fingers. "Oh, yeah. They're the ones that make the stratus that lowers and causes bad weather."

He nodded. "Not right away, though. Since they're so high up, it usually takes closer to twenty-four hours for them to make any difference." His eyes lit up as we talked and I had a feeling mine were looking just as bright, that I was falling just as in love with the science as he already had.

When I was done chatting with Paul, I grabbed my dress and went over to Rainy's, sitting deep in my green chair and closing my eyes for a few quiet moments while she made us tea. I had missed the tea shop something fierce. I still saw Rainy every other day at yoga, but I worked later hours with my new job and had been going home to see Brian.

Rainy came out of the kitchen and gave me a side-squeeze before sitting down and pouring tea. "I've missed you, Sun."

I nodded. "You have no idea."

She scrunched her nose. "Still bad?"

"Yeah, but I'm trying something new, so let's not talk about that. What's up with you?"

Rainy tried to look away, but I could clearly see her eyes squint into that happy-Rainy face that I loved so well.

"You met someone!"

More squinting.

"Tell me all about it." I scooted closer to her.

"He's an engineer." I made an impressed face. Jeff was the only boyfriend I had witnessed, but from what I'd heard about her exes, he was just one in a long line of dead-beat guys. So hearing that this one had a steady, respectable job (because no matter how you spin it, beer truck driver has limited advancement opportunities), was a step in a different, but right direction.

Seeing the way Rainy lit up talking about him made the friend part of my heart so happy. It also made the relationship part feel a little guilty. I used to look like that when I talked about Brian and now I rolled my eyes. I used to find his bow super sexy and now I cursed it when it tripped me in the middle of the night. I used to find his glasses the-best-ever and now I scoffed every time he stopped to clean them.

I wanted that back and I was going to get it, dammit.

Rainy and I talked and laughed and hugged as I left a few hours later. For the first time in a while, I had a smile on my face as I walked up the steps to my apartment. I looked around at my quiet complex and undid the buttons on my blouse, just to speed things up.

When I opened the door, my eyes widened in horror, I snapped my shirt closed with one hand while I pointed with the other, and then I screeched. Brian sat on the couch with a creepy, lanky, orange nightmare beast that it took me a full second to realize was my cat, Benedict.

"What did you do?" My words were so high pitched I looked over to the window to make sure the glass hadn't cracked before I set my angry gaze back on Brian and poor little Benny.

Brian stood up and held his hands out in defense like I was going to come at him, heck, maybe it looked like I was about to lunge.

"This way we won't have to worry about the hair as much. A client told me about it today and she said it helped her cut her vacuuming by seventy-five percent. We just got back from the groomer."

My mouth hung open. I shook my head. "What? You found some other crazy neat freak to give you advice and you thought you would just try it with
my
cat?" I knew the "crazy" comment was low, but anger rushed through my veins like some kind of super steroid and it was all I could do to keep my fingers from shaking.

"It's almost summer," he continued, his voice quieter than it was at first. "Remember how miserable he looked the other day?"

I ignored that comment and walked forward, slamming the door behind me and throwing the dress bag on my bed. "What's next? Huh? You gonna shave my hair off in my sleep or something?" My hands went up to my mop of hair, but forgot that it was smaller, having been tamed by Stephan for the broadcast. "This gets everywhere. How long is it going to be before you get fed up with that?"

My yelling must've shoved the quiet right out of Brian, though, because when he spoke next it was backed by anger, too.

"I'm sorry for trying to help. I thought when you invited me to live with you that you were open to sharing your place. I didn't realize I lived in a dictatorship."

I scoffed and crossed my arms across my chest.

He wasn't done. "You said, 'This is our place. You make yourself at home. What's mine is yours.' You said all that crap, Sunny. Did you not mean it?" He gesticulated something fierce and Benny fled under the bed.

I closed my eyes, let my head drop, and pinched at the bridge of my nose for a second. "You're kind of difficult to live with." I looked up and hated the hurt I saw in his face. I stepped closer. "Brian, sure I asked you to live with me, but I didn't think you would take control like you have. I don't even feel like I can be myself in my own apartment. And yes, no matter what you say, shaving my cat was a bad idea and not your place to decide."

Brian pointed. "He's fine. It's --"

I put my hand up to stop him. "I think you need to leave."

"Sunny, don't --"

"Brian, I need you to get out."

His shoulders dropped as did a pit in my stomach, but my anger kept me focused. I didn't even help him as he grabbed a few shirts and pants, shoved them in a bag with his toothbrush, and walked out the door. I found Benny, coaxed him out of hiding, sat on my couch, clutched my mostly-hairless pet, and cried like I hadn't since I almost drowned.