Under the Orange Moon (2 page)

“Can I get you anything?” asked a passing flight attendant. “Pillow? Blanket?”

Ben shook his head and smiled at the attractive blonde. “I’m fine.”

“Well, I’ll be back to check on you throughout the flight,” she assured with puckered lips and a kittenish smile.

“Thanks, but don’t wake me up.” This was nothing new to Ben, and he was over the novelty of flirty women. Even if they were stunning and oozing with interest, he very rarely cared.

As the plane began to roll along the tarmac, he sighed in relief, realizing the seat next to him was empty.
Lucky
, he thought. Good fortune followed him everywhere, and he would never pretend to be oblivious to it.

He sighed long and heavy before nuzzling up to the window. It was uncomfortable but, then again, so was the whole damn trip. His only solace was sleep. He would sleep through the agonizing flight as it lead him away from the flurries of snow and into the warm Phoenix sun for the holidays, a place he hasn’t been in five years.

“It’s about time.” Jonah stood by the luggage claim with his hands stuffed deep inside his pockets. He looked exactly the same as the year before when the two had met for Spring Break. “Nice suit,” he taunted in only true Jonah fashion.

“Nice haircut,” Ben joked, before giving Jonah’s arm a manly smack. “You’ve been watching the Disney Channel again, I see.”

“Just keepin’ up with the stylish times, asshole.” Jonah twirled his keys in his fingers. “You ready?”

“Nope. Do I have a choice?” Ben sighed and picked up his suitcase, which conveniently came out first on the revolving luggage wheel.

During the drive, Ben watched out the window and noticed nothing new. It was the same as he left it: sky, mountains, cacti, and sand. When he was a child, he thought of his city in simpler terms: blue, red, green and brown. It wasn’t that he despised where he was from or thought of it as ugly. He always just seemed to need a bit more in the seasons, dramatically cold winters, wet springs, humidity in the summer and crunchy red leaves that fell to the ground in autumn. He loved his desert, but not enough to live in it.

“How’s
California?” Ben asked casually.

“Just livin’ the dream,” Jonah answered with a lazy grin. “I changed my major again.”

“Again?” Ben laughed. “Man, you better be careful. Your mom is going to cut you off soon.”

“Nah, she’s happy enough that I’m still going. Besides, I work at the dealership part time.”

“Bar money,” Ben said through a burst of laughter.

Jonah was spoiled rotten. As long as his mother paid his rent and took care of him, he would change his major repeatedly, extending his education for a free ride. 

“Sorry, Mr. Law School, where’s your job?” Jonah blasted with a smirk on his face.

Ben shrugged and shook his head. “Touché,” he answered, knowing the situations were hardly similar. He ended it there, deciding not to insult Jonah, and he would have if the banter continued.

“Charlie’s save-the-date card for his wedding came,” Ben remembered out loud, grinning at Charlie Mathews’ dog reputation when they were kids. “What the hell is that about?”

“I don’t know,” Jonah answered with a chuckle and steadily turned the wheel to merge onto the freeway. “He’s all about this girl.”

Ben laughed. “He’s only three years older than us, though.”

“Hey, you don’t have to tell me that. Believe me, I know. If I ever try to get married at twenty-five, lock me up.”

“So, is your whole family coming in for the holidays then?”

Jonah gave an easy smile. “Yeah, my mom’s been floating around the house like she’s on clouds.”

“I bet.” Ben chuckled, picturing his self-proclaimed second mother in pure holiday bliss. “What about Weed?”

Jonah crinkled his nose, amused by the mention of the cruel nickname he and his brothers had given his twin sister while growing up. It was bad enough she was a girl with a boy’s name, surrounded by boys, and then labeled not as a flower, but as a weed.

“She’s good. Still living at home, but doing well.” Jonah turned to glance at Ben. “By the way, you know what she’d do if she heard you call her that.”

“I’m not scared. I wore a cup today, just in case.”

They both erupted into laughter and a small piece of Ben warmed at the familiarity of home and his lifelong friendship with Jonah. He decided at that particular moment that if he had to be home, he was at least happy to have Jonah with him. 

Ben’s eyes swept over the Mathews house, and he smiled reminiscently as they pulled in to the driveway.

He sighed heavily. “Home sweet home,” he caught himself saying aloud.

“Tell me about it,” Jonah agreed.

Growing up, Ben simply loved the never ending chaos that swarmed throughout the Mathews’ house on a regular basis. It made him feel surrounded and secure, just the opposite of his own dismal home filled with only pretentious decor and a depressed, neglected mother. It was more his home than any other place he had known.

Almost immediately, Linda was out on the porch with her hands in the air, waving with a smile. She was warm and looked like a real mom, Ben always thought. Her hair was always back and the only place she ever seemed to be was the kitchen or her garden. Her arms were always wide open for Ben, which he supposed was due to the lack of loving arms in his own home.

Ben smiled at Linda and sighed. “There she is,” he said with laughter.

“She’s been waiting for you all damn day,” Jonah
grumbled. “She’s happier to see you than her own sons.”

Ben missed Jonah’s last sentence. His stomach sank when his eyes caught sight of the person standing just to the side of the house. She stood barefoot, carefully stirring a bucket of paint. She gathered the end of her white skirt in her other hand and held it between her long, tan legs. Her light brown hair hung loosely over her face and slightly curled at the ends. Her mannerisms and paint splattered arms gave her identity away, of course, but Ben still couldn’t seem to believe his eyes.

“Who…is that?” he asked, squeezing his eyes and leaning forward. His mouth hung open wide as he stared long and hard. There was no way that was her.

“Who?” Jonah stared ahead with squinted eyes of his own. “Weed?”

“What?” Ben flinched with disbelief. “No way.”

“Man, you’re checking out my sister.” Jonah chuckled.

Oh Lord
. “She looks like—like, uh—”

“Girl?” Jonah cut Ben’s stammering off. “You really have been gone a long time, brother.”

Dylan Mathews stirred her paint and frowned at the color that was becoming of her mixing. She meant for a purplish gray, like a rainstorm, but it seemed to be getting a bit grayer than anything.

She knew that Jonah had gone to get Ben from the airport, but she couldn’t bother herself to get as excited as the rest of her family had become over his arrival. So she stood, hunched over her bucket, pretending not to notice his presence. As if that were possible.

“Dylan, look who’s here,” Linda called out to her from the porch. “Aren’t you going to say hello?”

“He’s not even out of the car yet, Mom. I’ll let you do the honors of jumping him.”

Linda waved her hands at Dylan and rolled her eyes. She ran off the porch and wrapped her arms around Ben’s neck. He wasn’t her biological son, but she loved him enough that he could be.

Dylan stood up and let the end of her skirt fall. She moved her long hair back from her eyes and placed her hands solidly on her tiny hips. She could easily imagine how much paint had managed to splatter on her face, arms and legs. Adamantly, she would never worry herself over washing up for Ben.

“Hello, Ben,” she said, standing firm and allowing him to come to her.

“Dylan.” Ben’s eyes moved up and down along her body, an unintentional movement that seemed to catch even him off guard.

Still a pervert
, she thought.

“You look like a car salesman in that suit,” Dylan teased, ignoring her silent urges. She enjoyed making him suffer, even now.

“Uh, yeah what’s up with that suit?” Jonah finally asked.

Ben smoothed out his unwrinkled jacket. “Nothing. I had something I needed to take care of before I left and it happened to require a suit.

“Well go get normal clothes on,” Jonah demanded. “You’re making me feel weird.”

“I will, loser. I have to see my mom, anyway.”

Ben began to walk the familiar path behind the house and into the neighbor’s yard by leaping over the concrete wall that separated it, a course that was common to them all. The trail that stretched from the Mathews’ house to the McKennas’ was pretty much etched down into the dirt, grass and Astroturf that traveled between each yard and then across the street. It was a shortcut to them as kids, but a pain for the surrounding neighbors who guarded their landscaping with their lives. On any given day of their childhood, an angry neighbor could be heard screaming from a window because one of them had blindly hopped onto one of their plants or small palm trees from the other side of the wall.

“Careful, Mr. Raymond is still there and he still hates when you w
alk on his grass,” Dylan warned.

Ben waved at the thought. “It’s faster to go this way. I don’t want to walk all the way around the block when I can just hop a few walls.
I’ll be back in an hour or so.”

Dylan watched him leave and rolled her eyes at his nonchalant personality. Even now, when he was supposed to mature with his age, Ben remained unaffected and totally obtuse to the world around him. He only cared ab
out one thing in life: himself.

“Dylan, enough with the paint already,” Linda called. “I need help with the potatoes.”

Dylan dropped her stick robotically and jumped up on the porch. There was no point in arguing. With everyone home again, not only was the house going to be a debacle of commotion, but there was easily going to be at least fifteen pounds of potatoes to peel, as well.              

Being the only girl for Linda, Dylan got the lovely honor of being her mother’s assistant in the kitchen. The good news was Charlie, Dylan’s second oldest brother, was getting married to Meredith in the spring. Meaning Dylan would soon have an ally of her own, someone else to peel the potatoes for once.

“Is Ben joining us for dinner?” Linda asked, pulling down the dinner plates from her cupboards.

“Does Jonah’s bottom drawer hold about fifty porno magazines?” Dylan replied, sticking a verbal jab at her twin brother. They never seemed to mature when they were in their mother’s home.

“Dylan,” Linda said firmly.

“Sorry, Mom,” Dylan said through a small sneer.

“Ben didn’t recognize you when we pulled in,
Weed
,” Jonah teased. He elbowed her as he reached over to grab a piece of green pepper from the counter.

Dylan glared at Jonah. She hated that name and loathed all of her brothers for torturing her with it her entire life. It was a cruel name, not at all funny the way they intended it to be.

“Shut up, Jonah,” Dylan hissed.

“I’m sorry. You’re not a weed anymore,” Jonah apologized with a cocky grin.

“I never was a weed, idiot!”

Charlie hopped up on a stool between Jonah and Dylan. Always the bully of the family, he pulled Jonah into a choke hold, and said, “I think Weed’s new name should be Bubble Butt.”

“Adult children of mine, please behave.” Linda tasted her gravy to make sure it was perfect. “Your sister is neither a weed nor a bubble butt.”

“Come on, Mom. She has to be one or the other.” Charlie grinned menacingly. “What was that about Ben?”

Jonah laughed. “He checked her out when we first pulled in. He actually wanted to know who she was.”

“He did?” Linda turned, intrigued.

“Yep.” Jonah elbowed Dylan again.

“Well, our little Weed is growing up,” Charlie teased.

“Charlie, shut up!” Dylan screeched. “Why are you even here? Go back to your apartment!”

“Sorry, Weed. I’m here until the wedding. Besides, I want to bond with my baby sister before I become a husband,” he teased while pinching Dylan’s cheeks. “You’re going to miss me when I’m gone.”

Dylan squirmed out of his hold and punched him in the arm. “Ugh, I so won’t.”

“Okay, that’s enough,” Linda commanded with her hand over her smile. She loved the sound of her children bickering. Most would agree that made her a lunatic, but the old feeling warmed her heart to no end.

“Mom, stop laughing!” Dylan hollered.

“Oh, honey, you’re beautiful. That’s a nice compliment that Ben was attracted to you.”

Dylan’s face squeezed into a scowl while she tried to calm her flaring temper. She had half hoped that after five years of silence, the constant Ben teasing would merely be a historical discussion never to be brought up again.

Charlie smacked Jonah on the back of the head. “Quit it.”

“What? You were teasing her more than I was?” Jonah replied, rubbing his sore head.

“Shut up, Jonah,” he said plainly. Charlie put his arm around Dylan. “I’m sorry, baby sister. I’ll stop.”