So, hiding a guy in my room might be easier than I expect.
Throughout the night, I woke up from various panic attacks about waking up to my Mom scolding me and kicking James off the balcony 300-style, but my morning alarm went off and not only had nothing happened, but my precursory search of the downstairs found the entire lower floors vacant.
Both Beck and Mom left without a word.
Though my chest feels like it's turned into an echo chamber, I got to go upstairs and tell a somewhat anxious James, "Everyone's gone."
He raises an eyebrow. "It's Sunday."
"My Mom and her research assistant are workaholics. It's why we have a pseudo-mini-lab at our house and he lives with us."
James doesn't look so easily convinced. Glancing at the wall-clock in Kai's room, he adds, "It's like... 8 AM though."
"They have an hour drive to the university, so days that they're gone for work stuff? Well, they're really gone."
Sure, he stares at me for a moment longer, blinking like I'm talking about aliens, but then he follows me out my bedroom door. It's not like we need to worry about other people in the house today, anyway.
As we both walk downstairs, James tries to jostle one of the other doors (Beck's, to be precise) but it doesn't budge. I grimace, but brush it off. "Don't bother. All the "non-essential" doors are locked and I have no clue where the keys are."
Even saying that out loud sounds like an absurd line from a horror movie, but if I had to deal with a wily 10-year-old cuttlefish desperate for a swim at all times of the day, I'd probably go to desperate measures, too, right?
Mom just wants to keep me safe.
James looks less convinced, though, and frowns deeper at every locked door he touches. By the time he gets to the front door, it's like his whole face is sliding off and my skin starts to feel itchy.
Scowling, he asks, "She really doesn't want you to go anywhere, does she?" I didn't say anything, just shrug and stare at my bare feet.
James apologizes, "Sorry, I know." He sucks in a breath and, with sudden, surprising bravado, throws his arms out. "Give me the grand tour!"
It's absurd, and silly, and theatrical, but I find myself smiling just a little bit. Now, a tour is something I can do.
Mostly, at least.
Sure, the grand tour consists of my own room, two bathrooms, the laundry room, living area, and half of the lab, but it's something. And I do appreciate that James is doing his best not to make any more faces with each locked door he runs into.
There's a lot. More than I remember.
As suspected, though, the lab is the highlight. Like always, the back half of it's locked, filled with extracted samples. While all of it is Mom's lab, that's her office, and I've never seen it without her glued to my side. But the front is the fun part, anyway. That's where Mom keeps the live samples, the somewhat pets of the whole operation.Mom and I came to the agreement years ago that everyone's better off if I can feed the creatures and keep them company during the day.
We pass by the lab-portion of Beck's Sea Monkey utopia, a few jellies, some starfish, and a definitely-inconspicuous 200-gallon tank filled with cuttlefish. James walks around the entire room like a kid on a school field trip, and I'm entranced. My world, something wonderful? I feel more pride than I expect.
I'm lulled into a false sense of sea-life security until James says something that makes my internal record player screech. "So you guys really are a whole family of marine biologists? I just met a marine biologist the other night. Serendipitous."
Nodding and not looking straight at him, I say, "Yep."
"What do you study?"
On instinct, I say, "I hope to study anthro-" I stop dead. Right. That might be a little too "serendipitous".
Instead, I stutter out, "arthropods." I grimace, but it's not the worst panic answer I could've given. It's not a complete lie, either. I prefer tide pools and crustaceans, trilobites and crabs. But ignoring the whole anthropology side of me...
It's like letting my mom write my biography. Makes me cringe a little bit.
Trying to avoid giving James too much space for questions, I continue, "I even named my cat Shell. She's somewhere around-" I quick-step James out of the lab, shut the door behind us, and look for leering eyes around the room. Just as I'm about to give up, I catch a wrinkly butt sticking out from under a blanket. Right. She is probably pouting that I left her out of my room last night.
Running my finger across her tail, I pull the blanket away and I'm greeted by a cat frown and damning white eyes. Despite her annoyance, she purrs as I use two knuckles to massage her forehead, her favorite thing in the world.
"She's handsome," James says.
I smirk and say, "That was the correct answer." After a moment or two, I realize I stopped staring at Shell and instead start watching James, using his own fingers to knuckle-massage her forehead, just like she liked. My cheeks flare and I remind myself: keeping him around is complicated enough. Let's leave the embarrassing affection to Astra.
With an awkward cough and a stomach growl, I take a step away from James and ask, gesturing to the kitchen island, "Hungry?"
At the time, it seemed like a brilliant diversion. But once I'm actually standing in the kitchen, staring at the microwave and oven and stove top with wide eyes, I realized how ill-planned the idea actually is.
I normally just come in here for ramen or leftover takeout and book it back to my room.
His eyebrows knitted, James gives me a sidelong glance and asks, "So, do you know how to cook?"
"Not really. You?"
"Nope."
Before I can offer to order food or steal from my instant mac and cheese stores in the pantry, James starts looking through the cabinets like an archaeologist and any of them could be the great pyramid of Giza. Though, to be honest, I will be shocked if anything interesting, let alone edible, are in them.
I furrow my brows. "What are you doing?"
"Well, we're still hungry. Might as well give it a shot." Just then, James' eyes light up and he pulls down something worse than stale bread. On the counter, he places an old, dusty cookbook.
Grimacing, I say, "Unless we're doing some instant ramen maybe this is a bad idea."
"C'mon, you said they're never home. Let's try something. Even if it takes hours, it doesn't matter, and we can snack on ingredients as we go." At my frozen composure, James looks even more surprised. "Are you telling me that you're stuck here all the time and you've never tried to make food? What, do you do the same thing every day?"
"You make me sound like a goldfish," I pout.
"If the fin fits-"
I would rather die than admit how funny I found the stupid pun. Waving my hands in front of his face, I say, "Fine. What do you wanna cook?"
"No clue. Let's open the book."
"Why do I feel like that's a go-to phrase for you?"
James has that goofy grin on his face, the kind that illuminates the whole room, but it has nothing on him grabbing my hand and pulling me next to him behind the counter. "Close your eyes."
"What?" My voice suddenly hitches an octave, almost sounding like Astra, which I don't think he notices but absolutely sends goosebumps all over my body. I just start visualizing as many ice packs on my cheeks as possible, praying the blush I feel is not visible.
Rolling his eyes, (as if anyone could just randomly assume his absurd, whimsical ideas) James explains, "I'm going to flip the pages and then put your hand down when you feel like it. Then we'll cook that thing."
Though I'm not too sold on the whole idea, James' beaming and my desire to stop holding his hand wins out. It can't hurt to try, right? Closing my eyes, my hand is finally released, and I can hear James start flipping the pages.
The whole thing is a tad bit intimidating (how would I explain a ripped cookbook if I slam my finger down too hard at the wrong time?) but I just count to three, take a deep breath, and press my hand to a page.
Thankfully, I don't hear anything tear in the process.
Exhaling and opening my eyes, I squint to make sure I'm reading the page correctly. "Steamed buns?"
"Sounds good to me." James starts opening the fridge. "Got meat?"
I grimace. "Phrasing."
When James winks, I'm not really sure how to feel. How do you even respond to winking in real life? It's not like in the movies you see the reaction too much. Cool guy does it, viewers swoob, we move on.
But I'm not watching James Bond, so what do I do?
I only become even more flabbergasted when within seconds I became this scrambling sous chef for a frenetic, clueless cook. It's like the second James got the ingredients out, he starts throwing things together, unblinkingly. A man possessed would be an understatement, his jaw is clenched so tight. Step after step he keeps going, even though I'm pretty sure we've only half-accomplished the steps before that.
By the time we're done, I'm convinced we'll just have some sort of cursed dough slop.
As the timer rings and the moment comes, I've braced myself to gag on sight. We pull out the old, dusty bamboo steamer I haven't seen since I was seven. Closing the oven, I wince as James tips open the lid. Much to my surprise, they looked like the spherical nostalgia and pinched noses that I remember eating every Friday in Sydney.
Looking up at James, he's got this toothy, child-like grin, the kind you imagine your face looking like when you steal an extra cookie. I've never seen it on someone else; for all his goofiness, Beck's a bit of a goodie-two shoes. The sight makes my chest feel warm and fluttery, like its laughing through my aortas. And it makes me wonder if this was what it's supposed to feel like, spending time with people. I've never-
A sudden creaking pull of the garage door rips the fluffy little dream cloud out from underneath me and my eyes flick all over James.Cooking I could excuse, but a whole damn person....
I swear, saying,"Shit- they're home early. Get upstairs!"
James pouts, and while he looks absolutely tragic and plays my heartstrings like a fiddle, the sound of the car pulling in wails like a shrieking organ by comparison. "But we just-"
"Yeah I know, still do it!" I say, pushing him towards the stairs. Luckily, those long legs of his help him bound up and disappear before the doorknob even starts turning.
When Mom and Beck walk in, their jackets are wrinkled, their arms are full of papers, and even their smiles look sleepy. Good. I can probably get them off to their rooms quickly enough, grab the buns, and-
Mom raises an eyebrow and asks, "Kai, a-are those steamed buns?"
"... Yes."
"Sweetheart, you made us lunch???" My left lung collapses, I swear, as I watch her stalk towards the fresh bake, practically salivating. Before I can even try to make an excuse, run off with them, Mom's lips are on my forehead. "You're so sweet." And then, much to my horror, she pops a steaming bun into her mouth, with minimal regard to their burning temperature.
Sorry, James.
Well, at least I can pretend this meant something and maybe they'll buy it. "I just wanted to do something to make up for the beach the other day!"
I start to formulate at least three more ways out of the situation: if Beck asked questions or Mom started wondering why I'd cook a complicated baking recipe when I don't know how to scramble eggs.
Instead, I just watch the terrible, gory show that is Beck and Mom finishing every single bun while going over random details of the experiment that day. I only got one myself before it's like they never existed, save one bamboo steamer ready for cleaning.
When I grab Shell and start walking upstairs, they don't even acknowledge me.
In my room, James is very casually laying on the bed with his head hanging off. Like that is indeed very casual.
Sitting up, he asks, "When will I be able to eat some of the food we made?"
I suck in a breath, let Shell settle in on the bed, and wait for the backlash. Disappointing James is the lesser of two evils, but it still constricts my lungs, enough to make my fingers want to tap. My fingers don't normally tap much as Kai. This is bad. Wringing my hands, I swallow my misery and say, "Bad news. I tried to get away with saying it was to apologize for the beach situation, and they devoured it."
That heartstrings-pout comes back on his face, an almost evil combination with those golden brown eyes. "All of it?"
"Yep."
"You live with voracious animals." James scoffs and then flops back upside down on the bed. "Guess we'll have to try another recipe."
What?
Blinking, I ask, "You're not mad?"
"Why would I be?" Just like his bizarre sitting position, James casually shrugs and just moves on with the conversation, like that's that.
Guess it is, really. At least with him.
The lifeguard muses, "Anyway, I was thinking next time maybe something with gravy? I love gravy. You make it with like, water and flour and just throw it all in a saucepan or something, right?"
"That doesn't sound right."
"Won't know until you try." James scrunches his nose. "So, your nervous laughing carries. What did you mean by the beach?"
"I used to sneak out and go to the beach sometimes. I got caught and now all the keys are hidden from me."
"Ah." Frowning, James asks, "I didn't say it earlier, but isn't that a fire hazard?"
"Yeah, actually, but we're past fire hazard, I guess."
I don't know what to say. James isn't wrong. The whole situation isn't safe and every single dumb rule this household has doesn't really seem all that safe or even worth it. If I was a normal kid, this would be absurd.
But hey, things get a little hazardous when you're raising a cuttlefish, right?
Cutting through the tense air, James interrupts my thoughts and asks, "Want to hear a story about a guy who risked his life for a fire hazard?"
"...Sure?"
James nods, still acting like that's a normal question to ask. "Well his name was Guy and in his world, books were outlawed. It was even his job to help burn them to a crisp. But one day he found one, intact, and kept it. And then his entire life changed and he became the keeper of that story hoping to share it with new generations who risked fires."
My voice quieter, I ask, "And?"
Looking me up and down, James' smile seems sad this time. He looks like he's about to say something important, but then just says, "And you should read more," and goes back to reading his book.