32. Un-bear-able
Sunday morning Krislynn got out of bed at nine after being woken from a few disturbances outside in the hallway. After quickly getting dressed, she exited the room, leaving Chase still rolled up in a little ball of sheets. He didn’t sleep until after four last night, throw in the fact that he had been drinking plus his own uncanny dislike of waking up early in the morning, Krislynn figured the man wouldn’t get up even if the house started burning down.
Outside in the hall Krislynn found Jace dragging a big suitcase down the flight of stairs. He looked up and smiled when he saw her passing by. “Well, good morning there.”
“Yeah. Good morning. What are you doing?” She gazed sleepily at his baggage before eyeing him curiously. “Are we leaving now? I thought we were supposed to have breakfast, go shopping at the pier, and then have late lunch before heading home.”
Jace’s lips pressed into a thin line across his face. “We were. Actually, you guys can still stay as long as you want. LaCienega and I are just heading back a little bit early.” His expression twisted in disappointment as he continued clumsily lugging the suitcase down. “She’s not feeling very well so she wants to go home,” he explained. “Bizarre thing is she doesn’t even want to stay for breakfast.”
Krislynn nodded and didn’t press the topic any further. No doubt Jace wouldn’t have the answer anyway, and she had a pretty good guess why LaCienega wanted to leave as soon as possible anyhow. “Do you want me to help you out with that? You look like you’re having a bit of trouble.”
“Oh no, it’s okay,” he yipped quickly, smiling broadly as he readjusted his eyeglasses. “I can’t have a lady doing something like that. I would get struck by lightning.” He laughed, but Krislynn shivered at the thought. “Oh, that’s right. Will you come out to the car with me? I need to give you something.”
Without really comprehending his words, Krislynn agreed and told him she’d meet him outside after she brushed her teeth and freshened up a little. It didn’t occur to her that he wanted to “give” her something until she was out the front door, and when that realization hit, she hoped to God it wasn’t what she thought it would be.
But it was.
As soon as she appeared on the curb of the sidewalk where Jace had parked his car, he pulled out the gigantic and very distinguished panda bear she had so badly wanted the night before from his trunk. “Surprise,” he said with a childish grin. “I hope you like it.”
Krislynn stopped in her tracks and let her jaw fall a few inches down. Her eyes went wide as she frantically shook her head. “But... I thought the guy at the stand wouldn’t make a sale and the game was totally rigged. How did you get it?”
Jace shrugged and stuffed one hand in his pocket as he held the bear with the other. “Well... There’re a couple ways around it I guess.” He went on to explain all the mechanics involved, and though Krislynn had no idea what velocity, momentum and energy had to do with getting a teddy bear, she got the gist that he calculated how to throw the ball in without it bouncing out.
“So you managed to find a formula to win the game?” She clarified.
Immediately his cheeks grew red. “Well no. Not precisely. After I calculated my mathematical hypothesis, I went back to the stand and ran a series of experiments. It’s hard measuring the force of each throw, you see, and since I didn’t have the instruments to measure the air resistance, I ended up running trial and errors until the amusement park closed.” As if his cheeks weren’t red enough, they suddenly lit up in a bright scarlet as his eyes stared nervously at the ground. “So in the end, the boy at the stand felt bad for me and told his boss, who in turn gave me the bear as a gift.”
Butterflies ambushed Krislynn’s stomach as she bit down on her lower lip. “You stayed the whole night trying to get me the bear?” She whispered.
“Well no.” His eyes still stayed fixated on the concrete floor. “They close at three so...”
“But still...”
A brief moment of silence swept through them before Jace looked up having finally composed himself from his embarrassment. “Will you accept this?” He asked extending the bear.
Krislynn lifted a hand and lightly touched the bear on the ear before letting her hand drop to her side. “You went through so much trouble to get it though,” she murmured. “Shouldn’t you give something like that to LaCienega instead?”
Her question surprised him, and for a moment, Jace’s mouth parted in a little O before he finally shook his head. “LaCienega doesn’t like things like these.”
“Well, what does she like? She seems to be madly in love with you. I can’t imagine her not liking anything you might possibly give her.”
“That’s true,” Jace openly admitted as he rubbed his chin in deep thought. “She’ll love anything I give her regardless, but her sort of happiness is like... well like when Chase’s mother used to knit him reindeer sweaters every Christmas – nice, but not really at the same time.” He laughed to himself with the recollection of the memory. “Poor thing had to be a reindeer each year too. It started out with Rudolph and then Dasher and Dancer until he eventually had all nine of them.”
Krislynn smiled at the thought of Chase wearing something like a hand-knit reindeer sweater. “But I really can’t accept something you put so much effort into,” she persisted. “It would feel...”
“Oh dear. It’s nothing more than a token of my friendship. Really!” Jace blushed. “You’re Chase’s girlfriend and it would honestly mean a lot to me if we could be good friends as well.” He held out the bear again. “So will you take it?”
Krislynn hesitated, but then reached out and clutched onto the bear below its stubby arms. Her lips curved into a smile and she tried her best to hide how much she really wanted the stuffy away from him. “Well okay. Thank you then.”
“You’re very welcome.”
Jace excused himself after that, explaining LaCienega was probably finished doing her hair and he needed to grab the last few things from their room. Krislynn was heading back the same way, but for some reasons, she let him walk ahead and waited until he was out of sight before she started walking back.
When she arrived inside the house, she found Michelle busy in the kitchen expertly flipping pancakes and offered to set the table. “Thanks sweetie, but don’t worry about it. Seth will be down in a second to do that. Instead, can you wake Pete and Chase up? I really don’t have time for those two idiots.” She paused before adding, “Oh and Jace and LaCienega are leaving so you don’t need to tell them breakfast will be ready soon.”
Krislynn nodded. “Sure. Okay. Pete’s room is the one downstairs right?”
Michelle mumbled a couple of quick agreements, but was too busy trying to catch her pancakes to say anything else. Skipping cheerfully down the hall, Krislynn got to the end of the hallway and turned to her right for Pete’s room, but when she got there, not only was the door open, but the room was empty as well. She made her way to the living room next, having remembered him sleeping there the night before, but he wasn’t there either. Deciding, she’d get the other lazy bum out of bed first, she made her way upstairs to wake Chase.
“Wake up you dummy. Breakfast is going to be ready soon.” Krislynn slammed the door behind her just for effect before trotting up to the edge of the bed.
Chase immediately cursed under his breath before straightening his body and propping himself up with one elbow. “What time is it?” Eyes half-closed, he glanced around the room, saw the time display, decided it was way too early, and went back to sleep.
“Come on Chase, get up!” Frustrated, Krislynn walked up to the side of the bed before taking a seat on the perimeter. “Aren’t you hungry?” She asked, shaking him on the arm. “You’re going to miss breakfast if you sleep in. We’re having pancakes.”
“Oh whoopie doo, pancakes Krislynn. I don’t get amused by food the way you do and I won’t sacrifice sleep for breakfast.” Eyes still closed, Chase let a cheeky grin spread across his face. “That is, of course, unless we’re having sex for breakfast. Then we can negotiate.”
Krislynn laughed before playfully flicking him on the forehead with her finger. “Pervert.” She smiled remembering what Jace had told her earlier before. “Did your mom use to knit you reindeer sweaters for Christmas?”
His eyes promptly shot open and he stared at her with bafflement for a good couple seconds before diverting the topic. “Thanksgiving hasn’t even passed yet and you’re talking about Christmas? That’s so far away still.”
“Oh yeah. American Thanksgiving is going to be in a few weeks, right? I can’t really tell seasonal time here because it’s always so sunny.” Krislynn paused and started wondering if he was going to spend it with his family. What would she do if he did? There was no way she could join even if she was invited to. That would be weird, she thought.
Chase seemed to sense her wariness of the topic and changed it once more. “What’s that thing you’ve got there?” He asked, nodding to the panda bear she was holding under one arm. “It looks hideous.”
“Yeah,” she agreed. “It looks like you!” His jaw fell and Krislynn laughed as she placed the bear on her side of the bed before taking a seat beside Chase’s legs. “I’m kidding Chase. After all this time, I thought you’d know how repulsed I am by your good looks.”
“Yeah, unfortunately. Some girls are just born without the ability to appreciate the finer things in life, I guess.” He rolled onto his stomach and placed his hands beside his head before he continued. “So who gave that ugly thing to you? It wasn’t here last night, was it?”
“Nope. Jace got it for me at the amusement park last night, but he didn’t end up giving it to me until this morning.”
“Oh,” he said casually. Then he yawned and quickly spread out both his arms, conveniently knocking into the panda and sending it flying off the bed and across the room. “How very nice of him.”
It was Krislynn’s turn to let her jaw drop. “Hey!” She screamed. “You did that on purpose!”
“It was an accident,” he said nonchalantly.
“My ass,” she yelled. “If it was an accident, it would have rolled off the bed and not flown across the room!”
“Whatever,” he said, and then quickly jumped out of bed and started taking his shirt off.
Krislynn walked over to the other side of the room to pick up the bear, and then set it gently on top of one of her bags before spinning around to face Chase. She was about to ask him what his deal was, but by then, he was stripping his boxers off, and it only took a two second glance at his perfectly blessed bum before it sent her racing out of the room.
She couldn’t handle looking at something like that. It would be so much better if he had an ugly tattoo on one side of his butt cheek that looked like a mistake from an acid trip when he was sixteen, but instead it was utter perfection and so, so, so disgusting to her.
Sighing, Krislynn started her way downstairs. At least that was one lazy boy out of bed. Now where was the other?