My Favorite Part of the House

Thanks for your patience in waiting for this post!  I'll be posting another regular storyline post on Wednesday, and the last of Liv's backstory on Friday.  Hope you all have an awesome week!
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15 minutes after I heard the shower turn off, Sarah walked slowly down the stairs.  She looked up at me through a curtain of wet hair, then cast her eyes back down to the floor.  Silently, she sat down in the chair furthest away from the couch, where I was sitting.  "Are you hungry?" I asked her.  It was now past noon, and I was definitely getting hungry.  She shrugged.  "Well, I am," I continued.  "If I make something, will you eat?"

"Yeah, I guess," she replied softly.  I motioned for her to follow me to the kitchen and I pulled the fridge open.  I gave her some options, watching her face for clues because I was pretty sure she wouldn't actually tell me what she wanted.  "Whatever you want is fine," she said finally, just as I had expected she would.

My eyes scanned the counter and I saw half a loaf of french bread sitting there.  I pulled the fridge back open and then asked "French toast?  Eggs?"  Her eyes met mine, and she paused a few seconds before shrugging.  "I think that sounds good," I said.  It was the most response she'd given any of my suggestions.  "Do you prefer bacon or sausage?"

She wrinkled her nose.  "I hate bacon," she said.  I grinned.  "What?" she asked.

I shrugged and pulled a package of turkey sausage out of the freezer.  "Sausage it is.  I hate bacon too."

"Oh," she said, but she smiled a little.  "Um, do you want some help?"  She sounded unsure again.

"Nah," I said.  I motioned to the table.  "Pretty simple.  But you can keep me company if you want.  If you wanted to talk while I cook, that would be okay.  If you don't want to talk, that's fine too." I looked at her from the corner of my eye and saw her frown as she pulled out a chair at the table.

She was silent for so long that it started to get hard for me to let it be quiet.  She was staring down at the surface of the table, but she had a look on her face that I'd seen many times.  I had a feeling she was wrestling with whether or not to talk, and if I gave in to my urge to fill the silence now I'd destroy any chance of her talking about what was on her mind.  So I sliced bread and beat eggs, waiting for her to decide what she wanted to do.

Finally, she started talking, but what came out wasn't what I expected.  "I know that you didn't know him, and that it was pretty crappy for him to just...disappear on you, but living with him was better than living with mom."  I got her a glass of water and returned to my food prep, listening.  "When I was really little, before AJ was born, we lived with mom and her dad.  He was an asshole."  The venom in her voice was surprising to me.  "He had rules.  So many rules.  I couldn't talk at the dinner table.  He didn't want to hear me ever.  He told me I was stupid and told my mom that she should dump me somewhere and drive away, that I was ruining her life.  I was 4."

She paused to take a drink of water.  "I think that...that there was something wrong with him.  Like, with his brain maybe.  People get mean when they get dementia sometimes, right?  Or maybe he was really depressed or something worse."  I nodded, encouraging her silently to keep talking.  "When Dad got out of jail the first time, I had just turned 5.  He came and stayed with us for a little while.  My grandfather," she rolled her eyes and spit the word out as if it burned her tongue, "was too scared of Dad to be mean to me while he was around.  We stayed there with him for a few months before we moved into an apartment.  The apartment sucked.  It had mice and roaches and it smelled funny and was never quite clean, no matter how much Dad scrubbed.  AJ was born about 6 months after we moved."  She stopped talking for long enough that I turned around to look at her.  She was still staring down at the table, tracing the pattern of the wood grain gentle with a fingernail.

She glanced up and her eyes darkened briefly when she saw me watching her.  She disappeared behind her curtain of hair again, slumping down in her seat.  I turned back to the stove and pulled the first pieces of French toast out of the pan on dropped them onto a plate.  I put some eggs and sausage on the plate and walked it over to the table.  I got out butter and syrup.  "Do you need anything else with that?" I asked her.

She shook her head, but when I turned to walk back to the stove, she asked in a small voice, "Do you have any juice?  Or soda?"

I pulled open the fridge and surveyed the contents.  We were in desperate need of a trip to the grocery store.  "We have Dr. Pepper, apple juice, and milk," I said.  I leaned around the fridge door to look at her.  She timidly asked for a Dr. Pepper and then stood to take it from me as I made my way back to the table.

She was quiet as I finished making food and made myself a plate.  I hoped she'd continue her story when I sat down.  Instead, she asked, "Is this really your house?"

"Well, kind of," I replied.  "It's actually Brody's house, but I moved in about two months ago."

"Where did he go?" she asked.

"He went to work for awhile.  Do you want some more?" I motioned to her now empty plate.  She considered this for a minute, then shook her head.  "You sure?  I can make a few more pieces of French toast, and there's more sausage."

"I guess I'll have sausage."  She got up and grabbed the last two pieces and brought them back to the table.  "Do you want one?" she offered.  When I shook my head she dropped them on her plate.  After we ate, she told me she had been on the bus most of the night and hadn't slept much.  I got her set up in the guest room and found out what kind of pizza she wanted for dinner before I left her to sleep

Once I was down there, I found my phone.  I had a text from Brody asking if we needed anything else while he was in town.  I sent him a short grocery list along with Sarah's pizza request and my own.  Then I tossed the phone on the couch and quickly washed the dishes from our quick meal and then flopped onto the couch.  I called Nadine and Jon and gave them a quick update.  They let me know they were planning to leave first thing in the morning and should be out here around lunchtime.  I gave them the address and told them I'd try to get Sarah to call when she got up from her nap.

Sarah ended up staying in bed until after Brody got home with groceries and pizza.  I shooed him upstairs to shower and change while I put the groceries away, then I went to the guest room to see if Sarah wanted dinner.  I knocked lightly on the door, not wanting to wake her up if she was still sleeping.  "Yeah?" she answered right away.

"If you're hungry, there's pizza," I replied.  "If not, you can always have some later."

I heard her moving around and then the door opened.  She looked slightly disheveled.  "I'll eat," she said quietly.  She offered me a very brief, shy smile, and I moved out of the way so she could get out.  "After I eat, I think I'll call my grandma."  I noticed her cheeks turning pink, and I almost laughed.  I wondered if our father had blushed as easily as we both do.

"I think she'll be glad to hear from you."

She nodded, then said, "I feel like kind of an idiot now.  I'm really sorry that I ruined your weekend."

"Sarah, you did not ruin my weekend," I said firmly.  "In the future, a call before you show up in Denver would be a good choice, but I'm glad I was around."

"Me too," she said ruefully, as we entered the kitchen.  I got out some plates and napkins and opened the pizza box.  Brody appeared in the kitchen as we were putting some pizza on our plates.  He grabbed one of the plates and smiled kindly at Sarah.  "Thanks for the pizza," she said, her voice barely above a whisper.  She refused to make eye contact with him and I could see the pink returning to her cheeks under her hair.

"You're welcome," he replied.  "Works out well for me, because I don't have to cook or wash dishes."  She met his eyes briefly and almost smiled, then looked back down at her plate.  Brody leaned against the counter with his plate in his hand and looked at me.  He said quietly, "I'm going to eat and then do a little more work."  I had a feeling he was eating and disappearing for Sarah's benefit, because she seemed absolutely terrified of him.  I nodded.

We all ate quietly.  Brody finished his pizza quickly, shoved his plate in the dishwasher, kissed my cheek and disappeared to his office.  "Does he always work a lot?" Sarah asked once he was gone.

I nodded.  "He owns his own business, so he's pretty busy."  She didn't say anything, but I was hopeful she might continue what she was talking about before.  After several minutes of silence, I tried prodding her a little.  "Do you want to tell me more about your mom?"

She frowned, then shrugged.  "She's never home.  I always took care of AJ.  She just wants us back because she gets more money when she's taking care of us.  She's always out with her stupid boyfriends, and I hate her."  Her voice had risen as she'd talked, but this was all I could get out of her.

After dinner, she called her grandma like she had said she would.  She I asked what she wanted to do and she asked what I'd be doing if she wasn't there.  I told her I might be reading or Brody and I would watch a movie or maybe go out.  She suggested we all watch a movie, and while she pretended Brody wasn't there as best as she could, she didn't seem quite as thrown off by his presence.

She excused herself for bed after the movie and once I heard the guest room door click firmly shut, I curled up next to Brody, leaning into his chest.  We talked quietly about the situation for a few minutes and then he told me about his day at work.  We turned on some old episodes of Arrested Development and watched a couple together before we were both too tired to stay up any longer.

"I think I might sleep down here," I said.  "I'm a little worried she might try to take off in the middle of the night, but even if she stays, I don't want her to wake up and need something and not come ask for it.  It might be easier if I sleep on the couch."

Brody immediately volunteered to sleep downstairs with me.  I protested that and after arguing it for a couple minutes, I convinced him to go up to bed with the promise that I'd let him know if I needed anything.

Nadine and Jon arrived on Sunday right around 1:30.  Sarah had helped me prepare and clean up from lunch and we had just finished when the doorbell rang.  She allowed Nadine and Jon to hug her tightly, though she didn't do much to hug back.  For their part, Nadine and Jon refrained from scolding her, though I could Nadine was struggling to hold her tongue.  "Can we have a few minutes?" Nadine asked me.

"Absolutely," I replied.  I left the room and went back to Brody's office.

He looked up and grinned when I knocked on the door.  "Are they gone already?" he asked, his grin turning to a perplexed look.

"No, they just asked for a few minutes," I replied with a shrug.  I pulled the second desk chair up next to him and stretched my legs up and forward, resting my heels on a clear spot on the edge of the desk.

Brody ran his fingers lightly up my bare calf and shook his head.  "It's not nice to tease while there are other people in the house," he said.

I rolled my eyes.  "Sorry you have no self control," I joked.

He grinned and leaned over to kiss my cheek.  "How pissed are they?" he asked quietly then.

I shrugged.  "They're not happy, but they were handling it well while I was out there."  I sat quietly while he wrapped up what he was working on, and was soon startled by a knock at the door.  I looked up and saw Nadine standing tentatively in the doorway.

I stood quickly.  "Nadine, this is Brody, my boyfriend." Brody stood as well and they exchanged greetings.  We walked back out to the living room.  Sarah was sitting sullenly on the couch, once again hiding behind her hair.  When she glanced up at me, I could see she had been crying.

"Well, thank you for everything," Jon said, after I had introduced Brody to him as well.  "We owe you one for taking such great care of her and her whims this weekend."

"It wasn't a problem," I assured them.  "I'd love you see you guys again soon--maybe on a planned visit this time?"  I caught Sarah's eye and smiled.  She smiled back, the corners of her lips barely twitching up before her eyes darted to Nadine and she disappeared back behind her hair.  We talked about trying to plan something and decided we'd pick a weekend soon for Brody and I to drive out to Utah.

As I was walking them all to the door, I was surprised by Sarah hugging me, briefly but fiercely.  I looked at her and said, "Call anytime, okay?  And keep me posted."  She nodded, smiled her faint, fleeting smile, and disappeared out the door behind Nadine and Jon.

"Sorry," I said with a rueful grimace once they were gone.  "That disrupted the entire weekend."

"Yet is still not the craziest thing that one of our family members has done to disrupt our lives," Brody said, smiling.  "That honor will forever stay with my father, I think."

Brody reminded me we still had several hours of our "no work" Sunday left.  We went for a long walk, wandering around the neighborhood.  We stumbled on a small hidden park that Brody didn't even know existed, and explored for awhile.  When we got back, we made dinner together.  After dinner, we ignored the mess and took a bottle of wine upstairs to enjoy while we soaked in the huge tub together.

"Well," Brody said, running his hands down my arms and pressing a kiss against my shoulder.  "I've now used this tub more since you've moved in than I had in the entire time I had this house before you moved in."

"It's a damn shame you didn't use it more," I said, shaking my head.  This tub might be my favorite part of the entire house.  I might like it even better than my little library.

"Mmmhmmm," he agreed, pressing his lips to my shoulder again, but getting closer to my neck.  I let my head fall back onto his shoulder as his lips made their way to my neck and his hands stroked down and then up my thighs.

It took us a minute to figure out a viable position for the tub and while we struggled and adjusted we also splashed out about half the water.  "I'm not cleaning that up," I said, smirking as Brody moved his leg and sloshed out another pint or so of water.  But it was the right adjustment and my words faded to a gasp as Brody thrust into me.

After we finished, we relaxed in the tub until the water wasn't warm anymore.  Then we cleaned up the water mess together, dried off, and got into bed.  "Thank you for everything this weekend," I said as I snuggled up next to him.  "And I really like our Sundays together."

"So do I," he replied, pushing a piece of my damp hair away from my face.  I shifted and got more comfortable, then easily drifted to sleep.