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“God,” she said with a groan. “There are words for everything.”
I giggled at the back of my throat. “Yeah, Kai, that’s kind of the thing about words. They describe things.”
“You know, a stovetop alone could replace your coffee machine, microwave, and that milk-heater-upper thing.” She pointed to the extra milk frother we had on the counter.
“It’s a milk frother, Kai.”
“It’s excessive, Jonah.”
I always found it incredibly amusing when she got defensive, almost the same way she felt when I got uncomfortable and grumpy. Kai was never overtly proud nor did she look down on others for any reason, much less for what they did or didn’t have in their kitchen. But she did get confused, and her best way of covering it up was to get snippy. She did the same thing when she was angry.
“I know it’s a lot to take in,” I teased.
“Do not belittle me,” she snapped.
All right, all right. She needs a coffee.
I chuckled as I said, “Feel free to sit on the couch and choose something to watch.” She was especially partial to Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner in the mornings. “I’ll bring you a coffee for your morning cartoons, and you will love me forever.”
“I already love you forever,” she mumbled, abandoning the dishes and turning toward the couch area.
Oh, how I wished.
Kai and I spent the morning sprawled on the couches. While I remained reclined comfortably, she went from sitting cross-legged, to lying on her side, to hanging her head off the seat with her feet up on the back of the sofa. When her face had filled up with too much blood, she groaned and turned herself around to place her chin and forearms on the coffee table, the bottom half of her body still crumpled up awkwardly on the cushions. It was like sitting next to a restless sloth with the way she hung on the furniture, shifting around in five-minute intervals. I stared at her curiously. I hadn’t known it was possible to be flexible in such odd ways, but good for her.
“What are we doing today?” she finally asked, our coffees long since drained and our cartoons becoming repetitive.
Just then, Oli emerged from his room, pulling a T-shirt down over his belly. “We’re recording, little sis. You seem to forget we’re in the middle of making an album.”
She sat up straight and cocked her head. “What are you, like, famous or something?”
“No, no,” he said. June scurried out behind him, tying the string on her sweatpants, and he looped her under his arm. “We’re just three losers with too much hair.”
“Oh, I love losers with too much hair,” Kai crooned.
“I’m glad to see you’re still alive, Kai,” June said. “I thought the coffee machine would’ve eaten you by now.”
Kai picked up a couch pillow and threw it at June’s face.
“She tried to wash our dishes by hand,” I said.
Kai picked up the other pillow and threw it my way. I caught it and launched myself over her to wrestle her down to the couch. She shrieked with glee and grabbed the pillow hard, trying to tug it from my grasp.
It wasn’t until she began tickling my neck that I surrendered fully and jumped backward, slapping a hand over my chest. Wrestling with the girl I liked in my pajamas was risky enough, but doing it while she touched my neck? No thanks. My body would’ve made this inappropriate very quickly.
“Ha!” Kai pointed a finger at me. “I win!”
I flipped her off, catching the slightest whisper from June as she and Oli stepped toward the kitchen area. “Lovebirds.”
No more than twenty minutes later, we were all in our respective rooms, readying ourselves to get to the studio. I changed out of my sweatpants that served as pajamas and into my sweatpants that served for going out in public. I topped the outfit off with a black T-shirt. It seemed pretty standard to me. We weren’t going anywhere fancy, after all, and I certainly didn’t feel the need to impress Noah or his girlfriend, Tiff. And Kai, well, I wanted to impress her, but I had also learned that those types of efforts were futile. She got closer when we were comfortable, not when I wore nice clothes. Better that way, because I had no desire to dress myself up.
Despite all that, Kai began pulling things from one of her still-packed suitcases, asking my thoughts on several different shirts that looked exactly the same in different colors. She tugged on fabrics and held them out for me to see, folding them back up and switching to the next before I even had time to formulate a full thought. She always wore pretty similar things, anyway. When she wanted to be casual, it was usually baggy jeans and a crop top; either a band tee or a funny graphic tee with some obscene joke on it. When she wanted to look more dressed up, it was usually a miniskirt and a mini-er top. She looked excellent in all of it. So, if she wanted my opinion, I’d give it to her.
“We’re just going to the studio. Nothing fancy. I’m wearing this.” I held my arms out to the side.
She laughed and smacked a hand on her thigh. The girl thought I was joking. “Jonah. You can’t wear your pajamas in public.”
My eyes gaped. They were not my pajamas. They were cleaner, less ratty, otherwise identical versions of the same suit that constituted my pajamas. How dare she not notice that I’d changed?
