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Mel’s friends were known to have a good time, their lively energy often veering into raucous. Their laughter had been known to attract glances—particularly those of irritation or second-hand embarrassment—and that was just when they were out in public.
Behind closed front doors and fences, their 11-volume went to a 15 faster than an Usain Bolt sprint. They hurled food across rooms into each other’s mouths. No game was a game without trash talk. If you wanted anyone to hear what you said, you had to yell it. That was standard practice.
Another thing that was deemed acceptable, although begrudgingly: that Mel’s friends, Genevieve and Lucas, were bound to get into at least one fight over the course of the night. The two had dated on-and-off for the past two years, their fleeting blazes of glory always ending in a blaze of brawling.
In their off-periods, while they dropped the romance, they didn’t drop the sparring.
And as two people who easily bristled, especially at each other, any and every topic was up for fair game.
Tonight was the stupidest by far: what was and was not a pizza topping. And yet, somehow, it had become the most heated, the conversation taking the offramp into how Lucas had never respected Genevieve’s opinion, and how she always treated him as if he only had one brain cell.
“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to disrespect the only other one you have,” Genevieve yells at him over a fragile Jenga tower, as Mel watches from behind the couch, unable to look away.
Their voices are higher, tones angrier than their usual matches.
At the coffee table, Zeke and Jacob are captivated too, shielding the blocks from the sudden hand movements of the couple. They’re not the only ones. The rowdiness of their group has dropped a few decibels, their attention focused all on the same place.
“Are you gonna eat that?”
Well, except one person.
Mel turns only her eyes to the voice. Unsurprising to anyone, Jordy is shoveling down a handful of caramel popcorn, and angling for the white cheddar cheese puffs in Mel’s own paper snack bowl. “That’s what you’re thinking about right now?” she asks.
“I’m an emotional eater,” he says, between crunches. “And Mommy and Daddy are fighting.”
“You’re always eating,” she counters.
The brim of his Cubs baseball cap casts a shadow over his face, but Mel can still see the glint in his hazel eyes. “And they’re always fighting.”
A laugh bubbles from her lips. “True.” With a sigh, Mel extends her bowl to him, and Jordy sweeps it up, tossing one of the curvy puffs into his mouth.
“Okay, catch me up. The last time I was in here, they were bickering about strawberries on a pizza, and I can’t break up a fight if I don’t know what I’m going to have to blindly agree to in order to do it,” he says. As Genevieve and Lucas’s best friends, in the past, Mel and Jordy have had to end their duels like a teacher busting up a hallway punchfest, dragging the parties apart.
Mel takes Genevieve and Jordy takes Lucas, placating them about how they’re in the right just long enough to draw them away from one another.
Then, it’s time for the honest talk about how it’s time for them to get their shit together.
And Genevieve and Lucas always say they will … until the next hangout.
Tonight, Mel feels like she’ll have to chase down Genevieve with a box of Kleenex—or take one of them to the ER to get Jenga blocks extracted from sensitive places after one of them uses the tower as a weapon.
Mel shrugs, and tugs on the messy bun atop her head, tightening it. “I’ve been here the whole time, and I couldn’t tell you. Although putting strawberries on a pizza could start a war, so maybe that was the first shot.”
“Um, I would’ve fired one right back, because it’s delicious,” he says.
“What?” she spits in disgust. “I mean, I know you have the palate of a garbage can, but don’t you have limits?” She presses her lips together to keep herself from laughing, but they shape into a smirk anyways.
Jordy doesn’t hide his, guffawing into his bowl. “Oh, that’s right. Sorry, I forgot you were a three-star Michelin chef who knows everything about high-class cuisine.”
“Thank you. Apology accepted,” she says, and steals a couple of caramel kernels from him, as his laughter fades into a chuckle, and a shake of a head.
“Although, you know, I’d think that a Michelin chef would know that strawberry is really good on a balsamic pizza. Put some chicken on there.” He brings his fingers to his lips, and explodes them away with a kiss. “Chef’s kiss.”
For a few seconds, Mel’s only response is to run her eyes up and down him, searching for a response, yes, but more or less processing how for the 100th time, Jordy has surprised her.
This is what it is like, being friends with Jordy Consoli.
Knowing him so well that you’ve learned the reason he’s always wearing his Cubs hat is to cover the springy curls he inherited from his mom—the ones he hates to show off because kids called him Frizz Bomb, shortened to F Bomb, in elementary school. That he and Lucas became friends at the age of four when Lucas wet himself at recess and Jordy splashed water from the water fountain on himself so Lucas wouldn’t be the only one with spots on his pants. And that, like her, he can pop jokes and toss out sarcasm in no-time flat because he’s been doing it all his life to deflect big feelings, and lighten the mood when home returns to its all-too-familiar bleakness.
Being friends with Jordy means knowing all of this and more, while also knowing that every once in a while, he is going to offer up these seemingly throw-away, yet perspective-changing factoids about himself, and leave you a little bit stunned.
And, if Mel is being honest with herself—which, when it comes to Jordy, she tries not to be—Jordy leaves her feeling a little more of a feeling she’s not prepared to say out loud, or give a name to internally.
“You know, you don’t have to say chef’s kiss. The motion is enough. People get it,” she says when the spell breaks, eating her popcorn and crossing her arms over her Chester High Orchestra hoodie.
“I do, but I’m all for the pizazz,” he says, showing off some jazz hands that when paired with his unabashed smile are a fail-safe way to make her grin. “You know that, Beale.”
“I do,” she nods. “What I don’t know is when you became a balsamic pizza connoisseur.”
“Oh.” Jordy digs out another handful of cheese puffs, the food poking through the gaps between his fingers for a Wolverine-effect. “My dad and I were channel surfing a couple months ago and landed on the Food Channel and they were talking about it and it looked really good, so we made it, and it was.”
He raises his hand towards hers, offering her a talon. “I could make it for you sometime?” His eyes meet hers as she takes one of the puffs. “If you wanted?”
In isolation, the words were an ask—nothing more—and Mel could try to play it off like that.
But that would mean dismissing his tone, deep, and warm, and maybe a touch timid. Or the hopeful look in his eyes. Had she ever heard three words so loaded with meaning? She could think of another trio, but it hadn’t been spoken to her.
If she says yes, what would the implications be? Is she signing up for more, opening them up to something she shouldn’t dare open? But if she says no, is it slamming that door shut? What does she—
Something clatters to the ground. A roar goes up.
“WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?” Genevieve yells.
Mel and Jordy jump towards the sound.
Genevieve and Lucas are still in front of the table, but where the Jenga game was is now a demolished tower, wood planks scattered around the room like pieces of shrapnel. Genevieve is shielding her face behind her elbows, while Lucas has turned tail and is cowering. At the table, Jacob is gripping one of the game pieces, knuckles bulging through skin.
“YOU GUYS NEED TO SHUT THE HELL UP! IT’S SO STUPID!” Jacob says and reaches for one of the blocks. “Sorry man, can you hand me that?” Wordlessly, Zeke nods and gives it to Jacob, so he can begin rebuilding.
Genevieve and Lucas sputter, nothing intelligible sneaking through.
“Can it be right now?” Mel asks Jordy, and he chuckles. Back to their sweet spot: deflection.
“If we run fast enough,” he says out of the corner of his mouth.
Ensuring they can’t, Genevieve and Lucas start in on Jacob, uniting over their new common enemy. With the high probability of the blocks being used as a weapon again, Mel says, “We should probably help, shouldn’t we?”
“Yeah,” Jordy sighs, laying down his bowls on the end table beside a lamp. Mel follows, going around the side of the couch to pull Genevieve away and off to another room, but as calming words flow from her lips, she’s unable—no, now unwilling to deny—all she wants on them is the taste of strawberry pizza. Well, and maybe one more thing.
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