"YOU DID WHAT?!"
Emma's voice filled the house. Jake looked up from the TV show he was watching, a sinking feeling creeping into his stomach, and turned the volume up on the set. Thundering on the stair well told him that however loud he turned the TV up, he wasn't going to get out of being involved in this argument, though.
Jake grabbed a handful of popcorn in self defense and shoved it into his mouth, rendering himself incapable of speech.
Emma burst into the living room. "Do you have any idea what your wife did?" she bellowed, standing between Jake and the TV set. Molly followed Emma into the room, her eyes wild and hair frizzy from nerves. Emma pointed at Molly. "She told Brian Littrell to marry me so together, wedded in holy matrimony, we can essentially commit insurance fraud."
Jake blinked rapidly, thinking to himself how quickly the popcorn cover was going to abandon him and force him to respond. His mind scrambled for an appropriate answer that wouldn't make either of the two livid-looking women before him slaughter him in his sleep.
"Emma needs to keep going with the treatment," Molly shouted before the last granules of popcorn slid down Jake's throat. "She can't give up now! Research proves with this treatment option that you have to go through multiple cycles before results show."
"The treatments are expensive Molly," Emma yelled, turning to look at her frazzled friend, "Money does not grow on trees!"
"Neither do lives!" Molly yelled.
"Maybe I'm supposed to die!" Emma yelled back.
"Why?!" Molly's voice squeaked and Jake reached for more popcorn and muted the TV set. "Because you can't afford it? Brian is perfectly willing to drop a check right now to pay for the bill."
"I don't want Brian footing my bill!" Emma yelled.
Molly's eyes narrowed, "Which is why I went to him and asked him about his insurance policy. It's a way to get the treatment and not have Brian pay out-of-pocket for it!"
"I don't want to be endebted to him anymore than I already am," Emma replied, "He didn't want to be a part of my life, so he doesn't need to be. Don't force the guy to do shit he doesn't want to do."
Molly whirled to look at Jake, who'd just swallowed his second mouthful of popcorn, and asked, "What do you think, Jake, as a man?" Emma turned to look at him, too.
Jake's eyes travelled between Molly and Emma slowly. He ran his tongue along his teeth. They stared at him, waiting for a response. "Em... you do need the treatment..."
Emma threw her hands into the air, "You're actually siding with Match Maker Mary over here?" she demanded.
Molly turned to Emma, "Well he is my husband."
"Get your balls out of her pocket, Jake," Emma snaped, and stormed out of the doorway.
Jake stared after her, dumbfounded. "And here I thought I found the one neutral thing I could say," he stammered.
Molly crawled onto the sofa beside him. "She's being irrational," she said.
Jake hesitated.
Molly looked up at him. She'd felt the muscles in his chest tighten with the hesitation. She raised an eyebrow. "What aren't you saying?" she asked.
Jake wanted to crawl into a hole and becoe invisible to all people. He cleared his throat, "Just... that maybe... I don't know. Maybe proposing to Brian for her was a little off-the-chart?"
Molly made a noise that meant she didn't like what Jake had just said, and climbed back off the couch, disappearing into the kitchen. Jake let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding since the words had eked out of his mouth, and slid down against the seat cushions.
Baylee was laying on his bed, staring up at the ceiling, when Nick knocked and let himself into the room without waiting for Baylee to invite him. Nick poked his head in the doorway. "Hey can we talk?"
Baylee glanced over. "Whatever," he answered.
Nick closed the door behind him and sat down in the chair at Baylee's desk backwards, resting his chin on the seat back. He stared at Baylee a moment, then spun around in the chair a couple times. Baylee watched from his pillow, an eyebrow raised.
"What do you want?"
Nick stopped spinning. The room warbled a little bit. He decided that was enough spinning and grounded his feet. "So it's like this," he said, "That fighting stuff I showed you? Can we like, delete it from your brain?"
"They were making fun of him," Baylee said.
"Yeah, but --"
Baylee sat up. "He's my dad," he said simply, "That's all I got left now. My dad and how I remember them being. And those kids were dumping all over that."
Nick nodded slowly. The room was still spinning just a little bit. He gnawed the inside of his mouth. "I get that," he said after a moment.
"He didn't kill my mom," Baylee said, "Why would they say that? It's so mean."
Nick shrugged. "Because people are mean in general sometimes," he said, "I mean, not all people. But some people." He studied Baylee. "People say crap about me and your dad and Kev and Howie and AJ all the time," he said, "Mostly it's because they're jealous we have this great relationship and they aren't a part of it."
"Like they're jealous?"
Nick nodded, "Yeah, I guess." He leaned back against Baylee's desk, still holding onto the chair back, and looked up at the ceiling. "In a way, I guess that's kinda what's going on here. They don't understand how your dad feels, they don't get how great your parents were together. You know? So they feel like they gotta rip it up, what little bit is left of it, you know?"
Baylee sighed, "That's dumb."
"People are dumb."
"Yeah." Baylee picked at his fingernails. He looked back up. "Do people pick on you and Lauren like that?" he asked.
"Yeah but we ain't married," Nick answered.
Baylee didn't miss a beat. "Why not?"
Nick shrugged.
Baylee laid back down. "I don't like the cancer girl," he said.
"Emma?" Nick asked.
"Whatever her name is," Baylee answered. "He doesn't belong with her. He belongs with my mom."
Nick sighed. "Yeah, but your mom's not here anymore. So... your dad's just making new friends is all. It's not like he's gonna marry her or anything."
"You promise?" Baylee asked.
Nick made the cross my heart an hope to die motion, then dramatically enacted the stick a needle in my eye part, ending with the flourish of falling onto the floor, clutching his eye socket. Baylee laughed and rolled onto the floor where the two boys started wrestling.
