Kex - Judy Colella (red novels TXT) 📗

know this guy at all. Words meant nothing anymore, sadly. “So you’ll give me an actual contract to look at?”

“Sure. You might want to get a lawyer, though, since legal jargon is nothing like computer-speak.”

Kex didn’t bother telling the man that he understood “legal jargon” quite well. “Fine – you can email it, I guess, but I’d like a hard copy, too.”

Jonas agreed, and in the end, their meeting turned out to be the beginning of something neither could have ever imagined.

V.

It never occurred to Kex to be embarrassed about where he lived – realistic about how others might see it, but nothing more. He had a home that was neat, well-cared-for, and lived in by good people. He also had good neighbors and had been very happy there, even though he was eventually too big to fit in his own bedroom properly. But so what? At least he had a bedroom, something he knew too many people in the world did not.

He was still driving the Chevy he’d bought during the summer before college began, but had gotten it a fresh coat of paint, detailed the interior to within an inch of its mechanical life, and had a friend of his who was a natural with engines give that part of it a major overhaul. What had entered his life as a noisy green rust-bucket was now a classic-looking cherry-red cream-puff that hummed along with almost the same efficiency as its much newer counterparts.

Rianna loved it. She said it was like him – unique and full of character. So while he really didn’t need it to drive the extremely short distance between the campus and the trailer park, he nonethless picked her up in it from her dorm on the day before Winter Break to bring her home with him to meet his parents. They hadn’t gotten formally engaged, but marriage had definitely been a frequent topic between them, and he felt it was time Helga and William made her aquaintance.

Helga was immediately delighted. “What a beautiful young lady you are!” she exclaimed after giving the girl a warm hug at the door. “Please come in!” The woman stepped back, waving expansively toward the livingroom. Then, as Rianna went past her, she threw her arms around her son’s waist and squeezed him tightly, holding back tears.

“Uh, Mom, I was just here about twenty minutes ago…”

“I know, sweetheart, but now I’ve met your lovely girlfriend, and I’m so happy for you!”

He laughed and squeezed her back – carefully. “Thanks. Let’s go see how Dad is handling this.”

They went into the livingroom to find Mr. Exford standing unsteadily and shaking hands with Rianna. He rarely got up, his weight making it a dangerous undertaking, but apparently felt it was worth the risk for this occasion.

“Erik!” the man exclaimed as his wife and son entered. “She’s exquisite!”

“She’s a lot more than that, Dad,” said Kex, smiling.

Rianna turned and immediately bit back an urge to laugh. The love of her life was unable to stand completely upright without his head hitting the ceiling, and his slightly hunched stance made her think of Gandalf trying to maneuver the diminutive confines of Bilbo’s hobbit hole.

“You’ll be joining us for dinner, of course, yes?” asked Helga.

“Kex told me you’d invited me to eat with you, so yes. And thank you very much.”

Helga clucked her tongue. “You know, I can’t get used to that nickname, but apparently it’s all he uses these days.”

“It’s convenient,” said the giant formerly known as Erik. “Oh, I talked to the doctor earlier,” he told his father who had managed to lower himself back onto the sofa without hurting himself. “Said you’re now third on the list.” He had been working for the gaming company for over two months, and had paid off every last overdue bill. In addition, he’d gotten his father put on the list for a new liver, and only hoped the man could hold out until one became available.

“Guess that means I have to get more serious about losing weight.” William actually looked a bit glum about this.

“Yes, you do. I’ll help you, you know. After all, I had to go through all that myself, remember.”

“Ah!” Helga got up and waddled over to a low table under the only window in the room and took out a large photo album.

“You’ve got to be joking,” Kex muttered. “I thought this only happened in silly chick-flicks.”

Rianna snorted and smacked his arm. “Goof-ball.”

He kissed her.

“Okay, you two!” William chuckled and waggled a finger at them.

“Rianna, dear, I think you’ll appreciate this. Here’s a picture of Erik in Middle School.” She held out the open album, one finger jabbing at a photo in a pocket half-way down the page.

The girl stared, open-mouthed. “That’s you? Oh, wow! How much did you weigh?”

Kex rolled his eyes. “God. I had to be at least three hundred and fifty, and only about five-foot-three or four.”

“How long did it take you to lose all that?”

He sat back, having taken a seat next to his father, and did some calculations. “Hmm. Forever.”

“Kex!”

“Sorry. Yeah, well, about two months into my diet and exercise routine, I had only lost maybe fifty pounds, but the summer between my fifteenth and sixteenth birthdays, I started to get taller.”

“Did he ever!” Helga shook her head. “It was the most amazing thing! You’d think I’d started putting ‘Miracle-Gro’ in his food or something! How many inches did he grow that year, Will?”

“Eight or nine, I’d say. The next year, he sprouted up another four or five, and by the time he was eighteen, he was too tall to walk in the door.”

“Ha.” Something had struck Kex as he listened and he said, “Dang. I went from needing the doors widened to needing them raised. Nothing like being normal!”

“No, it was nothing like being normal!” William grinned.

“Thank goodness.” Rianna, who was sitting beside Helga on the loveseat adjacent to the sofa, gave his hand a squeeze. “You turned out perfect.”

Maybe that was the moment that Mr. and Mrs. Exford simultaneously fell in love with Rianna. Maybe not. But regardless, from that day forward they treated her as if she’d been born into the family.

Things went rather differently, however, when Kex was introduced to Rianna’s parents. They lived in Florida, and since they were seemingly too important and busy to come up to the Northeast to meet their daughter’s love interest, Kex bought plane tickets so they could visit them over the holidays.

South Beach was elegant in its own way, but completely lacking when it came to the kind of festive atmosphere he’d always associated with Thanksgiving and Christmas. Palm trees with twinkling, colorful lights were still palm trees. The weather, too, was somewhat disconcerting for him. Eighty degrees in December? Really?

Mr. and Mrs. Moore, Rianna’s parents, lived in a gated community of mansions. Most of them were stucco with Spanish tile roofs, and all of them were as close together as the trailers in the less-than-high-class “gated” community in which Kex lived. Quentin Moore was a lawyer, while his wife, Jenna, was a volunteer at one of the many local retirement homes. She donated three hours a day to helping the librarian there re-shelve books the residents had borrowed and returned.

All of this Rianna explained as they rode to the house in an airport limo. “You probably won’t like them very much.”

“Why not? Aren’t they nice people?” He honestly didn’t give a hoot if they were wealthy or not, and in fact admired those who had done well in life. The way a person behaved toward others was all that really mattered to him.

“No.”

Well, that shattered his hopes. “For real?”

“My father is mean and my mother is a snob.”

“How did you turn out so well?”

She smiled. “My grandparents raised me for the most part. Mom and Dad were too busy traveling the world in an effort to impress the real moneyed class to have time to deal with a child. I also believe I was an accident.”

He turned toward her and took her by the shoulders. “No you weren’t. You’re the most valuable human being I’ve ever met, as well as the most golden-hearted, generous, loving person I know, and that was no accident.” He wondered now if this part of her past was why she’d never spoken of it. Seemed they both had things in their lives that may or may not have gone down well with the other.

She stared, fighting a sudden wave of emotion, then flung her arms around his neck. “I love you,” she whispered fiercely. “I love you, I love you, I love you!”

Okay, he thought. This wasn’t right. How dare anyone make this amazing girl unaware of her own worth! “And I love you, Ri.” He kissed the top of her head and held her close for a while. But curiosity got the better of him and he eventually pulled away. “How, exactly, is your father mean?”

“I – I think he wanted a son, and was so disappointed…he used to hit me a lot and yell. Mom told him to be careful not to leave marks because of what people would think, and I’m pretty sure that’s the only reason she ever got angry with him for hurting me.” She frowned and looked away. “I also think that’s why my grandmother tried to get me away from them.”

“Abusing you wasn’t reason enough for her to succeed?”

“She couldn’t prove it.”

They fell silent after this, and for the remainder of the ride, Kex had to decide whether or not he was going to let her parents know that he was aware of their treatment of Rianna, or let it go for the time being. One thing was sure, though – no way was she going to spend any of her vacation time alone with them.

“Here we go,” said the limo driver some time later. “Should I let you out here, or do you want me to drive you in?”

Rianna told him the code, which he punched into a keypad to their left, and the wide, wrought-iron gates swung slowly open.

The house was exactly as Rianna had described it, although Kex honestly thought it looked an awful lot like all the others around it. In this context, it certainly was nothing special. He got out and went around to her side to open her door. Then he paid the driver, took their suitcases from the trunk, and carried them up the main walkway.

A woman in a maid’s uniform opened the door (apparently, Rianna couldn’t simply walk into her own house). She stared up at Kex for several moments before acknowledging the girl at his side. “Oh! Miss Rianna! Please – your parents are waiting in the game room.” She stepped back, giving Kex a shy smile.

“Thanks, Milly. This is Kex, by the way.” She took his arm, and without waiting for the maid to respond, told him to leave the suitcases there and tugged him through the huge foyer toward a hallway leading somewhere into the back of the house.

“What - ”

“I want to get this over with,” she said quietly, her expression unhappy.

When they entered the game room a minute or so later, Kex discovered that “game” referred not to chess, pool, or any kind of