Rayne & Delilah's Midnite Matinee(29)

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“Well, folks, that’s it for another episode of Midnite Matinee. We hope you dug the movie!” Delia says.

“And thanks to our special guest, uh…” I suddenly realize we forgot to give Lawson a stage name.

Delia jumps in. “Kickin’ Kenny.”

“Kickin’ Kenny! I doubt we’d have come up with anything better even if we’d thought about it. And don’t forget to tune in next week for more chills…”

“And thrills!”

We smile, wave, and then wait until Arliss yells, “Cut.” Lawson stands behind Arliss, beaming. He has apparently pleased Arliss enough not to be kicked out the minute he’s done with his scene.

We start taking down the set.

“How’d it look tonight?” I ask Arliss as he approaches, winding up a microphone cable.

He draws in a breath and belches, “Real,” then draws in another breath and belches, “Bad.”

“Well, thanks for that,” I say.

Lawson, still wearing his Tae Kwon Do getup but with his new Vans, starts helping Delia unpin the spiderweb.

“Good job,” Delia says to Lawson. “We might need to make you a regular.”

“We’ll reimburse your board costs,” I say.

“Oh, it’s no big deal. They’re cheap.”

“Good, because I was kidding.”

Delia tosses the candelabra and plastic skull in a bin and clamps down the lid. “Lemme see your keys, JoJo.”

I hand her my keys and she walks outside, lugging the bin.

Arliss finishes fiddling with the camera. “I gotta take a dump. Don’t break anything or have sex while I’m gone.” He stalks away.

I wrinkle my nose. “Gross, Arliss. Gross,” I say to his back.

Lawson half smiles. “Jeez, I’m standing right here.”

“You know which part of what he said I was referring to,” I say with an eye roll.

“I watched the show last week, by the way.” He picks up our end table.

“Oh yeah? You can stick that in the corner. As long as it’s out of the way.”

“Yeah. Well, I watched y’all’s parts. I had a hard time with the movie itself.”

“Lightweight.”

“Technically I’m a welterweight.”

“Uh-oh! That some fighter guy humor? Huh? You busting out some fight material on me?”

He grins. “Maybe.” He stands beside me while I arrange the chairs and table in the corner. He smells like laundry detergent and clean, bleached cotton. It’s a nice smell. “So you had some nutty letters tonight. Are all your letter writers such weirdos?” he asks.

“No, lots of really normal, well-adjusted people love to watch public access shows starring two high school girls from Jackson, Tennessee.”

“I didn’t know you were allowed to say ‘Opinions are like buttholes; everyone has one, but it’s best to keep it to yourself’ on public TV.”

“Public access TV. There’s a massive difference. Also, most of the people who worry about that sort of thing aren’t paying attention to us. But good memory.”

He walks over and picks up a stray splinter from one of his broken boards. “It was a memorable phrase.”

I wonder where Delia is. I thought it would be suddenly tense and awkward when Arliss left Lawson and me alone, but it isn’t. Lawson isn’t being weird at all, the way some guys act when you say you just want to be friends. It’s pretty refreshing.

“Doesn’t it hurt when you break boards?” I ask.

“Nope.”

“Seriously? Are you pretending to be tough?”

“There’s a secret to it.”

“Are you allowed to reveal it to someone who isn’t a member of the Sacred Brotherhood of the Broken Board?”

He raises a finger, walks over to his duffel bag, and grabs a spare board. He hands it to me. “Hold.”

“Dude, I’m not going to hold this while you break it. Too scary.”

“Nope. Not gonna break it. Here, hold it like this.” He positions my hands on the board. His fingers are surprisingly gentle for how strong they are. He maneuvers the board so I’m holding it square toward him, in front of my chest.

He taps on the board. “If you aim for the board itself, you’ll hurt yourself. You have to focus your energy on a point beyond the board.” He reaches over and taps at the space between the board and my chest. “And then—” He coils back and strikes. I barely have time to flinch. Just before he hits the board, he stops and flicks it with his finger.

I squeal and drop the board, giggling. “You freaked me out, jackass.”

He reaches out as quickly as he struck, catching the board before it hits the floor. “We promised Arliss we wouldn’t break anything.”

“Also that we wouldn’t have sex.”

“We’re good on that too.” Lawson smiles and reddens. “We’ve done nothing to spoil Arliss’s dump.”

An awkward silence follows. I break it by pointing at the general area of his groin (such a gross word). “So you’re a black belt.”

“Since I was ten.”

“For real? Dedication.”