Starcrossed

that?” Helen huffed.
    “Because the past few days every time I come home you look at me like I’ve forgotten your birthday or something equally unforgivable.”
    “Well, have you?”
    “No! I haven’t done anything! Nothing wrong ,” he said with a straight face, but the red flush rising up his neck gave him away.
    “Should I ask about you and Kate or would I be too grossed out?”
    “Hey. There’s nothing going on there. We’re just going to be friends,” he said, his expression grim. Helen could tell there was a lot of backstory behind that decision, but she didn’t really want to hear it at the moment.
    “Your loss,” Helen responded with a disinterested shrug. Jerry’s head jerked up quickly, stunned by the bitterness in her voice.
    “You didn’t used to be so mean, Helen.”
    She crossed her arms and looked off to her left at absolutely nothing, too ashamed of herself to meet her father’s sad gaze. She could handle the fear of being pursued by vengeful spirits from Hades, but not if turned her into a bitch. Whatever the Delos family decided, she hoped they would do it quickly. She started to mumble an apology, but was saved from having to explain herself by a knock at the door. Jerry went to answer it and after a few moments he called out to Helen to come and join him.
    “What is it?” she asked, coming out of the kitchen. There was a delivery boy at the door with bags and bags of groceries.
    “He says these are for you,” Jerry said, holding out a note with Helen’s name on it.
    “I didn’t order these,” Helen said to the delivery boy.
    “The order was made by a Mrs. Noel Delos to be delivered to a Miss Helen Hamilton. It’s all paid for,” he replied, anxious to be on his way.
    Jerry tipped the kid and took the groceries into the kitchen while Helen read the note.
 
Miss Hamilton,
I am so sorry for my son’s appalling behavior toward you at the market today, and I ask that you accept these few things I’ve sent, even if you are unable to accept an apology. I understand what it is to try to put dinner on the table with no groceries, although apparently my Lucas does not.
 
Noel Delos
 
    Helen stared at the page for far longer than it took to read it. She was touched by the gesture. It was a ridiculously decent thing to do. Helen got the impression that there was something different about Noel Delos, but she had no idea what it was.
    “What does she mean, ‘appalling behavior,’ Lennie?” Jerry asked, reading over her shoulder. Helen could see outrage beginning to build in him. “What did that Lucas kid do to you now?”
    “No, Dad, it’s okay. She’s exaggerating,” Helen said, trying to make as little of it as possible.
    “Then we can’t accept these. This is over a hundred dollars’ worth of groceries,” he argued.
    “Oh, for crying out loud!” Helen moaned at the ceiling. She took a deep breath and launched into an explanation. “Okay, you win. Lucas and I had another fight today at the market, but it was a small one. In comparison, at least. Anyway, the point is that he started it and I couldn’t go shopping like I needed to and one of the other Delos kids must have told his mom that I didn’t do my shopping and she took it the wrong way and sent all these groceries because she’s obviously a really nice woman but I don’t want you to say anything to her and can we please, please , drop it?”
    “What the hell is it with you and this Lucas kid?” Jerry said after a moment, completely flabbergasted. Then a thought occurred to him. “Are you two dating?” he asked in a terrified voice. Helen burst out laughing.
    “No, we’re not dating. What we’re doing is trying to not kill each other. And that isn’t working out too well,” she responded, trusting that the absolute truth would be so inconceivable he would think it was a joke. She was right.
    He got a pained look. “You’ve never had a boyfriend. Is it time for us to have that talk about what men and women do when they love each other?”
    “Absolutely not,” Helen replied firmly.
    “Good,” he said, relieved. They stood in awkward silence for a moment. “So . . . we can eat the groceries, right?”
    “Heck, yeah,” she said as she turned on her heel and made for the kitchen while Jerry practically ran to the living room and the dependable comfort of SportsCenter.
    As she put together some bruschetta with the amazing bufala mozzarella, fresh tomato, basil, and crazy-good Spanish