It’s a standoff. We stare at each other with narrowed eyes, like characters in a really bad spaghetti western, the kind my grandfather used to love to watch on Saturday afternoons.
“How did you see it?” we ask in unison.
Stare.
God, she’s sexy when she’s filled with righteous indignation and lying to me.
“You told me you got the camera from those boys and destroyed every version of the video,” Shannon says slowly, pulling back from me in the front seat and giving me a look meant to convey that she was being cagey and viewed me as a pervert, all while running through a visual loop of my naked ass in her mind.
I can see my own ass in her eyes. She’s transparent like that.
“I did. But the kid without the camera was using his phone to tape everything. Said they were taught in media class that they should always have back up.”
“Great. College freshmen who actually listen to their professors,” Shannon mumbles, crossing her arms over her chest in fury. “Just our luck.” She frowns. “You deleted it off his phone?”
“No,” I say, patting my pants pocket. “I bought the phone from him.” Nice phone, too. Better than mine, which makes me realize I’ve become a dinosaur in the tech world. Need to hire an eighteen-year-old geek to keep me supplied with the latest gadgets.
“You bought his active phone on the spot? Phone number and all? He just gave it to you?”
“I didn’t really give him a choice.”
She goes silent.
“How did you see the video?” I ask.
“Agnes’ grandson had a flash drive in the camera. So there was a copy. He gave it to Mom and she gave it to me.”
I smash my fist into the steering wheel and she jumps, terrified. I don’t do violence. Hitting things is a sign of weakness, a symbol of the inability to use words and power to get what you want.
Which is why I hit the steering wheel.
Marie has made me resort to pounding the car dashboard like the frustrated oaf that I’ve become.
“Did your mother watch it?”
“No. She swears.”
“You’re sure she didn’t tweet it to Jessica? Make some popcorn and invite Agnes over? Offer a still for the side of a promotional vehicle?”
“You’re taking out your anger on the wrong person,” she replies with a coolness I’ve never noticed in her before. Looks like Shannon’s been getting some lessons in Resting Bitchface.
I wince at the thought. And her words...
“I’m sorry. You’re right.” I turn the car on and put the car in Drive, but her hand stops me, covering mine on the gear shaft.
Knowing I’ll see eyes filled with reproach, I look at her slowly, dragging my gaze.
What I get, instead, is a kind of ragged lust.
“What did you think about the, uh, video?” she asks breathing roughly through her nose, her face carefully neutral.
“It was mercifully short.”
“That’s all?”
“And hot.” The video lasts about six seconds, a clear view of my always-pinchable ass and Shannon’s gorgeous legs, quite a bit of fevered movement, and then the screaming starts.
First the cameraman (who knew a guy could hit that octave?), then Marie, followed by what I think is Chuckles’ laughter. I don’t know. I’ve never heard a cat laugh before. But if cats can laugh, that’s definitely the sound.
“Oh, yes.” The top of her tongue pokes out of her mouth and suddenly, I’m breathing hard, too. See? This is why I thought maybe, some day, we’d make our own little personal porno.
But I never thought my future mother-in-law would beat me to the punch.
“All the copies are gone, though,” I assure her as that hand moves from the car’s gearshift to my gearshift. I go from neutral to fourth gear in three seconds.
Shannon’s right.
All guys really do think about is sex.
“Let’s get out of here,” I murmur as I reach over and kiss her neck.
“Where?”
I pause and inhale through my teeth, the hiss the sound of relief as she gives me a contrite look. Neither of us was wrong, but neither of us was right.
(But she’s more wrong, of course).
“How about we go back to an old haunt,” I say, turning toward the road that leads to the trail we were on nearly eighteen months ago when she almost turned my penis into a pincushion.
“Where?”
“You’ll see.”
“Not the gas station where you insisted we try to have a quickie?” I can’t tell if she’s making an offer or being sarcastic.
“I made a joke. Once,” I growl.
The rest of the drive we’re silent, though she reaches over to hold my hand, her lips remaining in a neutral, straight line, eyes hooded. The Incident is one thing, but the relationship between me and Marie is another. Shannon wants everyone to be one big, happy family. I get it. I do. But I come from a family environment where everything warm and fuzzy ended the day something warm and fuzzy stung my mother and killed her.
My concept of a big, happy family is one created from wistful memories, snippets of movies, and the occasional invitation to someone’s parents’ private island for Thanksgiving.
“Oh!” Shannon perks up as I make a right turn into the gravel-coated parking lot for the state park. She smiles. Something in me loosens.
You might think I’m out of my mind for bringing an anaphylactic bee sting patient to a park in Massachusetts in August, and you’d be right, except that Shannon—unlike my vampire brother CEO—has decided that she will not restrict her life in any way because of her allergy. She goes outside, she hikes, she all-but beekeeps a set of apiaries in her zest to live a “normal” life.