Family Ties

We walked a few hundred yards farther down the beach and stopped at a dark and quiet stretch. We could still hear strains of music from the direction of the bonfire, but the sound of the surf mostly drowned it out.

“This spot’s as good as any,” Danny said. He set the cooler on the sand and helped me spread one of the blankets. “Hey, honey,” he said to Sabrina,

“grab a couple of beers for us, would you?” He glanced at me. “You okay to guard the cooler?”

“With my life.”

He chuckled and nodded toward the dunes. “I think we’re gonna find a quiet spot over there.”

“Sounds good.”

They disappeared into the night.

Christy sat cross-legged on the blanket. I joined her and accepted my beer. The breeze from the ocean picked up and ruffled my hair. Hers blew in her face, and she tucked it behind an ear.

“Are you warm enough?” I asked. She scooted closer, so I put an arm around her.

“Better now,” she said.

We drank our beers in silence and simply enjoyed the sound of the surf.

“I’m sorry about this morning,” she said eventually. “I didn’t know what to do, so I went to find my dad.”

“I figured.”

“Does your eye still hurt?”

“Yeah, but I’ll live. Gonna have a nice shiner, though.”

“I’m so sorry.”

I shrugged.

“Rich is just… very protective.”

Not to mention homicidal, I thought grimly. Or would that be fratricidal?

“What?” she asked softly.

“Nothing.” I decided to change the subject. “Thanks for… um… you know… covering me up this morning.”

“What?”

“When you tucked me back in my shorts.”

“Oh, that.” She laughed. “He wasn’t ready for his big debut.”

“Um, no.”

“It would’ve been kind of awkward. I mean, he’d’ve made a speech, talked to people, posed for pictures. You know, all that stuff.”

I laughed.

“He isn’t normally shy, though, is he?”

“No. Definitely not shy.”

“Still, I don’t think my dad and brothers would appreciate him like I do.”

“So… you appreciate him?”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “He’s very handsome.”

“How would you know?”

“I’ve seen him,” she said defensively.

“But never in all his glory.”

“No, but I’ve felt him.” She grinned. “He feels very handsome.”

I chuckled at a thought.

“What?”

“Did you ever think, two months ago, that we’d be calmly having a conversation about my johnson?”

“Your penis, you mean? He likes to be called by his proper name.”

I laughed. “Oh he does, does he?”

“Mmm hmm. He told me so. Last night when we met.”

“Well, he’s very glad you were around this morning.” I kissed the top of her head. “His owner is too.”

“I was kinda scared you wouldn’t be,” she admitted seriously.

“Rich and I will figure out a way to deal with each other. We don’t have much choice.”

She looked up at me, her eyes searching.

“We should probably make it official, though. You and me.”

She grew very still with anticipation.

It seemed like an overreaction until I realized that she probably thought I was going to propose. I laughed softly. “No, not like that.”

“Oh, no! I wasn’t thinking that. I mean… I never—”

“It’s okay. I’ve thought about it too.”

She looked up at me again, this time in surprise. “You have?”

“Yeah, of course. I guess it’s been in the back of my mind since the Halloween party.”

“Really?”

“Mmm hmm. Besides, I think of it every time you tease me about ‘not until we’re married.’”

“I’m really sorry about that. I’ll stop saying it if it bothers you.”

“It doesn’t. It’s kinda cute. Besides, it gives me a chance to remind you that things are gonna happen between us long before we’re married.”

“You sound so confident.”

“I am. I mean, I’ll be honest, one of the reasons I fought so hard when Wren started trying to get us together was my experiences last spring. I dated one girl who was a serious Catholic prick-tease. She liked to flirt. And she dropped plenty of hints about sex, but she blocked me every time I tried to make a move. Told me she wasn’t ‘that kind of girl.’”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. I was pretty annoyed. And not just ’cause I had a three-week case of blue balls. She was one big husband trap, all mixed messages and head games. But I guess what really annoyed me was that she equated sex with being dirty. Like she’d condescend to do it, but only for her husband.

“And when Wren started matchmaking with you and me, that’s what I thought you were like. It was totally unfair, and I see that now, but at the time all I could think of was the girl I dated and how her being Catholic was the reason she had a screwed-up attitude about sex.

“But you aren’t really like that, are you?” I looked down at her. “I mean, we’ve been flirting for weeks, but you aren’t throwing up a wall and saying,

‘I’m not that kind of girl. I’m saving myself for marriage.’”

“But I sort of am.”

“You didn’t with Simon.”

She looked down and picked at the label on her beer bottle. After a moment she said, “But he was my fiancé.”

“Well, if you want me to be your boyfriend, we’re going to have sex. It’s not a question of ‘if,’ but ‘when?’”

“But are you? My boyfriend?”

“That’s what I meant by making it official. So… are we? Boyfriend-girlfriend?”