Maggie Moves On(15)

“Our moms have sex lives,” Michael groaned.

“And someday you boys will, too,” Mama B promised, cupping his face in her hands. Her rings glinted under the string of lights above them. She gave Michael a smacking kiss before turning to Silas. “You, son, need to come over for supper soon.”

“What weed do you need identified now?” he asked with a grin.

“It’s got flowers. Weeds don’t have flowers.” Mama B approached gardening the way she did life. With an exuberant amount of energy, secure in the idea that everyone and everything was chock-full of inherent good.

“What’s on the menu?” he hedged.

“Salmon with lemon caper sauce, greens, and cheesecake.”

He grinned. “I’ll be there.”

“Bye, boys,” Blaire called over her shoulder, blowing them a kiss as she and Mama B migrated toward friends and conversations neither son wanted to overhear.

“That was close,” Michael said, dabbing at the nervous sweat on his forehead with a napkin.

“That’s why you need to tell them sooner rather than later. You know it’s not going to be some terrible disappointment,” Silas prodded.

“I know, but it’s going to be a ‘thing.’ And I don’t know if I’m ready for it to be a thing.”

“They probably already know,” Silas predicted. “You told me a month ago, which means Mama B has had plenty of opportunities to read my mind. And my mom probably knew longer than you did.”

“Soon,” Michael promised. “I’ll tell them soon.”

“Good.” Silas signaled the bartender and pointed to the group that had enfolded his moms. “Put a round for those ladies on our tab.”

“Kiss ass,” Michael coughed.

“Mama’s boy,” Silas shot back.

They grinned at each other.

“So tell me more about this woman,” Michael said.

“She bought the Old Campbell Place. Renovating it top to bottom.”

“No shit. Really? Big job,” his brother predicted.

“Huge,” Silas agreed. “Hey, do you know anything about YouTube?”

Michael blinked at him and then smirked. “You’re lucky you’re so pretty and no one expects you to know about things like YouTube.”

“Educate me. She’s got some kind of show on it.”

“You’re telling me you fell for a YouTuber?” Michael laughed hard enough that he had to reach for another napkin to dab at his eyes.

“You can laugh all you want if you show me how to at least find it.”

Michael held out his hand. “Give me your phone.”

Silas dug it out of his pocket and handed it over. He watched over Michael’s shoulder as his brother navigated to the app. “Well, that was easy.”

“I still don’t know how you can exist in this world without being on some kind of social media.”

“I prefer my socializing to be done in person,” Silas said, raising a hand to his next-door neighbor, who pulled up a stool across the bar. “See? That was an acknowledgment of a fellow human being.”

“On Facebook, we call that a like,” Michael told him. “You can also send mad faces.”

“Ain’t technology a wonder,” Silas said. “In the good old days, we’d just flip someone the bird.”

“Oh, you can do that with emojis,” Michael said, pulling his own phone out, thumbs flying over the screen at expert speeds.

Silas looked at the text that came in. It was a brown hand holding up a middle finger. “Ha! Is that new? How come you never gave me the brown cartoon finger before in a text?”

Michael sighed and looked like he was considering something.

“What? What’s going on in that big brain of yours?”

“You’re not going to be happy,” Michael predicted. He didn’t look too worried about it though.

“Then you have to tell me. Right now or I’ll call up Todd Whitecastle and tell him you’re ready for a rematch on the playground.”

“There’s a second sibling-text group,” his brother said before blowing out a long breath. “Wow, I really do feel better not keeping that secret anymore.”

“What do you mean a second sibling-text group?” Silas demanded, calling up the group message on his phone.

Michael slid his phone over to Silas on the bar.

“What the hell, man?” Silas was offended and impressed. He considered himself to be the glue of his generation. Checking in with his sister, Taylor, on the East Coast. Demanding daily pregnancy updates from their half-sister, Nirina. But here was evidence of an entire conversation with flashing pictures and cartoon eggplants going on without him. “What is this?”

“They’re GIFs and emojis. The ones that don’t move are memes.”

“I feel like you just told me there’s no Santa Claus,” Silas said sadly.

“You’re the one who told me there was no Santa. Your parents didn’t want you believing.”

“So you cut me out of the family?”

Michael was trying not to laugh. “You’re so antitechnology, we didn’t want to overwhelm you,” he said.

“You put me in this message thing right now, and after you show me how to look up the love of my life on YouTube, you’re gonna teach me how to put those moving pictures in shit,” Silas said.