Calmly, Carefully, Completely(65)

“Okay…” I say.

“If you want to talk about the best way to knee him in the nuts,” he says, pointing to his chest, “then I’m your guy. But if you want to talk about feelings and emotions and birth control and stuff, go talk to your mother.”

“How did you just jump from feelings to birth control?” I have to ask.

“Because that’s what happens, Reagan. You jump from strong feelings to birth control. It’s the natural order of things for men.” He takes off his cap and runs a hand through is hair. “I was a twenty-one-year-old man once myself.”

“That’s when you met Mom,” I say, and I start to smile. He looks uncomfortable. So I have to press it. “So you and Mom went from strong feelings to birth control?” I ask. I snap my fingers. “Like that?”

“Nope,” he says, stopping to stare into my eyes. “How do you think we got you?” He grins this time. He nods his head toward the house. “Go talk to your mother.”

“TMI, Dad,” I sing. “TMI!” I turn to walk toward the house.

“Reagan!” Dad calls. I turn to face him. “Pete’s a good guy,” he says. “But he’s still a guy.”

“We’re taking things slow, Dad,” I say. Heat floods my face.

“Mmm hmm,” he hums. He goes back to work.

“Take it slow,” Link says.

“I love you, Link,” I call.

“I love you, too,” he calls back.

I walk into the back door and find my mom pouring a cup of coffee. “Pete still alive?” she asks me as she goes to sit down at the table.

“For now.” I sigh. “We fell asleep. Nothing happened, I swear.” Well, not nothing. But we didn’t do anything, really. Nothing that didn’t rock my world as I know it.

“That’s why you’re glowing?” she asks. “Because nothing happened?” She pats the table next to her. “Come sit,” she says.

“Mom,” I grouse, sounding like a child, I know.

“Sit,” she says more forcefully. I drop into a chair.

“Was he kind?” she asks.

I nod.

“Was he considerate?”

I nod and draw my lower lip between my teeth as I fight a smile.

“Was he careful?” She arches her brow at the last question.

“God, Mom,” I complain. “We didn’t do anything. He just kissed me.”

“I’ll make an appointment with my gynecologist if you want birth control,” she says. She looks at me.

I find myself nodding my head, and Mom smiles and pats my hand. “Good girl,” she says on a sigh.





Pete



I’m with the group of hearing-impaired boys, and they’re taking turns riding the horses around the ring. The deaf kids tend to make a group of themselves, and they haven’t been interacting with some of the other kids at the camp. I’ll have to see what I can do about that. Since my brother is deaf, there’s one thing I do know, and it’s that deaf kids don’t see themselves as handicapped. They have a culture all their own, and they can function in society with little or no intervention. But they do tend to clique up since sign language is something they all have in common.

I’ve never spent much time around horses. Or any, if I have to tell the truth. They’re great, big, heavy beasts, and the one I’m leading around the ring keeps nudging me with her nose against my shoulder. “Would you cut it out?” I ask, but she just makes a breathy noise and nuzzles the back of my head. She knocks off my baseball cap, and I bend over to pick it up. But when I do, she bumps me in the ass, and I fall onto my hands in the dirt.