Georgie, All Along (55)

“Give me a minute,” I say quietly, and when she laughs softly again, her warm breath on the side of my neck, I wonder if that’s my new favorite way to experience a laugh. She cuddles down, her head against my chest and her hand resting on my stomach. I watch both rise and fall as I try to even out my breathing, try to get to a place where we can go back again.

We stay that way for long, perfect minutes—Georgie melting into my side, the wild mass of her hair tickling my neck and beard, me keeping every one of my senses focused on her as I calm myself down. I suppose that’s why those senses are dead to everything else: the sound of a large vehicle lumbering up the drive, the light from the back porch flicking on and filtering through the back door that eventually must get shoved open. The faint smell of incense, mixed with a hint of weed.

If there’s any comfort, it’s that Georgie misses it all, too.

That is, of course, until we’re both surprised by the sound of Paul Mulcahy’s booming laugh.





Chapter 13


Georgie


I’m pretty sure we’ve broken Levi.

In the fifteen minutes since my parents made their surprise appearance—“What were we doing, driving all around God’s creation while our baby girl was home!” my mom had said—Levi has barely uttered five words, and that’s grading on a curve, because he said “Hello” twice, one right after the other, when we’d both scrambled up from our tangled-together position on the couch. My parents looked at him with fleeting concern, and I get the sense that, in normal times, such as when Levi is not looking at their faces five minutes after making me come, he has a much more casual relationship with them both.

As for me? Well, sure, I’m embarrassed, but not overly so. Levi and I were spared the worst sort of walk-in, and even if my parents had seen more than Levi and me fully clothed and cuddling, they’ve never been precious about sex. Other kids seemed to get the “talk,” whereas my parents had more of an “ongoing conversation” philosophy, the sort where I’d get regular and extremely frank insights into everything from “what to expect during your moon cycle!” to “why you don’t need a partner to find your pleasure!” When I was sixteen and trying to get over my fruitless crush on Evan Fanning—very uncomfortable, thinking about that right this second—I went out with a kid from my English class for two months, and after the second time we hung out my mom sat me down to discuss whether I might want some privacy with him.

I could go for some privacy right now, even though I’m of course happy to see both of my parents. But holy smokes, Levi Fanning kisses like it’s his calling. He’s got strong hands and he knows right where to put them, and he smells like wood and sweat and citronella, plus, that bulge in his jeans might as well have been my best battery-powered partner-less pleasure machine. If Mom and Dad had only waited until the morning to show up here, maybe I could’ve asked Levi to reconsider his gorgeous, growling just this directive. Or maybe I could’ve simply kissed him all night, making a study of that mouth, imagining what it could do to me next time.

“We thought about stopping overnight again, but I’m in great shape this week, barely any pain at all, so we figured, why not forge ahead?” my mom says. She’s on the couch with Hank, who’s obviously fallen in love: He’s staring dreamily at her face while she rubs his good ear. Over by the dining room table where we ate our first meal together, Levi looks as if he’ll never go near that couch again. Like it’s the scene of a crime.

I try to catch his eye, hoping we can share an embarrassed smile, or maybe even an indulgent one at the picture my mom and Hank make, but I get nothing.

My dad comes back in from the kitchen, carrying a tray of mugs. “This is the tea I was telling you about!” he says, but I honestly don’t remember what tea. They’ve talked about approximately three hundred things since they walked in—the length of my hair, the new signs on 64, Levi’s work on the yard, the status of every single indoor plant in the house, Hank’s injury, and even the “sweet moment!” they walked in on, which they seem to have accepted without any surprise at all.

“Oh, this tea,” says Mom, leaning forward on the couch. Hank looks bereft. “This tea might be the secret. What herbs did he say, Paulie?”

I try to catch Levi’s eye again while my dad hands him a mug. If he had any concerns over that hard cider altering his decision making, he should not have this tea. You never know, when it comes to my parents.

But he still won’t look at me, and if there’s any comfort it’s that he won’t meet my dad’s eyes, either. He takes the mug, but I can tell he has no intention of taking a sip; he only stares down at it like it’s a green bean in a pasta dish.

I take a mug just so I can get a break from seeing that look on his face.

My parents settle in, both of them on the couch now, neither of them in any way mindful of the time—one o’clock in the morning, which means Levi and I were making out and more for over an hour. Once that’s in my head, I see Levi’s point in avoiding eye contact with the couch, though to me it’s not the scene of anything other than the best I’ve felt in ages.

But as the minutes pass and Levi’s determined silence persists—contrasted with my parents’ borderless, wholly unbothered chatter—I get restless and uncomfortable. From where I’m sitting, in an old wicker chair near the TV that’s still playing the screensaver, the tableau of this living room starts to look embarrassing. The couch is sagging in the middle, and my partially drunk hard cider sits perilously on the edge of the side table. My parents, bless them, fit right in, both of them a little wrecked, too—my mom’s hair a wild tangle, her beaded bracelets clacking together every time she pets Hank; my dad’s socks halfway up his shins, his old cargo shorts ragged at the hems. It’s not as though I can judge, since I’m in a soap opera robe and have stains on my top, plus I’m pretty sure my chest and neck are still splotchy from the flushing, perfect heat of my orgasm. Levi being a few steps away might as well put him in another county—he’s in his dark, no-stains-showing T-shirt; he’s standing stiff and tall as though his posture is about to be inspected. Maybe I should take comfort in the fact that his hair is mussed, too, but it’s not enough to take the sting out of the words he says next.