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“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that, sunshine. “
Mom laughs. “Didn’t we make the decision together that we’d rather have Charlotte experience safe sex than explore it with strangers without protection?”
“Sure, but we made that decision when she was eight and still called me Daddy unironically. I thought I had a good twenty years before she’d start thinking about sex.”
Really, Dad? When I was thirty? I stop making my sad face for him. Now I’m frowning.
“Would you really not want your baby girl to enjoy sex, Bo? That’s your wish for her?”
“I feel like this is a trick question. Like there’s no right answer.”
I hear him shift on the sofa and then footsteps. Mom’s voice is louder, clearer now. She’s joined him on the sofa. “I’m not ready for her to grow up either, but I don’t see how we stop it, and I’d rather she learn about stuff from someone like Nathan who’d gnaw off his own arm before he hurt her than some other stupid North Prep punk.”
“When you put it like that . . .” Dad sounds reluctant, but he’s obviously given up the fight. I grin to myself.
“Besides it’s only for a short while, and I put the fear of God into Nate this morning.”
“You did? Because I worked him over last night with the whole ‘I trust you not to betray the goodwill of your aunt and me.’”
There’s a slapping of hands as if they’ve just high-five each other. My parents. Gah.
“We make such a good team,” says my mom.
“I know,” Dad says smugly. “Now swing your leg over here, sunshine, and let’s practice some of our other team moves. Like the one where you—” His voice is abruptly cut off, and there aren’t any more words, just noises that gross me out.
Wrinkling my nose, I straighten up only to run into a Nate-sized wall. He places a hand over my mouth to stifle a yelp of surprise and then winks at me, slowly dragging me down the hall to my bedroom.
“So your parents still get it on regularly?” He grins.
Inside my room, I flop onto the bed and try to shut out the visual. “Gross, Nate. Really.”
“Why’s that gross you out? How do you think you were born?”
“Do you really want to think about your parents having sex?”
He shrugs. “It’s not like I’m thinking about it every day, but don’t you think that it’s cool that they’re so into each other even after all this time? I mean, yeah, it’s not like I want to watch my dad chase my mom around the living room every night, but it makes me glad that they still work for each other years after they met. Don’t you want that?”
I do, and I know who I want it with.
He nudges me over and climbs onto the bed next to me. Plumping the pillow his hand brushes something and it crackles. Oh no, the condom. Nate sits up and pulls it out.
“What’s this” His face looks hard.
“A condom?”
“I know, but why do you have it under your pillow?”
I make a pffft noise. “Why do you think?”
There’s nothing for me to do but brazen it out.
“Who gave this to you?” His hand crumples the condom making me worry about the integrity of the rubber.
Reaching over, I pluck it from his hand and try to smooth it out, a little perturbed he’s jumping to some crazy assumptions and ruining my plans. “I think you ruined it.”
He takes it from me and throws it across the room. “I didn’t ruin it, and you’re not going to need it.”
“Geesh, Nathan, you’re as bad as my dad.” I lean up on one elbow to stare at him, acutely conscious that I’m wearing an old snoopy T-shirt and some sweatpants. I get cold really easily these days. I’m unsexy and frail and probably the last thing that Nathan wants. These past weeks the attention he’s given me has probably all been out of pity. Fine then, I’ll use the damn condom with someone else. I drop onto my back and start rifling through all the North Prep guys that might help me out. I’ll ask Nick tomorrow. He’d make a face, but ultimately he’d help me.
Nathan runs a hand through his hair and falls back on the bed. “It’s not like that.”
Not like what? I think. I burst out, “Is it because I’m too thin? My port is too ugly?”
“Do you really think I’m that shallow?” He looms over me now, his big body like a plank of wood. Stiff, straight, and hard.
“What is your problem then?” I yell at him.
He slaps a hand over my mouth to stifle the noise. Sitting up, he drags me over to sit on the edge of the bed, and then he drops to his haunches between my legs. He lays his head sideways so that one cheek rests against my knee. It’s the most intimate position I’ve ever had with a boy, and it’s setting my heart racing. He kisses the scar I got on my knee when I dragged myself over the carpet in the television room, not realizing that Nick had left his Leatherman tool open. I’d cut myself, and then Nick and I were afraid to tell anyone so it got infected and healed badly. Nick got a whooping and so did I. Nate was mad at both of us for a week and hid Nick’s pocket knife. I’m not sure if Nick has ever gotten his original one back, although one of our dads’ friends gifted him a new one a couple of years ago.
