Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 114211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 571(@200wpm)___ 457(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 571(@200wpm)___ 457(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
“It’s gotta be said. It’s driving me crazy. Neither of you will be straightforward with me. And I’ve tried,” Trey goes on, lifting his hand when his husband comes up to his side to hush him. “I gave you two so many opportunities to tell me. To be forthcoming. To give your sons a heads-up at the very least. My husband keeps snickering and finding it funny—”
“No, I haven’t!” Cody interjects.
“—but this is serious, and I’ve got to know. Now.”
By this point, Cody’s mom has a hand over her chest, her jaw dropped, likely thinking the worst. Trey’s father looks puzzled, his eyebrows stitched together, his grip on his mug tightening as he studies his son with mounting concern.
Then the question comes at long last: “Are you two getting married? Are you about to make your sons step-husbands?”
A long silence follows the question.
The longest silence I’ve ever experienced in real-time.
Anthony buries his face in my chest, not wanting to watch.
Pete and Juni are all but missing a bucket of popcorn, the way they’re glued to every second of this live theatre in front of them.
Cody’s face is crunched up into the most awkward grimace.
At last, like musical notes from a flute, Bethie lets out a flurry of laughter from her gut that shatters the whole room apart.
Trey seems more disturbed by the laughter than the silence.
Until finally she puts his fears to rest. “My sweet son-in-law, you adorable young man, Trey … no. No, no, no. Your father and I are not getting married. Not ever again.”
“Of course not,” Trey’s father Mitch comes in, breaking out of his spell of puzzlement. “I made a vow never to marry again. Ever since your mother passed, son.”
Bethie reaches out suddenly for Trey’s hand, pulling him out of his seeming daze. “And I wouldn’t ever … not ever, not even by chance … dream of replacing your amazing, wonderful mother in any way whatsoever.”
“Wouldn’t mind you replacing the memory of my shit-stain dad,” mumbles Cody at Mitch, emboldened by his alcohol. Then he whispers an apology and steps back, allowing them to resume.
With Bethie holding and squeezing Trey’s hand, I watch with relief as he finally begins to relax. “Well, I …” He looks back and forth at them, from his own father to Cody’s mother. “I just don’t understand. All the gossip circling back to me. About you two. And all of the … the secret dates you’ve been going on. Visiting each other’s houses at all hours …”
“Oh, look at your son,” chuckles Bethie, shaking her head as she turns to a partly amused Mitch. “Now he’s the adult chiding the mischievous pair of us …”
Mitch smiles warmly back. “That’s my son for you, wiser than us all.” He picks up his mug for another sip.
“No, we’re not getting married,” Bethie assures him one more time. Then her face straightens. “But we are havin’ sex.”
Mitch chokes into his mug, spraying its contents out.
Juni and Pete gasp, continuing to watch the scene like a movie in real life. Cody bursts into laughter. Trey is sputtering nonsense, incapable of forming an actual sentence, while his dad’s face turns a color I’m not sure is humanly possible. Anthony, who has since decided to pick a side, lifts his glass of Coke in a kind of salute of respect for Bethie’s admirable frankness.
I doubt there’s any hope for saving this surprise ending to our unusual night, as the conversation certainly doesn’t end there, only succeeding in driving Trey even more crazy, his questions multiplying, as well as his exasperation with his dear husband’s unstoppable booms of laughter.
Ironically being the only one out of the four of us who didn’t drink, Anthony drives the four of us back home to Happy Trails, with me and Pete in the backseat and Juniper up in the front, still cackling endlessly about how our night concluded. We figured it was appropriate to leave Trey and Cody with their parents to put to rest their big stepbrothery nightmare for good.
For some reason, Pete seems awfully fidgety in his seat. I keep eyeing him while Juni is going on and on about a funny story that Mayor Strong told her at the party about Anthony’s eventful time in the bachelor pageant, but Pete’s whole mind is somewhere else. He’s breathing funny, too. I swat at his leg and he doesn’t notice.
Then, without any assistance from me, he straightens right up like someone just pricked his ass with a needle. “Juni?”
Midsentence, Juni stops her story and spins around in her seat to smile at him sweetly. “Yes, Petey baby?”
Petey baby.
Anthony and I share a look through the rearview.
It’s a term of endearment we hadn’t heard before.
They have many.
“I, uh … I just wanted to say, like … I’ve … I’ve been thinking. A lot. I’ve been …” He swallows, his mouth dry, and swipes a hand over his forehead and through his hair. “I did a ton of thinking in Kansas. Back home. Home in Kansas. And I realized a few things.”