Page 42 of The Summer of ’98

“I didn’t know th—”

“Get out!” I cut off his excuse with a shout that caused Ellie to jump in her seat. I found her hand across the center console and squeezed it. “Get out, Noah. I’m going home and you can do whatever the hell you want. But I’m not bailing you out of something like that ever again.”

He aggressively swung the door open and grumbled until he slammed it shut again. There was no part of me that felt guilty when I took off, merging back onto the main road without looking back. It wasn’t that far. He was more than capable of getting himself home. And considering what he had put us all through tonight, he was getting off lightly.

Ellie

By the time we arrived back from the Weissmann incident, Eleanor and Jacob were home from their date. Our evening plans had been officially dashed. Leroy had found a hoodie in the backseat of his car and pulled it on, using the fabric to shield his face so that his mom wouldn’t ask questions. It did the trick and we went upstairs and hung around in his bedroom for a little while until Eleanor went to bed and sent me to the spare room.

The next morning, I got dressed in a pair of denim shorts and a T-shirt before I went in search of Leroy, finding him in the kitchen. The radio was humming a Shania Twain song, fresh coffee was brewing, and knives and forks pushed against plates.

The first thing that I noticed was the stack of pancakes on the countertop. The second was Leroy and Noah, sitting on opposite ends of the table, glaring at each other. Both showed obvious signs of a fight and I winced, thinking about how I had seen Leroy being punched so hard last night.

“You as well?” Eleanor’s voice made me jump, and she stared at me with disbelief. “That’s it! Someone had better start talking. I want to know why the hell it looks like you all got into an altercation last night.”

I turned toward Leroy with alarm, but his poker face was in full force. He shrugged and turned back to his food, popping a forkful of pancake into his mouth. Noah shot me a glare, but he did the same, both of them keeping tight lipped on the subject.

Panic rose within me, and I felt all sorts of pressure as Eleanor waited for a response. Sure, it was no problem for the two of them to resist their mother’s iron fist. But I couldn’t just stand here and lie to her. It felt so wrong.

She tapped her foot and shrugged her shoulders. “Well? What happened.”

I stammered until Leroy said, “Mom, leave her alone.”

“Okay, here’s what happened,” Noah stood up with his plate and went to the sink. “I got a little drunk last night and tried to kiss Ellie, because I’m a sack. She has a solid head and used it to fend me off, and then Leroy pissed me off with a long lecture, so I hit him and then he hit me and that’s it.”

We all stared in silence as he finished rinsing off his plate. He turned, drying his hands on a dish towel. Leroy kept quiet but he almost seemed—grateful? It was hard to tell because he was good at hiding his tells. But from the slight nod that they shared, I guessed that the lie was his form of apologizing. I got the feeling that we weren’t going to get much more than that.

“What is the matter with you?” Eleanor finally snapped. “You tried to kiss her? She’s your brother’s girlfriend!”

He rolled his eyes and left the room, but Eleanor followed along behind him, ranting until we couldn’t hear them.

“He knew that would happen.” Leroy leaned back in the dining chair. His hand slipped under his T-shirt and he rubbed his hand across his toned torso, revealing the band of his Calvin Kleins. “He knew Mom would hound the hell out of him. He’s forgiven. For now. He’s still a dumbass. Breakfast?”

“Oh, sure,” I walked over to the table. I was about to take the seat when Leroy gripped me around the waist and pulled me into his lap.

“Here, have these,” he pulled his plate closer, which still had two whole pancakes on it, and offered me the syrup.

Leroy wound his arms around my waist and rested his cheek against my shoulder blade while I ate. He hung on to me with such affection that it felt like he was afraid I would be gone if he let me go. I hadn’t been listening to the music until his soft voice started murmuring the lyrics to “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” by Aerosmith from behind me.

I didn’t want to react in case he stopped. But I was suffering from some serious heart palpitations. His low, raspy voice was perfect. His tongue caressed the tender words.

His strong jaw was moving against my shoulder as he sang. He was quiet and I could sense that he was just enjoying the song, but my heart felt like it had doubled in size and its beats were so strong that it took my breath away.

He lifted his head as I turned around. My legs hung over the side of the chair and I wrapped my arms around his neck, pushing our lips together in an urgency that I hadn’t even realized I was feeling. He wasn’t slow to respond. His hand slid up my back and wrapped around the back of my neck, his other hand holding my legs and pulling me closer against him.

Our tongues moved against each other’s. His lips were soft and sweet but relentless in their pursuit to taste me. This was the kind of kiss that was dangerous. It heated me in places that screamed for more attention. It was all-consuming and I couldn’t even think of where we were as I tried to pull him impossibly close to me.

Eventually, he dropped the kiss, riding it out with soft, chaste pecks and turning me around a mere moment before his mother reentered the kitchen. I hadn’t even heard her coming but it didn’t surprise me that Leroy did. He didn’t like to be caught with his tongue halfway down my throat, so he would have been listening for her.

“When was the last time that you phoned your mother?” Eleanor asked, giving us a subtle once-over. She moved around to the sink and started filling it up with hot water.

“Wednesday,” I said. I was supposed to call more often than twice a week, but I had already slacked off and it was only the second Monday that I had been here. “I’ll call her after breakfast.”

She seemed satisfied with the answer. Leroy stood after a few moments and I took his seat, disappointed at the distance. That was, until he started helping his mom with the dishes. It was so sweet that I turned to watch. I was always taught that a woman should look at how a man treats his mother as an indicator of his character—I was definitely not disappointed.

After I had eaten and the clean-up was done, Leroy left me alone in his room so that I could use his phone to call Momma. I sat down and aimlessly thwacked the chord with a finger while it rang.

“Hello?”

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