Page 25 of Tulips and Lost Time

“Ididn’t see Beaterman for ages after that night at the lake.”

Sated, as warm chicken and delicious potatoes settle in the base of my stomach, I kick one foot over the other and lean back against the baby changing table. Billy sleeps peacefully, and Jess rocks herself into an almost comatose state.

But her lips curl as she remembers that night, too. Maybe she didn’t hear the shit Kari and I said under the willow tree. Perhaps she didn’t catch all the details of how a high school boy’s brain works. But she saw the aftermath. And no doubt, they bitched about me after.

“We didn’t go straight home that night.” Snickering when my brows shoot high in surprise, Jess pats Billy’s backside and nuzzles the side of her head. “Kari was so mad at you. We knew we couldn’t take her back to the Turners’ house and leave her there when she was spitting fire.”

My heart gives a heavy thump, almost like she’s a kid again and admitting to something naughty. “You told me you went home.”

“We told, and still tell, our brothers all sorts of things.” She shrugs. “It’s a game of keeping the peace, Luca. Not telling the truth. Even now, there’s a lot you don’t need to know about my relationship with Kane. A lot you don’t need to know about Laine and Ang. It’s called privacy.”

“It’s called being a pain in my ass.” I fold my arms and drop my head back to study the ceiling. “If I’d known you girls would fuck around that night, I’d have followed the four of you home and marched you straight to your bedrooms.”

“Yeah, well…” She snickers. “We got back before you guys did, and we lied through our teeth to make sure we got away with it.”

“Where’d you go?”

She stops rocking. Stops patting. Stops breathing, even. Then she laughs. “We circled back, went to the other side of the lake, sat our asses on the dock, put our feet in the water, and watched our brothers play their set.” She goes back to rocking again, content in her comfortable position with the baby sleeping on her chest. “We didn’t want to miss out, and as long as Marc didn’t know, we didn’t feel the need to follow your orders.”

“That was dangerous, Jess. Any one of you could have fallen in, and we wouldn’t have known to come looking. Anyone could have followed you, and we wouldn’t have known you were in trouble until you’d already been victimized.”

Her eyes flicker for a beat. A memory, perhaps. A response of some sort. But she covers it with a gentle shrug and continues to pat the baby’s backside. “It worked out in the end. No one followed us across the lake. You thought we’d left, so you stopped looking. And once you finished, we got up and ran all the way home.”

“As soon as we finished our set?”

Her stare glitters with deviousness. “As soon as the set ended, and the guys started packing up. That was the point you got lazy, letting them do all the work while you sucked face with Sassy instead. I didn’t realize back then that you and Kari would end up,” she gestures to the baby, “ya know. I had no clue a romance was blossoming.”

“It wasn’t.” Defensive, I scowl and look down at my shoes. “Not yet. She was still too young.”

“Well…” she scoffs. “Then I guess Kari had some especially harsh feelings about her friend swallowing Sassy St Slut’s tongue. Because the second you grabbed her boobs and forgot to help clean up the stage, Kari went on a rampage. We went to the other side of the lake to calm her down. Ya know, after your big sex talk fight. She was angrier than ever and ready to tear the skin off your face.”

“Guess that explains her icy mood the next morning.” I remember back to her snarling temper. Her ‘does anyone want a soda?’, only for her to get something for everyone else… but not me. Kari Macchio knew how to throw a tantrum just as violently as Marcus did—it’s in the blood, I guess—but I suppose I had assumed it was because I’d chastised her the night before.

Not because I spent time with Sassy after our set.

“Everything made so much sense after you and Kari came out as a couple,” Jess sniggers. “There were so many holes in my memories. So many missed details over the years. Turns out my brother and my best friend were hip deep in a scandalous love affair the rest of us didn’t know about.”

“We weren’t a couple yet,” I argue, our age difference still a sticking point for me. I fought my attraction for the longest time out of a moral and loyal code.

Rule one: You don’t hit on your best friend’s sister.

Rule two: You especially don’t hit on your best friend’s much younger sister.

Not until she’s eighteen, at least.

“Not way back then,” I continue. “Not even close.”

She shrugs, her smile curling up playfully. “Like I said: I think the heart knows. Even before things become romantic, your future rides on you taking care of that other person. You were protecting her from guys like Beaterman. And she was pitching an epic fit because you were kissing the wrong girl.”

“And maybe you’re stretching,” I counter. “You’re looking to add a starry-eyed twist to a story that’s already happened. You can’t go back and rewrite history to further your narrative.”

“Uh huh. So Beaterman?” She firms her twitching lips. “What happened with that situation?”

Ugh. I groan, remembering. “He beat the shit out of me.”

“Hey, Lenaghan?” Garth Beaterman might have eggbeaters for brains, but he has the brawn that comes with a football education, and the guts to come for a guy in the middle of the day when there’s no one around to defend him.

There’s a difference between a guy who bangs on a drum for sport, and a guy who tackles other dudes on a football field.

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