Page 117 of Them Bones

LANEY

It was a fairytale summer.

They didn’t know how he’d done it, but somehow Jerry had fixed things for them. Fixedeverything.Dustin and Laney basically moved into Jerry’s place with him, Laney taking phone calls for custom body work and handling all of the invoicing and parts orders, Dustin helping Shane outside, learning how to restore old cars. In his free time he often salvaged scrap for his art pieces, which he was assembling in the large detached shop at the back of the property.

Dustin was growing. He was much taller than Laney, now, and was packing on weight from Jerry’s obsessive use of butter and heavy cream as well as hauling scrap metal around all day.

Joshua and Jillian often came to visit on weekends, and they’d all play poker and drink beer, Dustin drinking Root Beer instead, Shane always holding his cards in one hand and Laney's hand in the other. Sometimes Nancy came by in her strange foreign outfits, bringing natural tonics to Jerry for his back pain and homemade salves for his cracked, callused hands.

Everyone had given up the preamble, and Laney slept in Shane’s room. Dustin had been given the pull-out in the office, the walls now tacked with sketches and blueprints forinstallation ideas for the workshop or for the following school year.

Laney and Shane made love constantly. There was rarely a morning that she didn’t wake up with Shane’s hands or mouth or cock between her legs, like she was the drug he’d been looking for his entire life and never intended to quit.

Jerry had banged on the door one evening, annoyed with them for being so loud. “My TV don’t go up any louder!” he’d yelled. “Goddamn!”

Shane had clamped his hand over her mouth, shaking with laughter, trying to muffle her sobbing moan as Jerry stomped back down the hall, grumbling under his breath.

To spare Jerry, and poor Dustin who always looked like he was going to puke when they disappeared into Shane’s room, they took to spending their evenings outside in the woods. Shane would lay down a thick blanket under the blue spruce, the one he’d decorated for her for Christmas, replacing the batteries and turning the lights on for them in the dark,so he could see herhe’d said.

She shuddered with pleasure thinking of the words that fell from his mouth every time they fucked, the dirty, filthy things he said to her as he broke her apart and rebuilt her from the inside out, morning after morning and night after night.

Cody had showed up mid-summer with the redhead from the rave, and Laney hadn’t been able to help it. She’dseethedwith jealousy, knowing that Shane had fucked her first, knowing that she’d touched him and made him come for months and months. Jenna had been quiet, and polite. She shyly held Cody’s hand, blushing when Shane raised his beer and told them they made a cute couple. But Laney could see it, the longing in her face when she looked at Shane. And shehatedJenna for it.

“Easy, baby,” Shane had said as she angrily washed the dishes, clanking the glasses loudly in the sink. He pressedhimself against her from behind, his hands on her hips, his lips on her neck. “There are no conjugal visits for unmarried teenagers in prison.” He sounded amused. “Let’s not kill anybody today, okay?”

“Marry me, then we can have conjugals,” she’d spat, and he shook with laughter.

Marriage was the only thing they argued about. Well, that and condoms. She joked that he was single-handedly keeping Trojan in business. Shane said it would be stupid for them not to use them, whether she was on the pill or not. And that it was ridiculous for them to seriously be thinking about marriage.

“You’re still in high school,” he said as they stared up at the stars, his hand tracing her fingers and then her wrist, up her arm, and then back down again, over and over.

“So?” she’d argued. “Do you really think this is ever going to end? Do you think either of us are ever going to be able to be with anybody else?” He tensed beneath her and she stared him down. “Are you ever going to let another man see me naked? Touch me?”

His face went dark. “Don’t say shit like that,” he grumbled, his voice a warning.

“Why not? You don’t want to marry me, doesn’t that mean you don’t believe this is forever?”

Shane sighed. “Laney, it’s not that Idon’t want tomarry you. Okay? We’re just… too young. It’s not what people do.”

“We’re not like other people,” she said. “You know we’re not. You told me that once, that this isn’t normal. To feel like this. And you’re right.”

He paused, and he picked up her left hand, splaying her fingers and looking at them in the soft glow of the Christmas tree lights, mosquitoes buzzing in the air.

“You’re not going to let this go, are you…” he whispered.

Her heart started to race. She knew him, knew him better thananyone,and he was caving. She was winning this fight. She could feel it.

“No,” she said fiercely.

His thumb ran over her ring finger.

“What about a compromise…” he said slowly. She waited with bated breath, a combination of shock and glee coursing through her veins. “What about a ring…” he whispered.

“A ring?”

“Mmhmm…no wedding,Laney. I mean it. Not now. Not… yet. But… a ring.”

“Like, an engagement ring?”

---