Page 91 of Panty Dropper

“So Reagan is, I mean was, your middle name?”

“Nope. I didn’t have a middle name. When I was eight my mom met and married Hal, who was Harold Reagan York. And when I was ten, he adopted me and I legally changed my name. I chose to take his middle and last name.”

I still didn’t feel like I was getting the full story. “What was your name before you changed it?”

Her lips pursed and she inhaled through her nose before closing her eyes and sighing, “Fancy Cox.”

“Your last name was Cox?”

She nodded.

“Holy shit.” I’d always been so embarrassed about my middle name, but now I realized it hadn’t been that bad. I held my hands up in surrender. “Okay, I give. You’re right, I was lucky.”

“See.” She pointed at me. “I told you! I didn’t have an initial to use. It was awful.”

Unable to stop myself, I pulled her into a hug, wrapping my arms around her tiny frame. She melted into me and my heart swelled with an emotion I wasn’t sure I was ready for. I felt so close to, so connected with, the woman in my arms. I wasn’t sure if it was because we’d both revealed such personal things to one another or if it was because we were standing in the attic of my childhood home, or if it was a little bit of both.

It’s intimacy, you idiot, I heard a voice that sounded a lot like Hank’s say in my head.

Intimacy.

Love.

Those were words I never imagined I’d be thinking, much less feeling.

“No one knows that.” She mumbled against my chest. “Not even Nadia.”

“It’s okay.” I kissed her on the top of the head. “Your secret’s safe with me, Fancy Cox.”

She pulled out of my arms and pushed my chest, her jaw dropped pretending to be offended. “Thanks, Sunshine.”

I smacked her on her backside playfully. “Back to work.”

“Oooo…look at you. All business. I like it.”

She settled back down at the box that she’d pulled my birth certificate out of. I turned to go back to my corner, but only made it two steps.

“Is this you?”

I glanced over my shoulder and saw Reagan holding up an old Polaroid picture of a toddler in a fireman’s hat and black boots that were too big and diapers.

“I’m not sure.” I took the photo out of her hand and flipped it over and saw that written on the back was Hank age 3. I chuckled. “Nope this is Hank.”

I doubted my brother knew that this was up here. If he did, he most likely would have destroyed it.

My mind was busy plotting how I could get the most mileage to embarrass Hank when Reagan breathed, “Wow. Is this your mom? She’s stunning.”

I looked down and a large knot formed in my throat and I nodded as she handed it to me. The picture was of my mom sitting on the rocks out by the pond in the back. Her long blonde hair was blowing in the wind as her head tilted back in laughter. She was wearing a bright blue tube top and shorts. She looked like an angel.

It had been so long since I’d seen pictures of her that I realized I must’ve blocked out the details of her face. I’d forgotten the dent that she had in her chin, and the light spattering of freckles across her nose. I’d forgotten the way her large blue eyes disappeared when she laughed.

“Cheyenne looks exactly like her,” Reagan said with awe.

She did.

Cheyenne was the spitting image of our mother.

Reagan lifted another picture out of the box, this was one of my mom in the kitchen cooking. Her hair was pulled up in a ponytail and she was stirring a large pot with a wooden spoon. Memories flooded back to me of sitting beside her on a stool at the counter and taste testing her soup, or sauce. Country music playing from the radio. Her scooping me up and dancing with me.

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