10. I Cum in Peace
I CUM IN PEACE
EXTON
Me: Can I take you to dinner tomorrow night?
Nothing.
Me: It’s been hours, dragon slayer. Hope it’s been a good day.
No reply.
“Brax, you up for taking a trip to the city tonight?”
“Why not?”
“Can you leave in twenty?”
“Your car or mine?”
“Yours,” I say and disconnect.
Something is off. Call it a hunch. Call it intuition. Call it whatever, but Willa doesn’t play games. She calls it like it is. If she weren’t interested, she’d say so. It’s who she is.
What she has said, in word and in behavior, is that she is interested. She responds to texts, is willing to offer her needs and wants, and isn’t the ghosting type.
Call me a stalker after seven hours of radio silence. It really does come off creepy, if I think about it, but my gut is rarely wrong.
And my gut says something is off.
Brax honks the horn of his truck outside, and I yell to Pop that we’re going out as I hit the door to the front porch.
Braxton is two years older than me, but was only a year ahead of me in school.
I wonder how many times Pop heard that very same thing before the door crashed open and slammed shut when we were in high school or home from college.
“Have fun. Don’t be a fool; cover your tool,” he yells. He always has some ridiculous safe-sex saying he offered as we went out for the night. Some things never change.
“Good Lord, old man,” I laugh as I leave the porch and grab the door handle.
“What’d you get?” Brax asks.
“Don’t be a fool. Cover your tool.”
“An oldie but a goody. Shame he’s repeating them now.”
“What’s the worst you ever got?” I ask.
“I don’t want to say. It’s so bad.”
“Spill.”
“Bag your mole before you do her hole.”
I’m glad I’m not drinking because I would’ve spit out whatever was in my mouth. “Oh, God, that’s awful”
“You?”
“Protect your fish before you dip in the dish. Another terrible animal reference.”
The laughter that bubbles up between us is only made funnier by us trying not to laugh at it. Fuck, I’ve needed that.
“Can’t believe either of us managed to get laid with Dad putting weird animal references and condom slogans in our heads as we walked out the door,” Brax says.
“If Mom knew how many condoms he supplied us, she’d have lost her shit,” I add, sobering since the thought hits me in the gut.
“He bought you condoms? He made me buy my own.”
“No way! I had boxes in my nightstand that magically never depleted.”
“Fucker. I was broke all the way through high school.” He turns to me and adds indignantly, “I drove two towns over to not be seen at Walmart, and yours were free, and there was no embarrassment?”
“I wouldn’t say no embarrassment. Sometimes I found love notes from him or hearts and dicks drawn on the wrappers.”
“No, you did not,” he says, making a face of horror.
“Call Layton,” I say. And he comes over the Bluetooth.
“Brax? Everything okay?”
“Me and Exton are talking. What’s the worst rubber saying Pop ever gave you?”
“Well, the fish one was horrible, but there was one about covering a monkey before being spunky. That one was bad too. Why?”
“Did you ever get the one about the mole and the hole?” I ask.
“Ugh. No! What are y’all doing?”
“Heading to Austin. Want in?”
“Yeah. Come get me?”
“On our way,” Brax says. “But before you hang up, did you have to buy your own rubbers?”
“Did I have to? No. Did I? Yes.”
“Explain.” I look at Brax, wondering what Layton isn’t saying.
“Boy number three means he’d been through it all.
All the mature shit was in the past. All the hoping and praying he wasn’t a grandfather at forty was behind him.
Don’t get me wrong, he didn’t want me to be a father, but the lessons he went through with y’all weren’t there.
He was on to the part where he thought it was funny. ”
“So?” Brax asks.
“So, he gave me condoms, but they glowed in the dark or had shit on the wrappers like “I cum in peace” or “gynecologist in training.” If it was a boner-killer or had a smiley face on the head—yes, those exist—I just bought my own. delivered better shit, so it was no big deal. I put it on his card.”
“Damn it!” Braxton yells, punching his steering wheel and sounding the horn in the middle of town.
I laugh. Layton laughs.
Braxton just goes on and on, “Do you know how embarrassing it is to be a sixteen-year-old at Walmart or CVS or whatever on a Friday night, trying to hide an erection and desperately not wanting to see the look of the checker who was old enough to be your grandmother? It sucks, and I did it for years. With my own money. Exton had his hand delivered to the bedroom. Fucker.”
“No pun intended?” Layton offers and snickers at Brax’s expense.
“We’ll be there in under thirty.”
“See you then.” Layton hangs up.
I look at Brax. “Gotta say. We all did okay, you know. He saved us from babies we would’ve been shit at raising. You in high school? Me in college? Layton even now…”
He laughs again, and adds, “You think Mom knew?”
“You think he hid things from her? Think she would allow that?”
“You’re right. I may be a grown-ass man, but the idea that Mom knew I was having sex, especially as a kid is cringy.” Brax looks at me and makes a horrified face.
“Dude, did you just used the word cringy?”
“Can you imagine her being in the kitchen when you came in last night?”
“I’d kill for her to have been in the kitchen when I came in last night,” I say quietly and pause. It’s true I would kill for it. I’ve done it before. I hope I never do it again, but I would. If it meant more time with Mom, I absolutely would. “Back up. How’d you know about last night?”
“You mean besides your goofy grin all day, your good mood, and the sudden trip to Austin?”
“Is it that unusual?”
“When was the last time you felt this happy, Ex?”
I think on that. It’s been a while. “When I got the offer from the Bureau. Or maybe when I got into UT.”
“Still not okay with that decision.” He rolls his eyes.
“Whatever, Aggie.”
“Whatever, Shorthorn.”
“At least it wasn’t Oklahoma.”
We banter back and forth until we grab Layton and only then do I tell them more. It’s not much, and nothing personal, just her character and how something in my gut is off.
“I’m not asking you to stalk her with me. Just want to make sure my gut isn’t right.”