Chapter 2

With my birthday in only three days, I asked Mom for a special meal to impress her parents. It’s funny how she immediately gave me three choices and I picked my favorite.

I went online to find something about friends that become more. A lot of what I found was about romance. And being careful to not overwhelm your friend with too much emotion.

With all of that in mind, we welcomed the Tremayne’s promptly at five pm. The potential Hatfield’s and McCoy’s had finally met. Or was it the Montagues and Capulets?

Either way, I avoided kissing my girl at that point, but we did clasp hands.

They brought a gift, as did Lady Juliet, putting them on a stack on the sofa table. Conversation was a bit stilted, until Ruth and Margaret began talking about things other than their husbands’ gun collection.

I hadn’t seen Stephen’s collection of rifles and handguns, but dad was rather proud of his vintage WWII weaponry.

A sound in the kitchen called Lady Capulet and Montague together, leaving us with the Lords.

Their talk about guns brought them together to planning to go off to the area shooting range when it could be arranged.

“Do you shoot, Paul?” Lord Capulet asked me directly.

“No Sir, the animals don’t have weapons to defend themselves, so it’s not a fair fight in my eyes.”

My father immediately broke out in a broad laughter, and so did Stephen. To assuage the moment, both of us did as well.

“Dinner Boys!” we all heard together.

Moms cooking together and Dads talking about weapons ... so far so good.

I should have helped set the table, but I made up for it by being the first to offer my girl ... my friend a chair.

Mrs. Tremayne remarked, sitting down, “You will never guess what Melissa Newman saw out her back window a few days ago?”

“Oh!” I said, nervously, “What was it, Mom?”

“You and your best friend, kissing ... on the lips!”

BUSTED!

“It’s OK, son,” Stephen said. “Nobody stays friends for nine years. You don’t have to hide from either of us. We understand.”

I breathed deeply, maybe for the first time all evening. Juliet looked at me with wide eyes, and we had a very careful and chaste kiss in front of our parents.

So, our lives may not end in tragedy, after all.

The fried chicken, macaroni, cornbread, and boiled peas were loved by all. The two of us were being talked about, by both sets of parents, mentioning how they figured it out.

Melissa Newman’s part of it confirmed their speculation.

Us men, cleared the table, with my getting slaps on the shoulder from both of them.

Stephen held me back for a moment and said, “I don’t know what if anything you have planned, but be a gentleman, like you have been and I will never have to show you my favorite shotgun, will I?”

It took a moment for him to break into a smile, and we walked out together.

The ladies had reconnoitered to the sofa where the presents were. I waited to find out what they wanted me to open first.

I touched each box until I got a head shake, and eventually got around to opening everything.

From Stephen and Margaret, I had gotten a cute device for holding pens and pencils, called Percy, The Pencil Porcupine. Very Clever indeed!

Dad got me a really cool protractive cover for my smartphone, making it look like a Communicator from Star Trek. He tries.

Mom, the romantic, got me a book called ‘The Reasons Why I Love You’ so you can create your own personalized list of reasons why you love someone. Melody picked it up to look at it.