Chapter 13

When the Christmas break finally ended, life around the house went back to normal. That first morning after Grandma and Grandpa had left was amazing and much needed. Not just for me it seemed either. Mom was very adamant and vocal on what she wanted to do. It goes without saying that I had zero complaints. After a short but needed recovery time on the couch, I got up feeling significantly lighter now that she had completely drained my balls, and I took a nice hot shower.

The really good news that morning was Dad deemed the truck safe enough for me to drive to school and back. I couldn’t go on road trips or anything like that, not that I had any need to do such a thing now, but I didn’t complain about that solitary, single, stipulation.

There were only a few things I needed to get done before I would be allowed such trips. New tires, which was obvious, but the one thing we hadn’t thought about was windshield wipers. Not the wiper blades themselves, those were new. No, the actual wipers themselves didn’t move. So, if it were to rain, there was nothing I could do to clear the windshield so I could see. That said, since it’s winter, there was very little worry about rain. That’s how I looked at it.

The last thing that I needed was my own insurance. For now, I was put on my parents’ policy. That was only going to be temporary though, which Dad made the point of bringing up that fact multiple times. The end result was I could drive to school and back. Great!

I didn’t need to leave the city limits to take Laura for a ride. Laura had left town like Scott had for the holiday break. She went to see her grandparents who had a ranch somewhere on the eastern side of Montana. I hadn’t gotten a chance to tell her that I got the truck yet so that was the first thing I intended to do when I saw her on Monday when school started back up again.

Laura was excited when I walked her to where the truck was parked. Like any good friend, she ignored the fact there was no music coming out of the radio. She didn’t talk about how old my new truck was, or anything else that was obviously wrong with it. Nope. She was happy and was excited for me.

Taking her on that first ride was incredible. Since we didn’t have music, she cranked up the heater and rolled down the windows. It wasn’t freezing outside, but it wasn’t exactly warm either. Still, the heater in the truck worked like a champ and Laura hung out the window, smiling at me the whole time.

To myself, though, I made a goal that I was indeed going to fix everything that I knew was wrong. Namely, the stereo. That was tops on my priority list.

Figuring out what was wrong with the stereo was a slightly bigger project than I had anticipated. I hadn’t realized how massive it truly was until I was in the garage with Laura, the doors of the truck stripped bare and not a single speaker wire, or anything left in the car. All of it was on the garage floor, looking like a haphazard bald eagle’s unfinished nest. Assuming that eagle was blind and couldn’t fly.

Sara and Scott had helped initially, but quickly walked away from the project when I decided to start stripping all the wiring for the speakers out of the truck. The issue I hadn’t even considered before I ripped everything out was having to replace it all. Not just that but having to pay for it. Mom and Dad had come out to check on my progress countless times, but neither one of them said anything or mentioned the side effects of what I had just done.

So, when it came time for me to go to Radio Shack for supplies, I was shocked when I found out what it was going to cost to replace everything I had torn out. I instantly regretted ripping everything out with reckless abandon. There was absolutely zero reason for me to have done that aside from getting lost in the moment. Most of those wires were probably fine. More than probably, really. It just didn’t feel right putting all the ratty old wires back into the truck now that they were all removed.

I was blessed with the snowstorms, one right after the other after that trip to Radio Shack. Day after day I shoveled driveways multiple times a day and got paid each and every time I did. The third storm we got was enough for the school board to cancel classes for the day.

A snow day couldn’t have come at a better time.

It was right after breakfast when someone knocked on the door. It was so timid at first that I didn’t even hear it.

“Is someone at the door?” Sara asked, her mouth half full of cereal.

“Huh?” I replied, barely able to hear her over the running water in the kitchen sink.

“Shut off the water and listen,” Sara answered, turning in her seat, and looking towards the front door.

I did as she said and shut off the water and listened.

When I didn’t hear anything right away, I turned to look at Sara.

“Is Scott coming over?” It was a snow day after all. It would make total sense for Scott to want to come hang out with my sister.

Sara turned to look at me and shook her head. That surprised me.

It wasn’t weird for people to knock on our front door, not at all. It was the fact that Sara and I were naked, and someone was knocking, which is what caused the problems. Mom and Dad had gone to work so it was just Sara and me in the house.

I took a couple steps towards the front of the house when Sara got up and held up a hand to stop me.

“Wait here,” Sara said. “I’ll go check.”

Instead of going straight for the door, Sara slipped off to the side and peeked out the curtains in the front window. The same window Mom and I always sat in front of while we watched the sun rise together amongst other things.

“Who is it?” I asked.

“I can’t tell for sure—oh shit!” Sara gasped, grabbing the curtain, and yanking it closed.

When she turned to look at me, her eyes were as big as saucers.

“What!” I answered, slightly panicked.

Sara raced to the coat closet by the front door and yanked one of our robes out and hastily wrapped it around herself. Mom and Dad had hung those there for times just like this, when we needed to answer the door and didn’t know who was on the other side. Kind of like when we ordered pizza or Chinese food. You couldn’t just answer the door completely nude and have some random delivery driver see you butt naked. That would be ridiculous.

I had dared Sara more times than I could count to answer the door completely naked. That was years ago and when we knew the pizza guy was coming. She had dared me back just as many times, but we both had always chickened out when the time came to answer the door though.

Whoever was at the door now, there was no chance she was going to answer it naked. Not with the frantic way she was trying to cover herself up.

“Who is it?” I growled, taking a step towards her.

“It’s Laura!” Sara hissed.

“What!” I exclaimed, my heart suddenly racing.

“Hurry, run upstairs and get some clothes on,” I stood there like a deer in headlights. I wanted to move but I was rooted in place. “Sam! Right now!”

Sara waved insistently towards the stairs as if that were going to help get me moving.

“I think she saw me.” Sara whispered.

Holy fucking shit! Did she see Sara naked through the window?

That little bit of information made everything that was happening suddenly crystal clear to me. There would be questions, lots of questions if Laura did see Sara naked in the window. The types of questions that were going to be difficult to answer and have her understand.

I raced up the stairs, tripped on my way up and fell flat on my face just as another knock came at the door, this time a bit more urgent. I could feel a burning, stinging sensation on my knees from scraping against the carpet when I fell but I didn’t give it a second thought.

Sara opened the front door just as I slammed my bedroom door closed and raced around the room to find some clothes to throw on.

“Sam,” Sara called up the stairs. “Laura’s here.”

“Oh, uh, okay. Coming!” I replied, shakily.

I had attempted to keep my voice level and calm even though I was anything but.

When I came back downstairs, I was fully dressed in jeans and a hooded sweatshirt. It was cold outside, so it wouldn’t look out of place. Sara was sitting on one end of the couch while Laura was sitting on the other. Sara was the first to see me, because she was angled towards the stairs. She tried to give me a smile, but it was weak and didn’t come close to reaching her eyes.

When Laura heard my footsteps, she half turned, twisting to see me with a speculative look on her face. A look that made me want to run right back up and hide under my bed. Those beautiful, wonderful eyes or hers that were always so happy, looked dangerously hard in that moment.

“Sam, I think you have some explaining to do,” Laura said, her voice even but there was that same hardness in it that matched the look in her eyes.

“Wha...” my eyes flashed from Laura to Sara’s and back. “What do you mean?”

“I think you know exactly what I mean.”

Laura’s eyes narrowed to barely more than slits when I didn’t respond right away. She got to her feet and put her hands on her hips, and she stared me down. She held that stance for nearly a minute without flinching.

“Is there something going on between you and your sister?” Laura questioned.

The accusing tone in her voice was impossible to ignore. She wasn’t just asking a question. She was interrogating me. My panic redoubled and I felt my throat starting to close up, making it almost impossible to breathe.