Chapter 30

4:30 p.m. Sunday

Andy was leaning against the dryer talking to three of the building's residents when his cell phone vibrated.

"It's Regan," he announced as he swiped the screen to answer the call.

"What's that noise?" Regan asked after Andy said hello.

"Oh, the dryer," he replied. "Mom's back to work tomorrow so I'm making sure she has clean clothes."

"Tell Regan I thought she looked beautiful in her dress," a girl named Lupe said.

"Here, let me put her on speaker," Andy said. He punched the button and Regan said hello. She had no idea who was in the room with Andy but she'd heard a female voice.

"Hi, Regan," Lupe said with embarrassment. "Uh, I saw a picture of you in your dress. You looked very pretty."

"Oh, thank you," Regan said. She didn't remember meeting any women in the building – except for Andy's mother and his neighbor.

"That's Lupe," Andy said. "She lives on the second floor. Rico and Tomas are here, too. You met them on Friday."

"Oh, hi guys," Regan said brightly. She figured out that she was jealous that Andy was talking to a woman she didn't know.

"Thanks for the food," Rico said. "I wasn't sure what it was but it was really good."

"Yeah, thanks," Tomas chimed in.

"The best part was that we didn't have to wash the dishes afterward," Rico added. "We'll head off. See you later, Andy."

"See you," Andy said as he hit the button to take the phone off speaker.

"I completely forgot about the food," Regan said when she heard his voice again.

"Your mom brought it out as we were leaving," Andy said. "That was really thoughtful of you. The kids here really appreciated it. Lupe told me that I have to visit you more often."

"Well, I'm all for that!" Regan said. "I don't think I met Lupe."

"Probably not," Andy said. "She isn't with Rico's crew. She was just down here doing the laundry for her mother."

"So she's, what, our age?" Regan asked. The girl had a throaty, sexy voice and it bothered her.

"Fourteen or so," Andy replied. "Honestly, outside of me, she's the only kid in the building who's in the right grade for her age. She'll be a freshman at Eisenhower next year. She doesn't have a baby, hasn't had an abortion. Rico sees she has a way out so he's keeping everyone away from her."

"Good for him," Regan said. "Uh, what are her grades like?"

"I have no idea," Andy said with a laugh. "You have to understand, I was included in the group that Rico keeps away from her until you started coming around."

"Oh, sure," Regan said. "Is she ... is she pretty?"

"Sort of," Andy said, not realizing that Regan was gauging the girl as a potential rival. "It's only been the past year or so that Rico started to watch out for her, you know. She's been eating better so she's starting to fill out a little. She has a cute face, I guess. It's hard to say who's going to be pretty and who isn't at 14. She's still tall and gangly."

Andy's description made Regan realize she was being ridiculous. She wondered how much of her jealousy stemmed from what she was going to ask him in a few minutes.

"If her grades are good, uh, well, I found out today that my family sponsors a bunch of scholarships," Regan said. "I mean, I knew we did, sort of. I just didn't realize that we underwrite almost the entire scholarship program at C-B. If she's interested and her grades are good, let me know and I'll give Dad a head's up. He oversees it."

Andy was speechless.

"You'd do that?" he asked.

"If she qualifies, sure," Regan said. "One of the reasons my parents did this is because every prep school I've gone to has been almost exclusively white. Katrina is at C-B on a scholarship sponsored by my family."

"She mentioned that last night," Andy pointed out.

"I thought she might be misinformed," Regan replied with a sigh. "Mom gave me a few more details today. Dad said he hardly ever gets an application from anyone who isn't white. Is Lupe ... Hispanic?"

It was a guess. The girl had a slight accent and the only person named Lupe that Regan had ever met was from El Salvador.

"Yeah," Andy answered absently. "If you're serious, I'll talk to Rico about it."

"Rico is going to make this decision, too?" Regan wondered.

"Uh, no," Andy replied. "I'll talk to him about talking to her without him killing me because of it. I wish Katrina was still going to be there next semester. I worry that Lupe might get steamrolled. She's still really shy."

"Dad looks out for the girls," Regan said firmly. "The guy from Mom's office that Katrina told us about last night? That's Dad. He calls them once a month to make sure that everything is going well. With the younger kids, he talks to their parents each week and to the girls every other week. Since you know her, I'll make it a point to some of the incoming seniors to look out for her. Just let me know as soon as you find out."

"I can call you later tonight," Andy said. "I'm almost finished with the laundry and then Mom will want all the details from last night. After that, I'll track down Rico and then he and I will go visit with Lupe and her mom. Is that soon enough?"

"Uh," Regan said, biting her lower lip. "There's something else I need to talk to you about."

"Sure," Andy said. He had caught the nervousness in Regan's voice and it worried him. "Are we spending too much time on the phone?"

"No," Regan said. "That's not it at all. It's just..."

She let the air out of her lungs noisily.

"Joy and Ruth... ," she began and stopped. "Last night... ; I was going to ... Shit!"

"I don't understand," Andy said. He had begun to wonder if Regan's cell phone coverage was cutting out.

"You know what Ruth and Joy did last night," Regan said, plowing ahead.

"Some of it," Andy admitted. "Chris still says they slept. I suspect it was a little more – given how tired he looked this morning."

"It was a lot more," Regan said. "But, the thing is, Joy and Ruth were with each other, too. You know?"

"With each other," Andy repeated. His eyes widened when he realized what Regan meant. "Oh. I didn't know. I mean, I didn't even suspect that was a possibility. I sort of pictured things differently."

"Me, too," Regan said.

"Well, at least you're not giving me crap about picturing it at all," Andy said. "As soon as I said that, I braced myself for a different reaction."

"No one could help but picture it," Regan said. "I think that was their whole intention. The point is, I ... I asked them about it today. They said it was fun and they ... shit, this is harder than I thought I would be."

"Do you want to do that?" Andy asked.

"No, I don't want to do that," Regan said in a harsh tone.

"Sorry," Andy said. "I just sounded like, you know."

"I want to watch them do it," Regan said in a rushed cadence. It took Andy a minute to understand what she'd said. "Will you be mad if I do?"

"No," Andy answered instantly.

"I'm serious!" Regan said.

"Is it something you're really interested in watching?" Andy inquired.

"Yeah," Regan admitted reluctantly. "I don't know why. It's not like ... it's not like I want to go down on them. It's just, I don't know, the idea of watching them seems ... interesting."

"You're telling me," Andy said, laughing slightly. "Any chance you can stream it live to my phone?"

"Will you be serious!?" Regan insisted.

"Look, let me ask you something," Andy replied. "If I wanted to watch two guys have sex, would you be bothered?"

"No," Regan answered as quickly as Andy had replied to her question. "Do you want to see that?"

"No," Andy said. "The point is, you wouldn't care if I wanted to see it. I don't care if you want to watch Joy and Ruth do ... whatever. I'm not sure if I'm OK with you participating but if you decide you want to, I guess that's OK. I mean, it's your choice."

"Andy, nothing is my choice anymore," Regan said in exasperation. "I have to think about how you'll view my actions before I can make a decision. Do I think it would be fun to sit on my bed and watch two girls have sex? For some strange reason, I do. Am I willing to risk what's growing between us for it? Not on your life. If it is going to bother you in the slightest, I will spend the evening sitting in the TV room while they do their thing."

"So, they're going to do it whether you're there or not?" Andy asked. He had found Joy to be attractive when he'd met her in the diner a few weeks earlier – even though she was stoned out of her mind and had on too much makeup and two few clothes. He also thought Ruth had a killer body.

"I think so," Regan said. "I didn't ... you know ... pressure them or anything. I was asking questions and they asked me if I'd like to watch them. I answered before I thought about it."

"And the answer was yes," Andy stated.

"Yeah," Regan admitted with chagrin.

"I don't see any problem with it," Andy said. "I mean, it's like I said last night. It's recreational for them. They're not going to forge a relationship. It's no different than what Erin and I had. It was just for entertainment. There were no feelings involved."

"Am I weird for wanting to watch it?" Regan asked.

"If you then I am," Andy said with a laugh. "I'd pay good money to sit beside you on the bed and see them. I swear to God, Ruth's boobs are as big as my head."

"You should see them without clothes," Regan said with a giggle.

"Don't tell me they sag," Andy said with disappointment. "Couldn't you just leave me the vision I'd created?"

"They don't sag," Regan replied. "Uh, don't tell Chris, but they took pictures last night."

"I think it would be pretty hard to do that without Chris knowing," Andy pointed out.

"Every picture they showed me ... God, this sounds terrible," Regan said.

"You saw pictures of Chris having sex?" Andy asked.

"Yeah," Regan answered. "I mean, sort of. Look, you couldn't see anything but his torso. I didn't see his dick – and his face was covered in all of them."

"Blindfolded?" Andy inquired.

"Uh, no," Regan said. "One of the girls was ... straddling his face in all the pictures. Like I did to you when we were getting dressed."

"Oh, sure, sorry," Andy said. "Still, it's pretty uncool to take pictures like that without letting him know."

"I know and I told them that," Regan said. "The thing is, I still have Joy's phone. If you want to see what Ruth looks like without clothes, I'll send you the pictures."

"No," Andy said. "Absolutely not! I do not want you to send me pictures of three 17-year-olds having sex! With my luck, the NSA is tracking the cell phone I just got. That would probably land both of us in federal prison until we were 90. Nope, that's a lie. You'd skate and I'd wind up doing both of our sentences. Did you not get the speech on sexting?"

"No," Regan admitted.

"I meant to tell you that about the picture you sent to me," Andy said. "You can't send things like that. Well, you can't for a few weeks anyway. Once you're 18, you can send naked pictures of yourself to everyone you know if you want. We got a big lecture on that when we went back to school this year. Apparently, someone took pictures of a girl ... uh, going down on him ... and sent them to his friends. The girl knew about it. It wasn't a surprise to her. It was, however, a surprise to her parents and her little brother."

"So you're not opposed to seeing Ruth naked?" Regan asked. "It's just the means that give you a problem."

"I am not opposed to seeing about 70 percent of the female population naked," Andy said. "But I think it is important that they know I'm seeing them naked. I also do not want to see Ruth naked if you don't want me to see Ruth naked. That is also important. It bothered me that you might have seen Chris'..."

"Cock?" Regan supplied with a laugh.

"I suppose that will suffice," Andy answered. "I don't know why it bothers me ... other than the fact that you know him. I'm sure you've seen pictures of other ... penises ... on the Internet. The fact that you watched videos of people having oral sex doesn't bother me. But I think I would be bothered if someone you knew was the male in the video."

"So if Joy wants to take a video of her blowing a random stranger, you're OK if I watch it," Regan asked. "That doesn't make a lot of sense."