Chapter 71

1:45 p.m. Sunday

Andy waited until he pulled onto the freeway before broaching the subject he'd wanted to discuss since the early hours of the morning.

Regan had tried to hide her disappointment about the unexpected conclusion of the night's activities but Andy had picked up on it – mostly because Regan wasn't used to having to shield her feelings about anything.

"Are you still mad at me about last night?" Andy inquired. Regan turned slightly in her seat to look at him.

"It was never at you," she said. "But I'm still a little upset. Not as much as I was this morning – and not nearly as much as I was last night."

She shifted again until she found a comfortable way to sit on the leather seats. It wasn't easy.

"What you said made sense to me," she told him. "It's just ... I want to do some of those things."

"I know you do," Andy admitted.

"But I wanted you to do some of those things, too!" Regan cut in. "Last night, I was certain I could watch you fondle Ruth's hooters and not be upset. Then you patted Joy on the butt this morning and I about came unglued."

"When did I pat Joy's butt?" Andy asked.

"When the waiter was there," Regan told him. "I didn't even see it. I only heard it and saw Joy's reaction and I was upset. Why didn't you just do that to me instead? I was right beside her."

"Yeah, like I'm going to smack you on the ass without talking to you about it before," Andy replied, rolling his eyes.

"Did you talk to Joy about it before?" Regan wondered.

"Sort of," Andy said. "The whole thing was play-acting, I guess. When I explained what was going on, Joy said I should have just slapped her butt to get her attention."

"And Ruth?" Regan inquired. This portion she had seen and it had made her even angrier.

"The same," Andy said. "Ruth walked past me and the guy. She said I should have just grabbed her by the hair and forced her to her knees ... you know, like I was going to force her to..."

"Blow you," Regan supplied.

"Well, yeah," Andy answered sheepishly.

"I thought you were actually going to do that this morning," Regan admitted. "When you grabbed her head and pulled it toward your crotch, I almost vaulted over the couch. Joy took my arm and shook her head. She mouthed for me to 'play along.' I felt a little silly when you three were making jokes about it afterward."

"We should have filled you in," Andy said. "I thought they were joking about what they wanted to do. I'm sorry you got upset about it, though."

"Don't be," Regan said. "It saved me from making a huge mistake. I'm not hot for Paul or Chris. I like them both but not like I like you. The same is true for you and the girls. I see that. I know it. But when I thought Ruth was going to ... I know she wouldn't have sucked you off but I thought she might ... lick it ... I was pissed at her. I would have been really pissed off if you'd gotten hard. I mean, her face was only an inch from your dick. I guess I finally understood what you were saying last night. There's not a lot of difference from you playing with her nipples and her playing with your balls. Once that happens, it's not a giant leap until all of us are expected to be with everyone else.

"I'm not cool with that idea. I thought I would be cool with, you know, touching. I'm not OK with that either, I guess. I think my biggest concern is that you're always going to keep me from doing things and eventually I'm going to resent it."

"I want to point out that at no time did I keep you from doing anything," Andy stated. "If the rest of you were willing to go that far, I wasn't going to grab you and drag you away. I only pointed out that I wasn't comfortable with the idea. I could have gone to bed or back to the Renaissance if it bothered me. You were free to do whatever you wanted to do."

"That's not true and you know it," Regan countered. "Yeah, I could have done it – and lost you in the process. My choice was made as soon as you spoke up."

"So I should have stayed silent and done something I didn't want to?" Andy questioned.

"I'm not saying that either," Regan replied. "I'm just saying that there are going to be things I want to do that you aren't going to like – maybe getting drunk the night before an exam or skipping a class. There might be times I make plans that don't include you. I don't really know a valid example right now. I don't want to live with the threat of having you break up with me if I don't act exactly like you think I should."

"I never said that!" Andy replied angrily. "I never even hinted at that. I only said I wasn't comfortable with other people touching you intimately or with you touching other people intimately. If you paid attention, I wasn't the only one uncomfortable. The thought bothered Paul, too. Look, I'm not going to ask you to let me run your life. I'm sure not going to let you run mine. I'm just saying that I expect us to conform to the standards most monogamous, serious couples adhere to. That means we don't play around with anyone else. That is the limit of my insecurities. I don't expect you to spend every minute of every day with me. It's all I can do to spend every minute of every day with me. I want you to have interests that don't include me. I sure plan to have interests that don't involve you."

Regan blinked behind her sunglasses and something she hadn't considered clicked in her brain: Andy would also have a portion of his life that she wasn't a part of.

"I guess I sort of haven't thought this through," she said.

"You're too busy trying to keep up with Joy and Ruth to think," Andy pointed out.

"I ... I guess that's part of it," Regan admitted after pausing to think. She had initially opened her mouth to deny Andy's accusation but she realized he might be right. "I need to separate myself from them, I guess."

"Not physically separate," Andy said. "You just need to understand that the life those two can lead with Chris is not the same as you can lead with me. I'm not going to ask you to bring in a third party and I hope you're not planning that either."

"No," Regan said firmly. She let out a heavy breath and turned to look forward.

"If we're moving too fast, just say so," Andy told her. "If you want to explore the crazy life of an unattached female, I'll understand. I won't like it but I'll understand."

"That isn't what I want," Regan said instantly.

"Are you sure?" Andy wondered. "I don't want this to come up in a year or a decade when you decide to drop me."

"I want ... us," Regan said. "I want to feel the way I feel when I see you walk into a room or when I see that you're calling. This is just ... I don't know what it is."

"It's another problem created by a sheltered childhood," Andy told her. "Most people get this out of their system by seventh or eighth grade. They date for a week or two and then break up and try someone else."

"Is that what you did?" Regan asked.

"No," Andy said. "I never really dated in middle school. That was before Mom took any subsidies and we were, well, destitute, I guess is the word. The reason I kept to myself is because I knew it would create a lot of problems for Mom if anyone found out how we lived. There were some months when we didn't have electricity or hot water. There were weeks when the only meal I ate came from school. I was ashamed to let anyone know so I did what I could to become invisible."

Andy's voice had trailed off and Regan reached across to put her hand on his arm in support.

"So we're both having a serious relationship for the first time," she said.

"But I've had a couple that weren't serious," Andy said, glad to be off the topic of his middle teens. "My first date was in ninth grade. There was a girl named Grace. We were partners in science class and we worked together on a project at her house. Her parents would always take us for ice cream or something like that when they drove me home. We kept doing things like that even after the project was over – with her parents there, too. She moved away during the summer before 10th grade. I went a dance my sophomore year with a girl named Ellie Portnoy. She was a freshman. Right afterward, we moved to the projects and her parents wouldn't let us go out anymore. I figured that would be the same for all the girls.

"I turned 16 that summer, and I started to work. I worked as much as I could because my earnings didn't count toward the household income. I could make a million dollars and Mom would still get help. I went out a couple of times with girls but only once or twice. We needed the money at the house and I found out pretty quick that dating is expensive. Then I dated Leslie and Erin and now you."

"I guess my first real date was when you came to the school a couple of weeks ago," Regan confided.

"That's what I mean," Andy said. "Most people get that sort of stuff out of the way. I've touched more boobs than just yours. I've kissed other girls. You haven't. I don't want you to look back and think you've missed something because I wasn't comfortable with you doing it."

"But you aren't ever going to be comfortable with that," Regan pointed out.

"No," Andy said. "But I'm willing to step aside if you need to do things like this to grow and be happy."

"Is that what you want?" Regan asked, hurt at the prospect.

"No," Andy said. "I didn't say I'd be happy with the idea but I'd do it if you needed me to. What I can't do is change the way I feel about things."

Regan was silent until they pulled into her circular driveway. Left unsaid in Andy's offer was that he wouldn't be waiting for her at the end of her journey of self-exploration. She couldn't wrap her mind around a life that didn't have Andy Drayton beside her.

She watched him as he came to a stop in front of her door.

"I'm playing for keeps, Andy," she stated. "Sure, there are some things we won't experience. But the things we do experience will more than make up for those. I believe that — and I won't accept anything less. I have to grab a few things and then you can come upstairs with me. You can help me pick out my clothes for this week."

Abby Barnes was surprised to see a person she recognized standing in the doorway of her hospital room – but not enough to push down the embarrassment, though.

"Come to gloat?" she asked bitterly.

"I came to bring you these," Chuck said, handing over the flowers he'd purchased in the gift shop. "And I came to apologize. Regardless of what we think of the other, I let you down last night. We went to the dance together and I shouldn't have let anything happen to you without trying to stop it. I'm sorry."

Abby looked away; the shame of everyone knowing what had happened to her was too much for even kind words to cut through.

"I'll let you get your rest," Chuck said. "I just wanted to apologize."

"It wasn't your fault," Abby replied softly. "I was ... I was stupid. It was stupid for me to go in there; it was stupid of me to make fun of them. I shouldn't be surprised at how things turned out."

"Stupid or not, you didn't deserve what happened," Chuck told her in a soft voice. "I feel terrible, Abby. I knew where you were; I found out that they were on PEDs while you were in there. We ... Paul, Andy, Chris and me ... we talked about protecting Leslie by jumping them in the locker room. We didn't think of protecting you. That sounds terrible and it makes me feel terrible to admit it. It just never occurred to me that you would get hurt."

"Leslie?" Abby asked, turning to face her visitor again. Chuck saw the angry green bruise around her neck that matched ones forming on her arms beneath her hospital gown.

"Brian's girlfriend," Chuck replied. "He's been ... he's been abusing her."

"Asshole," Abby spat.

"I know," Chuck agreed sadly. "Even after we found out about that, I didn't think of looking after you."

"I had just called you a 'needle dick, '" she pointed out. "I doubt I would have helped you if I'd found out those three planned to jump you if you called me a 'sloppy cunt' or something. Have the police talked to you yet?"

"Me?" Chuck asked in alarm.

"I ... I lied," Abby whispered. "I told them that I was ... attacked."

"You were attacked," Chuck interrupted. "My dad ... uh, he had to come in to put Brian's teeth back in this morning."

"What?" Abby asked, confused at the news. "What happened to his teeth?"

"You didn't hear about that?" Chuck wondered. She shook her head. He then realized that Abby had still been unconscious in the locker room at that point. "Afterward ... after they left the locker room ... Brian was really interested in getting the hell out of the school. Leslie told him she was through with him and he took a swing at her."

"At the dance?" Abby asked, wide eyed. Everyone knew the punishment for fighting at school.

"Right there at center court," Chuck confirmed. "We ... well, Andy Drayton ... knew what was going to happen. He talked three farm boys into helping her out. They beat the shit out of Brian – and that was before they knew what happened to you. When Wyatt Erving found out that they'd ... done what they did to you ... he tried to get free from the cops for another go at him."

"Wyatt Erving?" Abby asked, shaking her head again. "I don't even know him."

"I don't figure you do," Chuck said. "I didn't even know him until last night. He's a senior. It was him, a guy named Billy and a guy named Stan. I don't even know their last names. They were ... I'm not sure what they were at school. By tomorrow, everyone will know their names. I'm telling you, Brian got fucked up beyond belief. Dad said his jaw is broken; his nose is broken; his cheekbone is fractured. The cops took him away in handcuffs – and then came back for Trevor and Willis once they got you here. A couple of the football guys kept those two from high-tailing it away. They're all suspended pending expulsion. None of them are going to graduate – unless it's from a juvenile detention center."