Chapter 7

I blinked. I looked at Becky who was red-faced and looking at the floor. Then I looked to Lana and what I saw there blew my mind. She gave me the tiniest nod she could and mouthed ‘yes’ to me. I was hesitant, but something in her eyes swayed me. She wanted this for some reason that she couldn’t tell me with a look.

I smiled at her and I saw that look intensify. She was delighted. I’d have to find out why later. I turned to Becky and she was still not looking at me. I held my hand out to her and she took it without a word spoken between us. I drew her to me and freed my other arm from around Lana for a moment to put both of mine around her. I drew her into my arms and kissed her.

She whimpered into my mouth as I kissed her deeply, my tongue playing with hers. She was panting by the time we broke the kiss and shifted to let her sit beside me and put my other arm around Lana, drawing both my girls close.

They sighed contentedly and suddenly I had two heads resting on my chest. They reached out and clasped hands, lacing their fingers together and resting them on my stomach.

‘From whom much is given, much is expected, ‘ I thought to myself, stroking two beautiful backs and just drifting. I wasn’t really tired, but last night’s romp had taken a lot out of Lana and I could feel her breathing slow as she drifted off into a contented nap. It surprised me when Becky did too. I suspected that this issue had disturbed her sleep for the past two nights and just lay quietly, alternately planning what to do with the thumb-drive and what the new dimension to my relationship with Becky meant.

A little while later, Patty came down the hall to go to the bathroom and glanced in my room. She’d already turned the other way when her brain made sense of what her eyes were telling her and she whipped her head around, staring in surprise.

I gave her a look that said I knew, but there was nothing I could do about it.

She disappeared into the bathroom, shaking her head and a few minutes later appeared back in the hallway, still shaking her head. She glanced in the room again, shook her head and threw up her arms, before returning downstairs.

The whole exchange had been silent and I smiled, knowing that if she’d been angry, she’d have come in to put a stop to it.

I heard the front door open a little while later and the mothers talked quietly before I heard someone on the stairs. My mother looked in my door, clearly having been warned about what was going on in there from the lack of shock on her face.

I gave her the same look I’d given Patty and she gave me a look that said I was skating on thin ice before continuing down the hall to her room.

While she was in there, Patty came to the door and looked at me. “Matt, lunch is ready. Wake the girls and come down.”

I nodded and waited until she was gone to give the girls a squeeze. They stirred and woke up slowly. “How long were we out for?” Lana asked.

“An hour or two,” I said lightly. “Lunch is ready and I think we have a press conference with the mothers. They’re both curious at the three of us piled in bed together.”

“Oh,” Lana said, looking apprehensive.

“Are we in trouble?” Becky asked looking back and forth between the two of us.

“No,” I said. “We didn’t do anything wrong. They’re curious and it’s up to us to make them understand, but if we were in trouble, one or both of them would have brought the roof down.”

We got up and went downstairs to the kitchen. Patty had places set for us with her and my mother at opposite ends of the table. We were joined a moment later by my mother who had changed from the outfit she’d worn to the meeting.

We ate in silence for a few moments, our mothers watching us closely before Patty broke the silence.

“So Matt,” she said conversationally, “how is it that you came to be in bed with both of my daughters this morning?” There was a tone in her voice that spoke of the danger of a wrong answer.

I set down my soup spoon and was about to answer when Becky jumped in instead. “It’s not his fault!” she blurted out. “I did it. I...” she trailed off, words failing her and I reached across the table, touching her hand to get her attention and smiling at her.

“It’s okay,” I told her. “I’ll tell it if that’s okay.” When she nodded, I started talking to the parents, looking back and forth as I did. “Lana and I were both worried about Becky. We’ve been spending a lot of time together and I hadn’t seen Becky since the hospital. So this morning, while Mamma stayed with me, she went home to talk to her sister to find out what was wrong. They talked about what had been going on and how she and I had gotten together and then they came over to talk to me. I realized that Becky had felt the same way about me that I’d felt about Lana.” I paused to take a drink and continued.

“I told her that I loved her very much, but that I’d never thought of her that way before. I made sure she knew that Lana wasn’t going to take her place and that I’d still always have time for her. Then I asked if there was anything else they’d talked about that I should know. She nodded, but told me that Lana had to be the one to tell me. When they were talking, Becky had asked if she could be my girlfriend too. Lana told me in no uncertain terms that I was to say yes.”

She smiled across the table at me and looked at her mother directly. “Beck’s had the same crush on Matt that he’s had on me for all these years. She just thought that when I got a boyfriend, she’d end up with him. What else could I say? She has a point. I’m going to college in two years and Matt and I will be apart for months at a time.”

“You don’t think he might be able to wait for you for those months?” her mother said gently.

Lana shook her head. “It’s not that. He waited for me for nine years. He’ll wait,” she said certainly. “But I won’t be able to drop everything and come home for dances. I won’t be able to go to movies with him on Saturday night. I won’t be able to do any of the things that we want to do while I’m at college. Beck can, she wants to, she’d never hurt him and she wouldn’t try to take him away. If Beck finds a boy she wants to date more, then that’s cool too, but right now this is what she wants and I’m okay with it. If I wasn’t cool with it, I would have put my foot down and told her no before we came to talk to Matt.”

“I was hesitant at first about it too. I don’t want to hurt either one of them. Lana’s the love of my life. Becky’s my best friend in the world. They’re sisters. They love each other, they love me, I love them. BOTH of them.” I looked at both mothers and they both looked across the table at each other, communicating silently in that way that mothers seem to be able to do.

“Oh girls, why did you have to grow up?” Patty asked sounding tired. “You, young man, are on probation. Put one toe out of line and you won’t see either girl. Understood?”

“Yes Mamma,” I said as meekly as I could and she gave me a little smile. “It was the only decision we could have made. Otherwise someone gets hurt.”

“It may only put the hurt off till later,” she pointed out.

“It might, but given time, it has just as much chance of resolving itself amicably,” I pointed out. “If it becomes our long-term normal, then you know both of your girls are cared for and loved and where they’re happy.”

She sighed and nodded. “Not the happiest revelation of the week, but I suspected Becky had a crush from the way she teased you.” She looked up at my mother and asked, “How did we end up with a son that can talk his way out of everything?”

My mother laughed. “I don’t know. I left him in front of the TV one day and this is what I came back to. I assumed you and Daniel did it.”

After that, lunch was decidedly more relaxed. I sensed that we hadn’t heard the last of our new arrangement, but for now, we’d explained ourselves well enough to escape criticism.

The three of us spent the rest of the day together talking and catching up. Becky had a thousand questions about what we’d done and listened with wide eyes at some of the things we told her. Patty called them to go home for supper and we got together again in the evening to watch a movie downstairs. Patty had told the girls that no one was staying over tonight until the three of us sat down with all three parents to talk about ground rules and to let Daniel voice his opinion. We agreed to have a big family dinner on Sunday.

Saturday followed the same pattern of the girls keeping me laying in bed or on the couch and I felt like I was starting to recover. At least the concussion seemed to be fading the the background.

Sunday dawned and for once, the sunlight streaming into my room didn’t bother my eyes. I’d been trying to ignore it the last few days, but it was encouraging, an indication that I was starting to recover. I showered without screaming, dried off and dressed before re-wrapping my foot in a fresh bandage and heading downstairs. I could flex my ankle a little more and I thought the color in it was a little better, but I promised myself it would be days before I tried to do more than move it experimentally.

Lilly was ordered to be back at the house by four to help with dinner and I was informed that the most help I could offer was to go to my room and rest, not crash anything and generally stay out of trouble. I finished my breakfast and watched while Lilly scampered off before glumly taking my crutches and going back upstairs. I didn’t expect to see Becky or Lana before dinner. They went to church on Sundays and they wouldn’t be home from the post-church social ‘til after three.

To pass the time, I plucked a book off my bookshelf and opened it. It was one I’d read before, so I didn’t really take my time, reading at what I decided was a comfortable pace for it, expecting Mom to call me for lunch.

Time seemed to draw out and I turned the pages, zipping through the book at a pace that I hadn’t anticipated. I looked at the book when I was done and frowned. I shouldn’t have been able to get through the whole book in a day, but it was a book I was familiar with and I could recall reading all the elements of the story. I shook my head and got up to put it back and tried something I was less familiar with. I’d picked up a thick book on programming languages. I hadn’t cracked it yet so I wanted to see how much of it I could get through in the two hours before lunch.

I sat back down on my bed, propped up my foot and started to read, picking up the rudiments of C++ as I pored over the material. It was hard going and it felt like I was taking forever to wrap my head around the information on each page.

I was startled out of my study by a hand on my shoulder. “Matt Honey?” My mother was looking at me with concern. “Are you okay?”

I blinked up at her and nodded, not understanding what was wrong. “Were you trying to call me for lunch?” I asked.

She nodded and glanced at the book. “What were you reading that was so interesting?” she asked.

“I was just...” I trailed off as I looked down at the book in my lap. It was open in the middle of the book. I was at a loss. I couldn’t remember skipping any pages, but I was in the middle of a thousand page book. I glanced at the clock and confirmed that just over two hours had passed. “I think I’ve been speed-reading,” I said slowly. “This is the second book I started reading since you sent me up after breakfast.”

She arched an eyebrow. “How much of it did you retain though?” she asked.

“Um, all of it. I didn’t even feel like I was going that fast. That’s a little scary, but I’ll take it. It should make my school reading a lot easier,” I carefully marked my place although I was certain it would only take a moment to find my place again.

I got up and followed her to the kitchen where the two of us sat and had a pleasant lunch together. “How are you doing, Mom?” I asked, concerned.

“Me? You’re the one that’s recovering from a concussion and a sprained ankle,” she pointed out.

“I know, but with the divorce and Lana and now Becky and Patty telling me to call her Mom, there’s been a lot of changes and it’s easy to feel like everything’s drifting away. I wanted to make sure you were doing okay. I still have time to worry about you.”

She smiled a little and nodded. “You don’t need to worry about me,” she said graciously. “I’m getting by okay.”

“I do worry though. I’m only 14, I know, but I’ve aged a few years this week. I’ve learned a bit about looking past what’s going on with me to worry about how the people who are important to me are doing.”

She smiled and leaned over to kiss my cheek. “Well, we’ll worry about each other then,” she promised. “I want to make an appointment with Dr. McInnis this week rather than putting it off. The speed-reading is a little troubling. It could be just a thing you’ve picked up, but it could be a symptom of something else going on. I want him to take a complete look at you.”

I nodded reluctantly. I hated going to the doctor’s office. It was always overbooked so an appointment for 1:00 was lucky to start before 3:30, but she was right and I suddenly had a lot more to live for than I had a week ago. “Wednesday or Thursday are best,” I told her. “At that point it’ll have been a week since the crash. He’ll be able to better gauge how my progress is going. Fair enough?”

She nodded and we finished lunch and I asked what she had planned for dinner tonight with the Powers family.

“I figured we’d barbecue,” she said lightly. “I’ve got some nice potatoes, salad and steaks. Probably more steak than salad for you and Daniel,” she smiled gently. “Now go back upstairs and read some more. I’ll send the girls up when they show up.”

I nodded and climbed the stairs awkwardly, returning to bed and finishing the programming book before plucking another novel from the bookcase and burning through it like it was a comic book.

I went back to the programming book and got my laptop, spending time doing the exercises in the book and taking the practice tests. Everything I tried turned out perfectly like I was copying it directly from the book, but I wasn’t. I read each project, typed it out, ran the program and matched the output to the book. I could program in C++. I decided that first thing tomorrow I was going to get some more text books. Maybe I could get my books for the school year early.