Chapter 62

“Eternity will not cause our memories to fade, it will force our hearts to accept the past.”
—Ross Caligiuri, Dreaming in the Shadows

RACHEL MET US at the door of Joan’s house and immediately kissed Livy, then sniffed around her face before licking it.

“Naughty girl,” she laughed as she turned to me. “Do you taste like Livy?” She kissed me, disappointed to find I had no female scent around my mouth. I pressed the fingers of my right hand against her lips and she sucked them into her mouth. “Soon, my lovers. Soon,” she whispered to us.

We went on in to the TV room where we met to study. Beca jumped up from Joan’s lap and jumped up on me, wrapping her legs around my waist and giving me a kiss. In this position, it was only natural for me to catch her with both hands under her butt.

“Is it true? Am I really going out on a date with my boyfriend tonight?” she asked.

“It’s true. I hope you don’t mind him being a boy too much,” I laughed.

“Will there be parking and making out?” she asked. I could tell it was all a show but it was still pleasant to hold her ass in my hands as she wiggled against me.

“Only if you want to make out with Peyton,” I said. “My mom has organized the event so that I get more driving experience, especially at night. Since she’s a driving instructor, she gets the front passenger seat while I drive. You get to ride in back with Peyton and Dad.”

“Oh, poo. In that case, I’d better give you another kiss now.” She kissed me very gently and the tip of her tongue emerged to play with mine. Beca blushed, gave me another squeeze and got down. I slowly released her butt.

“So daring of you, my little girlfriend. Kissing a boy!” Joan said as she stepped up to get hers. It was not just the tip of her tongue that invaded my mouth.

“What’s the sense of having a best friend if I can’t give him a little kiss?” Beca pouted. She tried to pinch Joan’s ass but found my hands in the way. By the time we broke our kiss, I had sprung up for action again and Desi had finished welcoming Livy, making room for Brittany. Desi stood on tiptoe and kissed me softly and lovingly. I resisted the urge to grope her. We’d done quite a lot of that Tuesday night when we studied our Entrepreneurship book.

Desi licked her lips and gave my ass a squeeze as she said, “Forty-nine.” Yeah. Forty-nine days till her sixteenth birthday. I had become well-enough acquainted with Desi’s body this fall to be looking forward to her birthday.

“Oh, boyfriend,” Brittany said. “May I have a kiss?”

“Of course you can, sweetheart,” I said opening my arms to her. She stepped into them and raised her lips to mine. I felt her breasts squish against my chest as her center pressed tightly against my erect cock.

“Mmm,” she whispered. The kiss she gave me was not as restrained and demure as Brittany usually was. She went all-out full mouth and tongue on me while she rubbed herself against me. I took my cue from her and dropped my hands to fill them with her lush bottom. She rubbed more tightly and our locked lips stifled her little moan. She broke the kiss and just hugged me for a minute. “All these horny girls make me hot,” she said. “And thinking about dancing with you tomorrow. I think we should make a Sophie sandwich between us. She’s a little taller than me and would be rubbing all her right parts against yours. We should do that.”

“Oh ... uh ... yeah ... Brittany ... Fuck! Anything you say.”

We finally settled down and got working on our homework. Teachers were really piling it on. I had close to an hour of reading every day for Ms. Levy, half an hour of trigonometry problems, a decade of US History, and twenty Latin words to memorize every night. And there was the biology text, the Entrepreneurship text, and my music theory, which had moved to Renaissance instruments. Amidst all that, I tried to spend time with my girlfriends and sometimes practice my guitar. Ninety minutes of cross country training every afternoon with an hour-long run every morning. If I added it all up with time spent getting to and from school and time spent at school, I figured I was spending sixteen hours a day on school, running, and practice. Of the other eight hours remaining, I had to eat breakfast and dinner with the family, get a shower, and be human. If I was lucky, I got six hours of sleep a night. No wonder I was always tired! Who had time for a relationship?

And I have seven of them.

Our study session wound down with plenty of breaks for kissing and petting. It didn’t seem to make a difference who was with whom. I was pleased that in fact, Livy was spending time getting to know each of our girlfriends and not feeling she needed to be with me or with Rachel. I was discovering that Livy enjoyed girls as much as boys—as if our tryst after cross country wasn’t evidence enough—and wasn’t feeling that she needed to be with me. She had to leave early with kisses from all of us, so she could make it back to the team bus for tonight’s volleyball game. After everyone left, I spent half an hour with Joan. We didn’t try to make love but just held each other and kissed. I was really beginning to appreciate Joan as a caring and sensitive girl who wanted—and needed—a little show of affection now and then. She got me home by four-thirty.

Beca looked sweet in a pair of skinny black jeans and short black boots. She had a gray loose knit shirt with three-quarter length sleeves and carried a big bag. She held my hand as I walked her to Mom’s Impala and opened the back door. Pey squealed when Beca slid in beside her and hampered getting her seatbelt fastened by hugging my girlfriend.

When we were all settled, I turned to Mom.

“Directions?”

“North on County Line Road and then west on 30.”

It wasn’t all that long a drive to Columbia City and Mom directed me into a mall off the highway to a Chinese buffet. You’d think my family was Chinese. Or Jewish. My parents loved to visit Chinese restaurants. V1’s parents had been the same way, not that they often went out to eat. But going out had always meant heading for a little chop suey place in South Bend. If we were going out to eat, that was where we went.

After I got the car parked, Dad and I both jumped out and ran around to the passenger side. We laughed as we jockeyed for position at the correct door and then opened them to let our dates out. Beca and Pey were both giggling as I offered each my hand to help them out of the car.

“Are we on a date?” Pey asked. “Jacob always has more than one girlfriend on a date. I’ll just have to be his second tonight.” With that she took hold of one hand while Beca held the other and we went into the restaurant. Once inside, it didn’t take long for Pey to figure out that it was much more interesting to sit beside Beca than her older brother. She was cute.

“I love spending time with your family,” Beca said. “They’ve always been so nice to me.”

“You were the first glimmer of hope my parents had that I might grow up into a normal human being,” I said. “I think you were the first girl I’d ever shown an interest in. And you helped me study.”

“It’s too bad my mom isn’t as social as Rachel’s parents. I worry that she has invested all her life in trying to help me ... adapt. She scarcely sees anyone else except at work. And teachers aren’t exactly known for socializing together. They’re too tired.”

“I’ll mention it to Mom,” I suggested. “I’m discovering she is quite a social manipulator when it comes to my girlfriends’ parents. She and Dad had Sunday lunch last weekend with Sharon Long. And I thought Joan’s mother only socialized with guys twenty years younger than her.”

“It’s funny, Joan and me having single moms and being so attracted to each other, isn’t it?”

“I think you are quite beautiful together. And Joan told me again this afternoon how much she likes being with you.”

“Okay, kids,” Mom said as she and Dad came out of the restaurant. “We need to head over to the high school before the game starts.”

“What high school?” I asked. Stupid. We were in Columbia City. I just didn’t know why we’d go to a high school here. Mom looked at me as if I was as stupid as I sounded. I just opened car doors, got Pey and Beca situated, and slid behind the steering wheel. Mom gave me directions and a few minutes later, we were entering the gymnasium to find the Mad Anthony Girls’ Volleyball team was playing against Columbia City tonight. We were here to watch Livy play.