Chapter 5

School was out and summer began. In the past, summer for me had been a long, hazy, happy stretch of days at the pool and bored nights running around the neighborhood with my friends. This year was different. The summer was busy, I had things to do, I had a boyfriend, I had responsibilities.

I got a job in a clothing store at the mall, which felt perfect for me. The pay ended up being minimum wage, since it’s a cool job that lots of teenagers like me want just for the prestige. Elliott said it was “supply and demand” – too many eager workers meant the store could get away with paying the minimum. He teased me for this, of course, saying I’d make better money working at the grocery like him. Typical Elliott, huh? So practical and logical. Like I’m gonna stand around in an ugly green smock ringing up people’s ground beef and diapers just for an extra buck an hour! But a few weeks into the summer, seeing my meager paychecks, I’d start to rethink that.

Elliott had a good job at the grocery that summer. He’d started working there as a cashier when he was 16 and got in with the nerd who runs all the systems. I had never thought about it for one second in my entire life, but there’s a huge network of computers and shit needed for people to scan up their groceries in the checkout line and that all to deduct from the store’s inventory, then there’s the credit card readers, plus all the security cameras and the stuff for clocking in and out the employees. It’s incredibly boring but there’s some dweeb at every big store who’s in charge of that stuff, and Elliott got hired to help that dweeb. It paid a lot more than I made selling clothes, but he just sat in some cramped office all summer, where’s the fun in that?

Still, both of our jobs were just part-time, and it was summer, so even Elliott was looking forward to having a lot of fun. Dad and Linda’s wedding dominated the first part of our summer. It was at the end of June, not even a month after the last day of school. They rented a big old mansion for the day and were going to have the wedding in its formal garden. It was right in town and not as expensive to rent for a day as you might think, and it was a very classy place. I definitely approved.

Linda asked me to be a bridesmaid and I eagerly agreed. I didn’t think she was just buttering me up or giving it to me out of obligation because I was going to be her step-daughter. I had learned how to get Linda into the beautiful wedding dress I’d helped her pick out, and I could help with her hair and make-up nicely too. Her only sister was a bridesmaid too but she was a lesbian who bragged about having not worn a dress once in the five years before the wedding, so she was not of much help in that department. Linda was just relieved her sister didn’t insist on wearing a tuxedo. The other bridesmaid was her best friend from way back in nursing school, and she was helpful enough, but wouldn’t be there until the weekend of the wedding so it was just Linda and me for all the inevitable dry runs she wanted to do in the weeks leading up to the big day.

Elliott teased me greatly for being so hyped up about the wedding. He thought it was such stereotypical female behavior. Dad had hired a professional videographer, but he wasn’t made of money so he’d decided to have Elliott take the still pictures. Elliott was into cameras and had been making me look like a million bucks for social media pictures (my friends had found out that Elliott was my secret photographer and it was one more thing they made fun of me about).

Despite teasing me for gushing over dresses and wedding décor, Elliott was getting pretty into being the wedding photographer. He fussed over camera lenses, blocked out the right spots to have people pose to frame the pictures professionally, and he even looked at the angle of the sun on the wedding day to figure out where he’d need to position the camera to avoid glare. Have I mentioned my boyfriend is a complete dork?

June was such a happy mess. I’d never realized how much work went into a proper marriage ceremony. Linda wanted a big perfect storybook wedding but was realistic in her demands, to Dad’s relief. The focus was on keeping everything nice and respectable rather than lighting money on fire on stuff nobody would even notice. Dad claimed he would be happy getting married on the courthouse steps, but he invited about sixty people and I could tell he was taking a lot of pride in having everything turn out great on the big day.

And it did turn out great. There was a tremendous storm in the morning which freaked everyone out and I thought we’d have to put Linda on tranquilizers (the nurse bridesmaid had brought some “just in case” – she was a real wedding veteran!) but the rain stopped by early afternoon and the event wasn’t until five. The sky had that amazing glow it gets after a big summer storm, which made the pictures all turn out interesting but wonderful. My dad said “I do” and Linda said the same, and then they were husband and wife. The wedding was a total success.

The only thing that went wrong wasn’t until later when the workers who were supposed to take down all the wedding stuff didn’t show up, so a bunch of us had to do it. Everything had to be back to the rental place by seven in the morning or Dad and Linda would get a big fee which they couldn’t afford. Elliott and I drafted some of Dad’s construction guys and we all worked to break everything down and get the truck loaded. Most of the guys eventually had to take their families home though so Elliott and I were the last ones there, busting our butts until well after midnight before he drove the truck back to the rental place.

“Geeze Haley,” Elliott said after he rolled up the door to the box truck, “I can’t believe you worked as a mover for hours without complaining. A year ago you would have thrown a fit.”

I blushed. He was right, though. “I can’t believe it either,” I said. I used to be such a whiny girl about stuff like that. Now it just seemed like it had needed to be done, so I rolled up my sleeves and did it.

“You’re growing up,” he said, but I just rolled my eyes.

Dad and Linda went on a big honeymoon to some island in Florida, from the pictures it looked very fancy (and very expensive, as Dad lamented to me privately). The result was that Elliott and I would have the house to ourselves for a while week! Elliott was an absolute saint by the standard of teenage boys and I hadn’t had an incident since I got drunk on New Year’s Eve, so our parents trusted us enough to leave us with the run of the house and even left the keys to Dad’s truck so we could get around. We were looking for to our week together immensely.

I woke up the Wednesday after the wedding around noon in Elliott’s bed. It felt so indulgent to sleep in my boyfriend’s room, but you can bet we shared a bed every single night our parents were on their honeymoon. I’d never actually slept in bed with a man. It made me feel so wonderfully adult.

As I woke, Elliott was playing a game on his computer by the bed. It was one of those military games where they all parachute onto an island and the last one alive wins. I had slept in my panties and a plain white T-shirt. After laying there for a while I set up on the bed to watch him play. I knew he didn’t like to be bothered while he was playing this one, since he took it so seriously, but I was trying to decide if I wanted to bother him anyway to get him riled up.

The funny thing was that in our week without the parents we didn’t fuck like rabbits as you’d think we would. I thought Elliott would want to, but mostly we just enjoyed sharing a bed and being able to walk around the house half-naked and not hide our affection for each other. We did have sex every day, I’m not going to lie, but we only did one of our role-play scenes and it was rather subdued.

We also worked a lot. I was at the mall 30 hours a week, which is too much mall even for me. It’s also weird to be on the other side of the shopping experience. People treated me like a servant most of the time, especially the moms, or they’d get furious at me about the store policies like I was the one who set them. Girls from school would come in and sometimes snicker at me like I was supposed to be embarrassing to be working a job. I still liked it, on the whole, I got a big discount and it was fun to work with clothes all day. It also felt good to just earn my own money, even if it wasn’t very much yet.

Elliott noticed me eventually watching him play his game. “Oh hey,” he said casually.

I started rubbing his shoulders from behind. “Hey,” I said, “Anything going on today?”

“Mom called, they’re doing fine ... I heard your dad singing in the background,” he said.

“Oh god,” I laughed, “Do you think we’ll be like that one day?”

“Shh there’s a guy in this building,” he said. He had headphones so I couldn’t hear and just watched. He killed the guy eventually.

“No, we’ll never be like that, Haley. I’m a much better singer than your dad,” he joked.

I laughed. “What are we doing for breakfast?”

“I already had cereal,” he said after another long game-induced pause.

“Well I’m gonna go get some fruit and oatmeal,” I said. “Or I could make us both something.”

He didn’t answer, so I wandered down to the kitchen on my own. It sure is frustrating to lose out to a video game. A guy from work named Noah had sent me some memes so I sent him some back. We had similar senses of humor. Unlike most male employees at the store, he wasn’t gay, but he was a bit of a metrosexual, I thought.

Elliott came down eventually. “I won!” he said. I rolled my eyes. I was at the kitchen table eating oatmeal with fruit.

“I thought you were making us lunch,” he said, standing there in just his boxers. He’d lost a little weight, I think from eating some of the same meals as me and not leaning on junk food so much, and of course from riding his ridiculous bicycle, but he’s still not skinny. As much as my friends would never let me live it down if they knew, I liked the way he looked. A “dad bod” at age 17.

“Huh? I was asking about breakfast and you didn’t say you wanted anything, you were zoned out on your video game,” I said, “You can have some oatmeal.”

“Gee thanks,” he said, having the predictable aversion to healthy food, but he put the rest of the oatmeal I’d made into a bowl and sat down with me. My phone buzzed and I laughed at the new meme Noah had sent and showed it to Elliott.

He laughed too, but then asked “Who’s Noah?”

“Just a guy from work,” I said nonchalantly.

“Does Noah float to the mall in an ark?” Elliott asked.

“Man the quality of your insults is way down,” I teased, “Your brain’s fried from playing too many video games.”

Elliott laughed, but said, “Does Noah know you have a boyfriend?” He said it confidently like he felt perfectly entitled to mark his territory to a potential interloper. We’d been dating for over six months by then.

“Yeah,” I said, “I told everyone at work I have a boyfriend. But I can’t say who of course...”

Elliott shrugged. “I guess we could tell people,” he said, “Our parents are married, there’s no way they’d break up because of us now. We’re a healthy couple.”

“Yeah we’re so healthy that you’re eating oatmeal,” I said. He rolled his eyes. “People from school work there. They’d find out we were step-siblings.”

“I guess, but who cares? There’s nothing actually wrong with it,” he said, “It’s not like we’re related.”

“I just don’t want to get teased for the rest of the summer at work, and then at school every day of my senior year for dating my step-brother, okay?” I said quickly.

“Okay okay,” he said, “I just wanted to make sure he knew you had a boyfriend. I don’t want Noah thinking he can part your legs like the Red Sea.”

“That was Moses, you moron,” I said.

“Oh,” he laughed sheepishly, “Maybe video games really are frying my brain. You’ve never got me on trivia before.”

I smiled. A year ago I would have been embarrassed to beat him at trivia but now I liked his praise. But still, I was annoyed at the overall point that he was making in the conversation.

“I can talk to guys, okay? I’m not gonna spread my legs just because I’m talking to a guy,” I said.

“Well, you’re just surrounded by hot guys, obviously I’m going to be jealous,” he said.

“It’s not an attractive thing though,” I said, “I’ve never done anything to suggest I’d cheat on you. I’m very devoted to you, Elliott. Especially by high school cheerleader standards.”

“Yeah yeah,” he said sarcastically, “I’ve got it so lucky ... the nerd doesn’t get to complain about hot dudes texting his girlfriend all friendly-like.”

“What has gotten into you?” I said, getting up and putting my dishes in the sink. “I’m taking a shower. By myself.”

I left the kitchen with both of us in a huff.

When I came out of the shower wrapped in a towel he was waiting on my bed and apologized for being a dick. It seemed sincere enough so I accepted it.

“This is our only day off this week, let’s go somewhere nice,” he said.

“Okay, that sounds good,” I said. I dropped the towel and let him watch me get dressed. One of the many good things about Elliott was that he never stopped being excited to see my body and always had this goofy joyous expression like he was a kid in a candy shop when he got to see me naked. Despite my teasing him about internet porn, I don’t think he had even looked at it in months. I did feel like I was the only woman for him.

He got dressed and eventually we ended up in his dad’s truck, driving aimlessly out of town past the last suburbs to where it became forests and farmland.

“Would you ever think about living out here?” he said as we drove down a flat country lane. Cornfields to our left, a pasture with horses to our right, a copse of trees in the distance.

“Maybe on a horse farm,” I said, “Of course we’d have a fancy condo in the city too and just come out here weekends.”

“Oh you’ve got it all planned out,” he said playfully, “What if I don’t make enough money to buy you all that stuff?”

“That’s sexist!” I joked, “Maybe I’ll make all the money and buy everything myself.”

“Fine by me,” he said with a laugh, “I’ll just relax at my computer while you earn all the money.”

“Yeah you’d like that,” I said. Even though we were making jokes, we were still talking about a future together. Most guys would sooner jump out of the truck at highway speeds than plan their life with a woman at age 17, but not my Elliott.

We drove into the woods and came to a little county park with a hiking trail. The old me would have scoffed at this, but now I’d even thought to wear sneakers, knowing Elliott liked weird stuff like this. He parked the truck and we started walking into the woods.

“Of course that’s a million years from now,” I said, continuing our conversation “We’re not even in college yet. My friends would say I’m nuts for planning a future with you.”

Elliott shrugged. “It’s normal for girls though, right? To think about your future horse farm and husband and all that crap?” he said, “I guess I am being sexist but as a guy, I’m supposed to be the one who’d never talk about that stuff with his high school girlfriend.”

“Well don’t you say who cares what people are supposed to be like?” I asked.