Chapter 7

We ended the kiss and looked at each other. Jill appeared to have matured about five years.

"I'm sorry about that. You shocked the hell out of me. I never imagined anything could feel that good."

"I'll forgive you this time. I expect a little more staying power in the future." She gave me a quick peck on the cheek.

I turned around and spotted my suit on the side of the pool. I swam over to it and was just picking it up when her father walked out the sliding glass door. Shit.

I put my suit on as best I could, keeping my back to him. It's so fucking tight its difficult putting it on wet, much less standing in four and a half feet of water. I looked over at the patio when I was done to see her father arranging charcoal on the barbecue, his back toward us.

The man had class. I wouldn't have been surprised if he had taken a punch at me. I know he said he'd understand, but actually seeing it is different than talking about it. Not that we'd done the big deed, but I was putting my bathing suit on a couple of feet away from his daughter.

He must have figured I was dressed. "Are you guys ready for some food?"

"Yes, Daddy. I need to call Wanda. I invited her over for lunch."

"Jack? Do you know how to use a barbecue?"

I knew that you put charcoal on it and were supposed to douse it with some kind of lighter fluid and light it, but that's about all I knew.

"Not really, sir. My father's dead and Mom doesn't like the hassle. She'd rather mess up her kitchen than clean up a barbecue."

"Yeah, it was cave MEN that invented fire, not cave WOMEN. Well, if you're going to be around here much, which I assume you are, you might as well come over here and learn. No use in having a bunch of dwarfs around unless you can make them do work for you."

He caught my attention with the dwarf comment but I saw he didn't mean anything by it.

"Don't let Daddy bother you. He just means he'd rather have you do all the work when you're around so he can look at his internet."

"OK. I see you've got the charcoal all ready. I guess I need the lighter fluid, huh?"

"Jack, I don't use lighter fluid. You should read all the warnings about what to do if you happen to drink any of it. Then there's a warning about how taking it internally can cause cancer. But you're supposed to feel perfectly safe in soaking charcoal with the stuff, having the fumes waft up at you before and after you light it, then eat food that's had the pleasure of having the fumes cooked into it. No thanks. See underneath the grill the charcoal's on?"

I had to lower my head to get the right angle but I could see that the section below the charcoal was filled with pieces of newspaper, crunched up into balls the size of a handball. I nodded my head.

He reached under the grill and rotated a piece of metal. It opened up three holes at the bottom of the kettle close to an inch in diameter each. He handed me a long lighter. Mom used one similar to light the fireplace on those few occasions when it was cold enough to have a fire and there were people around to enjoy it.

"OK. What you want to do is look through the holes and light whatever newspaper you can reach. The idea is for the paper to burn enough to catch the whole batch on fire and start the charcoal going."

I bent over and looked and saw one hole with nothing above it and two with newspaper visible. I lit the lighter and held it in one hole, then the other. I stuck the end of the lighter through the one where there wasn't any evident paper and shoved it as far away from the others as it would go. I looked in the top and saw the rest of the newspaper catch. Soon it was all burning and I could tell the charcoal was starting to light.

"The key is to make sure you have enough newspaper in there. Stuff it as full as you can. And don't use any of that glossy crap the furniture companies mail out. You can lift the grill with the charcoal on it, but it's a real hassle, especially if a little of it has lit. You don't want a bunch of charcoal that only has a corner burnt. The only thing you need to watch out for it doing this on a real windy day. Your neighbors will call the fire department on you, thinking you've got a fire in the back yard."

The newspaper was putting off a lot of smoke. I checked out the charcoal and could see that the stuff on the bottom appeared to have caught. "Why is it it made into a hill?"

"It ignites better that way. Once it's all gray with the red underneath, you just spread it out even and you have the best thing on earth to cook food with."

"Daddy, I've got some corn."

"OK, Jillian. Go ahead and lay it in the coals. Careful, use the tongs. I don't want you burning that pretty little hand of yours. And I'm sure Jack wants you to be able to use it as soon as my back is turned, too."

She turned red when he said that. I just flinched. She finished laying down the foil wrapped cob of corn she had in the tongs, put the plate with the rest of them on a stand next to the barbecue and turned to her father.

"That reminds me, Daddy. I need to make an appointment with the doctor next week."

"Why? What's wrong?"

"I need to get checked out so I can get put on the pill. And for your information, I just started out with my hand. I finished the job with my mouth."

Shit. I'd heard of families like this. I expected there to be yelling, throwing stuff at each other, things said that neither would ever be able to forget or forgive.

"Damn. You remind me more and more of your mother every day. Are you sure about this? No offense, but you guys only met a couple of days ago."

"Jack wants us to get to know each other. I'm fine with that. But I know it takes some time before the pill works. I'd rather be totally protected by the pill and not do anything than not be protected."

"I see what you're saying. How do you feel about this, Jack?"

"I told you before, Sir, I don't really have a lot to say about it. I'll admit the idea sounds good. If and when we reach that point, I'm sure I'd rather not have to wear a condom every time we make love."