Chapter 2

My Dad was a police Sergeant in the small police station that took care of the citizens in our town. He and Joyie's Dad had been friends since grade school. He dropped me off at Brad's house on his way to the station that evening around five-thirty.

He and Mom had celebrated Valentine's Day earlier in the day. He had taken her out to eat and had gone shopping with her. And from what I had seen in the laundry room, their bed sheets that had just been changed the day before, I knew they had spent part of the day making love. I was in a minority that didn't find their parents to be embarrassing. I liked them for who they were as individuals, somehow they had managed to teach me to see them as human, and I had always enjoyed being with them and watching them together. They loved each other and didn't mind that others knew they were as in-love with each other today as they had been when they'd first met each other.

Dad had told me that when Mom had been coming down the hall at school one day, they had been in seventh grade, that he suddenly saw her in a wedding dress and decided that she was going to be the girl he married. She had been his first date and he had never dated anyone else. Once Dad makes up his mind to something, he sticks with the plan.

Mom said she had known on their fourth date that she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him. Her uncle had come to the drive-in and told them about the wreck and that her mother was in the hospital and wasn't expected to live. Dad had sat with Mom at the hospital all night.

My grandmother had been determined that she would live to see her great grandchildren. At the age of eighty-four, she currently had four to brag about. Two of my cousins were married. Clara and her husband Tom had three boys. Billy and his wife Leesha had a girl.

Brad's brother and sister, Alex and Anna, were five year-old twins. They had black hair, as curly as their older brother's hair, and chocolate brown eyes. Brad told me they favored his mom and her twin brother Ethan.

Anna was a little more reserved than Alex until I beat her brothers in Candy Land; after which, she became my shadow for the rest of the evening. We played countless games of Candy Land, had races putting puzzles together, played match-game with two decks of cards, built a village using Lego's, and had pizza for dinner. At eight-thirty, I helped Anna with her bath while Brad helped Alex with his. We got them in bed by nine and they were asleep before Brad finished reading them the second chapter of Pippi Longstocking.

"They're supposed to be in bed by eight," Brad said as we stepped into the hall and he closed the bedroom door. "Mom'll kill me if they're cranky tomorrow. Her Aunt Evelyn is coming to lunch. She's bringing her grandson Gabe. They don't get along with him very well, but they do better if they've had a goodnight's sleep."

I had stopped out in the hall and when he had turned from the door, we were close enough that I had taken a step back to keep him from bumping into me. We were still in the same position when he finished speaking and neither of us seemed to know what to do next. I mean, we just stood there outside the twin's room and looked at each other.

He finally decided that speaking would be a good thing, but he only got out two words and got stuck. Before he could start, again, I pressed my mouth against his and held them there; running my tongue across his lips.

His hands stroked my back as our tongues met each other. After a few minutes, which seemed like centuries, he broke the kiss. His cheeks were flushed and I'm sure mine looked the same. "I'm sorry. This isn't how our first kiss was supposed to go -- in the hall way outside my kid brother and sister's room. That's about as romantic as --"

"Brad," I smiled at him, " I kissed you."

"Oh, yeah."

I giggled. "Why don't we go change clothes and meet back in the living room?"

He had suggested that we dress up and have our own private dance after we had the kids in bed. My dress was in his parent's room and went there to change. Their room had enough space for the queen sized white iron bed, plus a dresser, a wardrobe, and the love seat that was placed in front of the bay windows.