Chapter 2

I was sitting in Beth's family room, remote in hand, trying to find something worth watching on the tube when Beth walked in from the downstairs kitchen with a couple of Cokes for us.

"You seem to get along with Gail pretty well, almost like you were sisters," I said as I took the offered can.

"Yeah, she's a nice kid. Too bad her folks are so conservative. She's kind of latched onto me like I was her big sister."

"I noticed a lot of glances between you two today. It almost looked like ESP."

"Oh, you noticed that? Yeah, we've talked enough to get pretty comfortable with each other. Gail's called me several times, just to talk."

"What do you talk about?" I was curious. I've never been able to figure out how two girls could talk on the phone for hours at a time—I'd figured they were talking about us guys, but, hey, we're not that complicated. It shouldn't take too long to dissect us.

"Oh, a lot of stuff. Things she really should be talking to her mother about, but it sounds like Gail has a hard time talking to her. Even talking about, you know, girl-stuff."

Girl-stuff? Oh, yeah. I wasn't going there! All I knew was that sometimes a guy shouldn't even HINT about doing anything. I figured that was enough. Don't need any details.

"We've talked a lot about Kevin. She seems to think he's a pretty nice guy. I figure he got that from you," Beth said as she snuggled a little closer.

"From me?"

"Yeah. He's a pretty observant kid and I guess he's seen the way you treat me and figured out the right way to treat Gail just from watching you."

"Hey, I just try to treat you the way you deserve." What else could I say?

"That's what I meant," she said with a grin.

I carefully put my can of coke down, took Beth's out of her hand, placed it next to mine, and turned to her, "You realize comments like that can't go unanswered, don't you?"

"And just what would your answer be?" she grinned.

I pulled her over on top of me and started kissing her while running my hands up under her t-shirt. Beth just purred as I flipped the hook on her bra and ran my fingertips inside the cups.

"Now that's what I'm talking about," she giggled as she ground her pelvis into mine. "But maybe we should go up to my room? You know, just in case my folks come home early?"

I don't always understand feminine logic, but sometimes it's hard to argue with their conclusions.

Beth hopped off me and sprinted up the stairs with me in hot pursuit. I was halfway up the stairs when I heard Beth's dad from the living room, "I remember having that much energy once."

"Yeah," her mom replied, "And I remember you being that horny, too."

Oops. We didn't realize her folks were home from work early!

"Uh, hi, Mr. and Mrs. Jones, I was just, ah, we were just..." I ran down, I mean what do you say in a situation like this? You'd think they'd cover things like that in school. What kind of an education are they giving us, not covering basic social skills like this?

They both laughed and Beth's mom said, "Go on, Tommy. Although some day I would like to hear how you'd explain it."

So would I, I thought as I finished climbing the stairs in a more sedate way.

I made it to her room only to find Beth rolling around on her bed, holding her stomach as she laughed until she started to hiccup.

"You know you should be holding the other side," I said as I plopped down at her desk.

"W-why?" she giggled.

"Well, if you're gonna laugh your ass off..."

I noticed her Nikon sitting on the desk and it reminded me of the favor her dad had asked me: how can you take a picture of something that's shiny all over?

I thought about it a few seconds, then fired up her computer to see if I could Google an answer.

As I pounded away at the computer, Beth lay on the bed looking at me. "Are we going to go through this again?" she said.

I thought back to our first Saturday photo session.

"Well, maybe if you put your bikini on..."

"Argh! Men! What's so important anyway?" She said as she got off her bed and leaned over my shoulder to see the screen. "Photographing shiny objects? Why the sudden interest in that?"