Hot Summer Nights (Lucas Brothers)

“Is that a fact?” she returns, rolling her eyes as I hand her a soda that I’d brought in earlier.

I reach down and rip off a couple of paper towels from a roll I placed on the table and hand her one. She grabs her plate and situates everything else, and I do the same before I respond.

“Yeah, it’d be better if you were naked while you’re serving me my food, though.”

“If I did that, Mr. Matthews, I’m not sure it would be pizza I would be serving you up to eat.”

“That’s okay. It’s not food that I’m interested in eating right now,” I admit.

“Bryant…”

“It’s okay, Maggie. We’ll eat this… and then I’ll eat you.”

“Shouldn’t we be moving slow, here?” she asks, the need and fear in her voice bleed together, and yet, somehow, I can hear each strongly.

“This is slow for us, Maggie. Maybe you’ve forgotten,” I tell her, only half joking.

“No, I remember. But maybe that’s the problem, Bryant. You and I have always moved at warp speed and that hasn’t worked. Maybe we need to take time to think things through,” she says thoughtfully, grabbing her fork and using it to saw a bite-sized chunk off of her pizza slice.

“Hate to break it to you, Maggie May, but I’ve thought about everything a million times over. I know what I want.”

“Okay,” she allows. “Well, then, maybe I need to think things through.”

“Sure,” I answer with a shrug, my mouth around a bite of pizza. I put the steaming goodness back on my plate and chew while I let her absorb my answer.

“Sure? Just like that?”

“Yep, just like that. Take all the time you want to get used to the idea that you and I belong together, Maggie. I’m not going anywhere.”

“So, then, you agree we should think carefully before just leaping blindly—”

“No, we’re going to leap, but you can think about it while we’re leaping… and other things,” I grin.

“You’re insane. I’m ignoring you, Bryant.”

“You can ignore me for now, but eventually you’re going to have to work through this with me, Maggie.”

“So much for no pressure,” she mutters. “You sound like a broken record. Are you going to start the movie or what?”

“Your wish is my command,” I tell her with a wink. I get the feeling that frustrates her more than our conversation. I flip on the television, blindly grabbing the DVD and pushing it into the player. I keep the sound muted until the movie starts. Without cable, plus the fact it’s an old TV, means there’s white static before the movie starts and no one needs to hear that crap.

“You’re so sure of yourself,” Maggie announces, distracting me.

“Is that a bad thing?”

“No, I mean, it’s definitely annoying,” she mumbles, making me laugh. “But it’s not bad.”

“Thanks—I think.”

“It’s just I can’t be that way. I don’t know how to be that way. How do you just set aside all of the heartache from the past and become so sure it will all magically work out this time, Bryant?”

“Baby, the only thing that hasn’t worked between us was that loss tore us up inside. There wasn’t room for love when we were both so full of grief.”

“The grief is still there,” she whispers. “It’s never going away.”

“But you can breathe now, gorgeous.”

“Some days,” she acknowledges. “Others? Not so much.”

“I think that’s normal, Maggie, but we’re both older and hopefully wiser. We can hold onto one another now, instead of pulling away.”

“I’ve gotten good at running away, Bryant.”

“You’ve made it into an art form, Maggie,” I respond, keeping my face gentle so that she knows I don’t mean anything bad.

“Yet, you’re always here,” she murmurs, and from the tone of her voice, I can’t tell if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. I think it might be the latter when she looks away from me, choosing to stare at the television.

“Maggie—”

“Oh my God,” she cries.

“What?” I ask, then follow her line of sight, realizing that she’s looking at the television.

The screen is filled with a seventies porno film. I can’t lie and say I haven’t watched porn. I mean, I’m a man who lives alone a lot of the time—despite the fact that Maggie and I do get together often. I was also a horny teen who had to work hard to get Maggie to let me be the man she gave her virginity too. I wasn’t about to look anywhere else but her to give my virginity to either. That was an absolute no for me. I was going to be her first, and she deserved to be mine. Being with anyone else, would have been cheating on her. That’s not who I am—obviously, it’s never going to be who I am. Anyway, I do know it’s a seventies porno because all four men that are currently circling the blonde with the boobs bigger than Ida Sue’s prize watermelons she grows—one of which was eighty-eight pounds last year—are covered in hair akin to Burt Reynolds in his hay-day.