Page 247 of Off Limits: The Firsts

He doesn’t push, which I’m grateful for, but my mind veers back to the ghosts. To the wondering and questioning and wanting to know more.

There’s the creak of my swing. The laughter of my dad and brother. The sound effects Luke, Grayson’s son, is making as he plays with Matchbox cars on the grass. The squeal of kids a few houses down as they chase each other. The hum of a lawn mower somewhere down the street.

“You remember Emmy Reeves?”

Grady’s bottle of beer pauses momentarily on the way to his lips. “Vaguely,” he murmurs. “You two were like Mutt and Jeff. She was at the house all the time or you were at hers . . . and then something happened with her family and she moved, right?”

“Something like that,” I respond, realizing he was only in preschool when it happened and probably doesn’t remember the details. Having a father who was chief of police probably helped keep the facts quiet.

“Why are you bringing her up now?”

“I saw her the other day.”

“No shit. How is she? Did she move back? Is she—”

“I couldn’t tell you.”

“No?” He reaches down and scratches Moose between the ears. The mammoth dog rolls onto his back without a care in the world other than wanting more affection.

“That’s the thing, she wouldn’t talk to me.” I glance up as the screen door opens, and my mom comes out with a basket of buns for the burgers.

“How’s studying going?” she asks, saving me from saying any more.

“It’s going,” I shrug, thinking of the stack of index cards with questions for my detective’s exam on them. They are sitting on my nightstand collecting dust.

“Well, let me know if you need any help studying,” she says, making me laugh. Once our mother always our mother, even when we’re studying as an adult.

“I will.”

“Time to eat, boys.”

And eat we do. The mountain of food all but gone by the time we finish and sit back in our chairs with overstuffed stomachs.

“How was your night out?” Mom asks Grayson, leaning forward on her elbows, eager to hear that after one date he’s ready to marry the girl and give her more grandchildren.

“It was fine.” Grayson shrugs. “Nothing spectacular.”

“He wore cologne,” Luke says and then lifts his eyebrows. “You only wear cologne when you like a girl.”

The whole table laughs. “Is that so?” Grayson says as he tugs down on Luke’s baseball hat and then gives him a noogie.

“That’s what they do on television.”

“Are you going to see her again?” Mom fishes, relentlessly, but Grayson turns to me.

“So who do you have on the line now, Grant?”

I don’t even have to look to know Mom’s rolling her shoulders and getting that sour look on her face. It has become the norm when discussing my lack of settling down and giving her babies to spoil and dote over.

“I don’t have anyone on the line.” I glare at him.

“You always have at least one, if not four, falling hook, line, and sinker,” he continues.

“That’s such bullshit. I do not. I—”

“He has Emmy Reeves on the line,” pipes in Grady, who then grunts as my foot connects with his shin beneath the table.

“Emmy Reeves?” Grayson says at the same time as my mom’s head snaps up to look at my dad.