She looked away so I could only see her profile. A muscle jumped in her jaw. “I like guys.”
“But like, do you want to date guys?” I pushed. It was a nosy question but she was practically vibrating with intensity.
She shook her head. It was a quick, jerky movement.
“Do you have a girlfriend?” We were in uncharted waters and I didn’t know what precisely right thing to say. I’d never been around teenagers, at least not since I’d been one. But she was talking. That had to be better than the defensive silence.
“I did. Back in Baltimore.”
“And did your mother know?”
A quick, jerky nod. “She said Tasha is a bad influence. That’s why I’m here instead of staying with the housekeeper the way I usually do when she’s overseas. She said I needed the family to keep an eye on me.”
I started to piece it together from there. Dragon saying her mother was embarrassed by her. Being shipped off to us suddenly when her mother traveled for work wasn’t about reconnecting with her roots. We were supposed to be some sort of wardens over the teenager. No wonder she’d shown up looking at us and the house as if we were a prison sentence.
I was going to have a little chat with my aunt.
In the meantime…, “It’s okay.” I put my arm around my cousin. Her shoulders were stiff as line-dried linen. “It’s who you are and it’s okay. You have to be who you are, no matter what anyone thinks. Like Georgia did.”
She turned back to face me and I could see her eyes lined with silver moisture. “But like, you don’t hate Georgia for tricking you?”
“No, I don’t hate her.” The only person I blamed for the failed marriage was me. “Look, some people who were in our situation would have stayed married because they were friends and were happy together. And while George and I had fun together, I didn’t really know Georgia. It would have been like being married to a stranger. Awkward, you know?”
I kept the last little bit to myself. That Robin was right. I wanted sex. Hot, lusty, make your eyeballs roll back up in your head and leave the sheets in a sweaty tangle sort of sex. With a man. Who loved me and only me. And if I couldn’t have that, I’d rather go without.
I pushed off with my foot and the swing started to rock again. “Besides, I hear Georgia dates guys now.”
“Really?” She asked.
“Yup. Big, hairy trucker types that smash beer cans on their foreheads.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Gross.”
Pretty much my opinion too. I preferred charismatic men who told me I was beautiful.
Shoving that thought back into a mental dark corner, I winked at her. “Different strokes for different folks. There’s someone out there for everyone, Dragon. You don’t need to approve, just accept.”
She let out a sigh. “Don’t tell Aunt Prudence okay?”
“It’s not my story to tell,” I promised. “But if you feel like talking to her, she’d probably like to know. And maybe you could even get her to take the big blue dick lamp back.”
“Oh no, I like it.” She grinned.
I gaped at her. “How is that even remotely possible?”
She winked at me. “Different strokes for different folks.”
“Touché.” A gust of icy wind cut through my clothes. “Okay, well as much as I love girl-talk in the moonlight, I think we both need to head to bed.”
I rose and was surprised when she wrapped her arms around me. “Thanks, Joey.”
I hugged her back. “Anytime. Want me to drive you to school for your first day?”
She nodded. Dragon retreated to her room and I entered mine. After crawling into a pair of flannel PJs, I snagged my laptop and fired off an email to dear old Aunt Hannah, telling her what an uber bitch she was for abandoning her daughter, who she hadn’t checked on to make sure that she had arrived fine after her long trip via the bus. In winter.
Satisfied, I closed the laptop and stared out the window while mulling over how exactly I was going to prevent my accident. I needed a plan, a way to approach myself that wouldn’t come across as all creepy stalker weird. And above all, I needed to convince the teenage Joey Whitmore not to get in the car that would crash at 7:18 PM on October 3, 1996.
One task. One very simple, time-specific task. I could do it. And then I could travel forward to