An engine in my driveway had my attention immediately. It wasn’t my dad’s diesel F-350, that was for sure. I went to the window and nearly passed out when I saw Becca getting out of a sleek, black, brand-new VW Jetta. Her parents had refused to buy her a car, especially since I was always driving her everywhere, and they also refused to let her get a job to buy her own. That had been a point of contention in her relationship with her parents, which had improved over the last two years somewhat.
I pushed through the screen door to greet her. She jumped up into my arms, wrapping her legs around my waist, a huge grin on her beautiful face.
“They bought me a car!” She kissed me hard, holding the back of my head with both hands; I loved when she did that. “Isn’t it gorgeous? They said I needed a car to get back and forth from school.” She wiggled out of my arms and ran to her car, running her hands over the hood.
I laughed at her excitement, happy for her. “It’s awesome, baby. I’m so happy for you!”
She straightened, bouncing up and down on her toes and clapping, acting more girly than I’d ever seen her. “I c-can’t believe it! I have a car!” I couldn’t keep myself from watching her boobs jiggle as she bounced on her feet. She caught me staring and gave me a wry glare. “Eyes on me, hon.”
I grinned sheepishly. “Sorry. I can’t help it if you’ve got a rack I can’t take my eyes off.”
She slid into my arms. “Haven’t you gotten enough of my rack by now?” She grimaced at the term I’d used. “Our two-year anniversary is next month. You’d think you’d be used to them by now.” She smiled up at me, knowing the truth.
I shook my head. “That’s impossible. I’m a guy. You can never get too much of a good thing. And, baby, your boobs are a great thing.”
She smacked my arm, but it was an empty protest. “You’re such a pig.”
“Yep. Oink oink.”
She just giggled, and god, did I love her cute little laugh. “Get in, hot stuff. This time I’m gonna take you for a ride.”
“I love it when you take me for rides.” I grinned as I slid into the passenger seat.
Becca ignored my not-so-subtle innuendo. “It’s a hybrid, sss-so it gets forty-two miles per g-g-gallon city, and forty-eight highway…” She backed out of my driveway, rattling off all the various specs of her new car. It made me seriously happy to see her so excited that she didn’t even notice her own stutters, which only happened when she was super nervous or excited. Or during the throes of passion, you might say. She tended to stutter a little as she came, and that always put a smile on my face. It was adorable, to me. A part of who she was, and knowing she felt comfortable enough with me that she didn’t even get embarrassed when she stuttered meant a lot to me.
We passed my dad pulling into the driveway, and he gave us a cursory glare, lifting his eyes derisively at Becca’s foreign car. Buying foreign was a sin in his book; the fact that Becca was half-Arabic bugged him to no end, and we’d actually gotten in one of our worst fistfights over that very fact. He’d used a derogatory slur about her during my junior year, and I’d flattened him without hesitation. We’d gone three rounds right there in the kitchen until we were both bloody and needing stitches. Neither of us got them, though, and damn it if we weren’t alike in that way. I’d left in a red rage, still bleeding, and Becca had met me at our tree with a first aid kit. She hadn’t asked what the fight was about, thank god. I don’t think I could have told her without losing my shit all over again.
I forcibly moved my thoughts away from my dad and listened to Becca chatter happily. I’d tuned out and had no clue what she was talking about, so I had to play catch-up, realizing she was talking about having already started on the required reading list for her classes at U of M.
Of course Becca would be already registered and have the books and reading, and I wasn’t even sure which school I was going to. Becca refused to weigh in on my decision. She never brought it up, ever. She said she wanted me to make my own decision. She loved me; she’d support whatever I chose. I knew deep down she wanted me to go U of M with her, but she’d never say that. She’d said we’d make our relationship work even if I chose Nebraska, and I knew she meant it.
I held her hand as she drove, listening to her talk, letting her words wash over me. It wasn’t that I wasn’t paying attention—I just knew that sometimes she needed to just talk, get out all the words she’d held back throughout the day. It was one of the ways she coped with stuttering, I’d discovered. She kept quiet during the day, only saying what she was sure she could get out fluently, and then when we were alone, she’d just ramble without expecting me to respond, and she’d let herself stutter, let it happen as it would, knowing I didn’t care.
I tuned back in as she made a left turn onto the main road through town. “S-so anyway, I’m pretty excited about this lit class I’m in. It’s err-early eighteenth-century British literature. We’re f-focusing on Defoe, Jonathan Swift, and Galland’s translation of One Thousand and One Nights, which is really unusual. It’s a higher-level class, since I’ve taken most of the freshman-level classes already.” I’d only heard of Defoe, but wouldn’t have admitted that except under duress. “My major coursework classes are the ones I’m most excited about. It’s all undergrad stuff, of course, but U of M is a respected university, ee-even if they’re not really ranked in the speech-language pathology field. My graduate work will probably be at somewhere like the University of Iowa. They’re the b-best, I’ve heard. I c-can’t say I’m excited at the idea of living in Iowa, but…it’s far enough away that I don’t have to decide n-now.”
I laughed. “But you’re already thinking about it?”
She grinned at me. “Yeah, you know how I am.”
I snorted. “Yeah, you’re a career overachiever.”
She frowned at me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Uh-oh. “It’s a good thing, Beck. You’re just always prepared, and you’re f**king amazing at everything. Like, I don’t think you could fail at anything, even if you tried.”
She rolled her eyes at me. “I got a D on a test once.”
I stared at her, unsure if she was kidding. “Dear Lord, a D? When was this? Second grade?” I teased.