Growing Up

"Can you get the plates for the snacks?" Kaylie said.

Jason continued his game of Call of Duty. "You mean stop in the middle of a game or get them later, like when I'm getting the ice?"

This is the boy I fell in love with, she thought unironically. They were best friends in school since they were eight years old because he was so carefree and sarcastic and never did what anyone told him to do. He was fun. That's all you want from a best friend when you're eight, someone so annoying that everyone is mad at them except you You're in on the joke, so you can laugh at all of them. But they were 18 now and she was waiting patiently for him to grow up. She still loved him, it wasn't a major drama. He was her first best friend and her first boyfriend. She'd always love him. She was just having a bad day and probably stressed because of this party.

The party was for the other man in her life: Mr. B, Jason's dads. She'd known him since she was eight too, if that wasn't immediately obvious. Her dad left her and her mom when she was too young to remember what it was like to have a dad. She was two years old when he went to England and then somewhere else after that and never got in touch with them again. She had no idea where he was and no real interest in finding out beyond an idle curiosity about some stranger she once barely knew. Apparently, he was a lot of fun, so said her mom. The thing that made Mr B a great dad is that he was the exact opposite of her dad. He was boring, but he was always there. He had a great job, they had an amazing house and Jason always got the latest iPhone or PlayStation, but mostly what was great about him was that he stuck around for Jason even after his wife left him for a guy ten years younger.

"You know this is really important for your dad, right?"

"Yeah, I know," Jason says back to me. "It was my idea, remember?"

To be fair, yes it was. "Have you checked the weather report for tonight?"

"Ummm, no, was I supposed to?"

"You mean, was it a job assigned to you?" She felt like she only had one speed at the moment: sarcasm.

He looked worried now. "Was it?"

Kaylie didn't even answer because, what do you say to that? It was like the biggest night of the year for astrophotographers, and they promised him a surprise so they could maybe distract him from the fact that the day marked one year since his wife left him "temporarily" to find herself, which is apparently code for being a whore. Mr B convinced himself from day one that she'd be back within the week because he always thinks everyone in the world is like him. Nowhere in the recesses of his mind did he ever believe she'd be gone a year. He somehow managed to wake up every day thinking that this was the day she'd come back to him.

They still talked, and once a month or so she made time for a weekend with Jason, but this mindless fantasy that she'd come back was kind of hard to be around. Pollyanna would have given up long ago, but Mr B was hanging in there. It was endearing in a Richard Bach novel kind of way when you're in that moment of time lost in the writer's words and you believe everything is going to work out if we just all do yoga and throw sticks in rivers.

"Just checked on my phone and it's going to be mostly clear with the odd cloud," Jason said.

Kaylie laughed because, what else are you going to do? He'd done his job and didn't even have to leave the couch. She could see herself marrying Jason and being the one who does all the work in the house and takes care of the kids while he plays golf on his PlayStation 15 or whatever. "Just remember to get the ice and be back here before five."

"Why five? The sun won't even go down till eight or something."

"Because when he gets home, I want everything ready so he sees it. All the food and beer, all the snacks ready to go, barbecue prepared, and all the camera and telescope stuff set up on the gazebo. So, when he walks in, his surprise is all ready and he can get excited and know how much we love him and feel special instead of thinking that it's been a year since your mom walked out."

"Hey," Jason said like it was a eureka moment, "what about your mom?"

"I don't know," Kaylie said. What about her?

"Well, she's working tonight. Couldn't she bring the ice from the bar?"

"Yeah, you're right. She gets off at 2:00am, she can bring the ice and your dad will just have warm beer till then."

"Don't snap my head off! I'm just trying to help."

She had a strong urge to explain how it wasn't helpful at all when he refused to do any critical thinking, but decided she didn't have time for this discussion. It was just past three o'clock and she had a ton of things to do. "Just go get the ice."

Kaylie got to work setting up the viewing station at the gazebo. This was the el primo most important job, and it had to be done right. She wanted him to look at it and think that she did everything that he would have done and did it exactly the way he would have done it. She'd learned a lot about photography from Mr B. Mostly, she used it to get the best light on her in any situation so she looked her absolute best. Although generally not one to sneer at others for how they looked, bad lighting was one area where she'd let fly because it was so easily taken care of. Simply, never ever let anyone take your picture when the sun is high in the sky. Never do it. And if you have to, turn your body to get the best possible shadows on your tits because that's all anyone will look at. She knew she had amazing tits and didn't care if people judged her for wanting people to notice them. They were young, they were firm, and they were big without being cartoonish. And they weren't hanging off a fat body either. Her ass was round but tight and her tummy was the kind of tummy you expect from a swimmer.

She also learned about the technical side of things, with cameras especially. Jason was more the type of boy who'd pick up a camera and switch it to automatic mode and then point and shoot. He used whatever flash came with the camera instead of a dedicated flash that you could bounce, for example. Kaylie enjoyed getting into the meat of whatever she was doing and finding out all the intricacies. She wasn't into the whole photography-as-a-hobby thing, but she liked knowing how to do it and she loved listening to Mr B talk about the techniques he used to take a particular landscape photo. That was the one time when his face lit up as bright as when his son got a "clutch" in Call of Duty.

Just after five o'clock, Mr B walked through the door. You could almost always rely on him to be home before dinner. He could easily work late hours: he had plenty of clients. But he knew how important it was to be home for dinner with his son. Kaylie respected that about him.

He called out, "There better not be strangers hiding in the closet. It's not even my birthday."

Kaylie skipped over to him at the front door and kissed his cheek. "Not that kind of surprise, mister." She brought him on a tour of the kitchen to show him all the snacks, and opened the fridge revealing a couple of six-packs, three steaks, and way too much salad. Then she took him to the window that looked down on the backyard and handed him the binoculars. He looked through them and saw the setup on the gazebo.

"You remembered," he said. He looked really happy.

"Of course, we remembered. Right, Jason?"

Jason took one hand off his controller and waved from the couch. "Happy asteroid day, Dad."

"Don't get up. son," said Mr B. Everyone was being sarcastic.

After the barbecue, they all headed down to the gazebo for the main event, but within a few minutes, Jason got a call from one of his buddies and went back up to the house to "deal with the matter". Half an hour later, he hadn't come back, so Kaylie went up to the house and found him playing Call of Duty. What a shock. She read him the riot act, told him it was an important night for his dad, lectured him on how much his dad does for him, etc. Jason responded with some gobbledygook about his team getting together for a mission and how he had responsibilities. "It'll be like half an hour. Just chill and stop making a drama out of it. Dad's fine, he's not going to slash his wrists in the next half an hour."

Kaylie gave up. She walked back down to the gazebo and told Mr B that Jason had to do something important but he'd be down in half an hour.

"Listen," he said, "I know how much trouble you guys went to for me, and we both know it's one year today and..." He smiled, but in a very sad way. "It's just, I feel very lucky to have you both in my life and I'm doing fine. I respect her choices. If you love someone, set them free, etc."

"Oh, good," said Kaylie and gave him a hug. She didn't buy a word of it.

They passed the time chatting for an hour or so, and then she made her way back up to the house. Jason had great news. "We got through to the next round! And I'm really close to getting golden guns in the shotgun category, which you may recall is my worst gun type." He was really excited. Kaylie was really happy for him in that sarcastic way of the day. "I'll just be another 15 minutes or so."

Kaylie knew exactly what 15 minutes meant. It meant go away, I have no self-control, Sony owns my ass and has designated that it should stay stuck on this couch.

She mused during the long walk back to the gazebo what Jason would be like to live with full-time or as a co-parent. He never seemed to show any initiative. Unless he was told to do something, he never did it. He never even asked her to go out with him, which always irked her. They'd been best friends for years by that point, spent every day together, and everyone assumed they were boyfriend and girlfriend, and both of them went along with it. Eventually they kissed but it was like one of those things you're supposed to do when you're boyfriend/girlfriend. Mind you, she also accepted that it was partly her fault. It fed perfectly into her desired worldview of steady predictability, and honestly, most girls were jealous of Kaylie. Jason took after his dad in the looks department. He was also a pretty good basketball player, always on the starting five when they were in high school. Not good enough for a college scholarship or anything, but good for bragging rights among the girls, especially when he had a good game. Basketball was big in their high school: it got way more attention than swimming.

As she approached the gazebo, she could see Mr B busy making sure everything was the way he needed it: lining up telescopes, tripods, and cameras, making sure he had the battery chargers humming, and checking he had enough SD cards, that kind of thing. He didn't tell Kaylie that she did a good job or anything, but he seemed happy, and that would do for her. It was still too early for the asteroids, but for him, all of this preliminary work was all part of the event. It was like how football fans watch the Super Bowl previews all weekend instead of just tuning in when the game was about to start. He had his phone out, using some app to calculate the right angular diameter and azimuth and elevation. Even though Kaylie didn't understand 90% of what he was saying, she was rapt with the way his voice sounded as he talked about this kind of thing. Most of the time, Mr B was this tedious adult/parent saying the right things and doing the right things, which she loved, but she also loved this other side to him. He was a master of his craft and incredibly successful in his field. You just had to look at his property to see that. He had a large house with a backyard that led down to a beach a couple of hundred yards away. Hell, you just had to look at the gazebo to see it. It was as big as some houses, had a movie screen and projector, a little mini-bar, and even a hot tub.

They chatted for another hour, Kaylie asking lots of questions to keep his mind off the person neither of them wanted to discuss, but at 8:37pm, his watch beeped. She looked up to the sky assuming some major celestial event was about to unfold, but no. The beep, he explained, marked the exact time one year before that she left him. He lit up a cigarette. He'd been off them for months, but every now and then, she'd see him walking somewhere on the property or along the beach, smoking a cigarette. It always meant the same thing: he was thinking about her. She was in awe of how much he loved her. He could have easily taken in lovers, he was a great looking guy, but he didn't.

"Can I ask a personal question?"

"Sure," he says.

"Why haven't you ever gone on a date? I know you say you're doing it for Jason, but come on, he wouldn't even notice. You could be gone for a weekend and he wouldn't know as long as the internet didn't go down."

Mr B took his beer bottle and held it in front of him as if preparing to take make a toast, just waiting for the right moment. His eyes were intense with sadness and resignation. "I'm 44," he said, and took a sip.

"And?"

"When you date at 44, the women are serious about it. They're not just looking for a roll in the hay. They ask what happened in your last relationship. When I tell them, then they'll ask if I still love her. I'll say yes, I will always love her. Now, if Claire had died in a brutal car wreck, that would sound really sweet and romantic because even though I love her, she's not a threat. But Claire's alive, and the next significant question is, would you take her back if she asked?"

Kaylie nodded. She got it. "But couldn't you just say no?"

"Absolutely. But I'd be starting a relationship with a massive lie. And if this woman fell in love with me and Claire were to come back, that poor woman would be devastated and never believe a man again. I know the pain she'd feel. Trust me, whoever she is, she's better off with someone else."

Kaylie nodded.

"And one thing I know about women, if you want them to notice you, let them learn there's another woman in your life. Claire would be at the door the next day."

"Well, isn't that what you want?"

"No, of course not. If she comes back because there's another woman, she'll leave again when that woman has been shooed off the scene. No, I want her to come back because she remembers what a great fuck I was. Sorry. Too far."

Kaylie laughed. "Actually, no. I'm 18 now. We should be able to talk about things like this. We're past the lectures on life choices and Pixar movies and ghost stories by the camp fire." She looked at her watch and couldn't believe how fast the time passed. It was nearly 10 o'clock. "Is it getting close to show time?"

He looked at his watch and the sky and toggled his head from side to side. "We'll get some early signs," he said, "but most of the good stuff will happen after midnight. You never know though." He recounted stories of photos he got when he least expected them, whipping out his phone to show her some amazing shots that were never planned. Not just astrophotography. He did all kinds of different photography: landscapes, portraits, weddings, urban photography, all kinds of things. He wasn't just technically good. There are millions of photographers that can set the right aperture and shutter speed for a scene and take perfectly fine pictures, but to get the right composition, that was an art. He was also brilliant at post-processing. Mr B could take even other people's photos and do magic with them in Lightroom and Photoshop. He was a master of his craft, a genuine artist.

"Okay," Kaylie said in her most resolute tone, "I'm going up to get him and I'm not coming back without him."

"Okay, get Jason and another six-pack, would you? If you can only bring one of them, make it the beer."

He knew his son well, but he was underestimating Kaylie. "I'm bringing them both, Mr B. You can rely on me."

She knew Jason would be stuck to the couch staring at toy soldiers on the 80-inch screen, but she had a few quivers in her arrow. Or vice versa. He would have flunked out of high school if she hadn't found a way to get him to study. Three hours of study and she'd blow him, that was the deal. And no one blew Jason like Kaylie. At least, that better be the case. They'd been having sex for a while now, longer than their parents wanted to know. Kaylie had been staying for overnight visits almost since the start, making Mr B a free babysitter that gave her mom the freedom to take late-night jobs, when the tips tended to be better. Kaylie had a little room there that she used to sleep in, but when they both turned 18 a couple of months back, they were allowed to officially share a bed in Jason's room. They just kept the sex quiet -- no screaming out, "Yes, Jason, fuck my barely legal cunt!" Kaylie laughed to herself as that exclamation ran through her mind.

Sure enough, there was Jason on the couch, cursing at people inside the TV: they were all fucking lowlife camper shitheads. That was another thing that they weren't allowed to officially do -- curse. Mind you, that rule might have changed too. They just didn't get around to discussing all their newfound freedoms.

"Not now!" he said, admonishing her when she walked in. If he'd seen her scowl, that might have made more sense, but he hadn't even looked in her direction. In her mind, she went through all the lectures she could deliver, full of righteous vigor, and they would have made no difference, not one of them.

So, she went for the supportive girlfriend approach and sat beside him. She watched as he moved around some snowy mountain location. Kaylie was not even close to being a gamer, but she'd picked up a rudimentary knowledge of first-person shooters from watching Jason. "Is that a shotgun?"

He snapped back at her: "Yes, I told you before!"

Told her what? She had no idea what he was talking about. "Isn't that a pretty big map for a shotgun?"

He exhaled loudly. "I fucking know that. I don't have any choice. Do you even listen to me when I tell you stuff?" He fired shots at several people before getting killed and let out a grunt.

"If you're gonna insist on using a shotgun, you should get closer to them," Kaylie said.

"Can you do me a favor and shut up?"

She sat there and just watched since talking was not working. She leaned forward and stared at the TV to convey her fascination with what was going on, but within a few minutes he sighed abruptly and said, "Do you mind just leaning back a bit. You're right in my peripheral vision." The words sounded polite, but the tone was definitely not. Okay, it was time for plan B. She stood up and walked upstairs to her room.

In practice, it was a wardrobe more than a room she slept in. Mind you, she'd been dealing with some insomnia lately, which combined with Jason's snoring meant spending part of the night in her other bed or the couch or on the gazebo sometimes. She found the waves helped rock her to sleep. She went to the actual wardrobe in the room. More than half her total clothes collection lived here fulltime. She stripped naked, looked at herself and mused aloud, "Now, what should I cover this up with for maximum effect?" Kaylie spent all four years in high school on the varsity swim team, and swam pretty much every day since school was out: one of the benefits of your boyfriend having a pool and access to the beach. She was 5'7", her ass was tight, and her breasts had been attracting attention from boys who tried to steal her from Jason since she was 16. She wore a 36D bra, but she wouldn't be needing that for this particular mission.

She settled on a tight thin white top that revealed her midriff and was held closed by seven buttons down the front. It allowed a girl to show as much or as little cleavage as she chose. In this case, she went for two undone buttons, which should get Jason's attention. The material was so thin you could see her nipples, especially if she pinched them, which she did, causing a smirk to form on her face. She loved how it showed off her flat, toned tummy. To complete the temptress look, she went with very short soft denim cut-offs that didn't quite cover her ass cheeks. She'd never worn either item before, but this was the time for it. For panties, she went with a blinding white high-cut bikini made of thin lace that made her feel super sexy. She tried everything on and looked at herself in the mirror from every possible angle. "Yeah, the poor guy doesn't stand a chance."