23.1
Georgina
"Aren't there secret tunnels under the White House and shit?" Adriano asks, spearing another forkful of pancake. We're sitting at a long farmhouse table in the kitchen with a ridiculous amount of breakfast food on platters in the middle of the table – not plates, but platters. The kind you'd use to serve a large family. Nathaniel scrambled a dozen eggs, fried up a pound of bacon, and made a stack of pancakes a mile high. It's one in the morning, and both of them insisted they couldn't possibly sleep on empty stomachs, so here we are, sitting ar
ound the table. Nathaniel and Adriano are in shorts and t-shirts and I'm wearing one of Nathaniel's shirts that's approximately twenty sizes too large for me. Sitting here with them is familiar and comfortable and… so damn easy.
Nathaniel rolls his eyes. "Strippers aren't coming into the White House through secret tunnels."
"Just saying. There had to be a way for Marilyn to get in to see JFK," Adriano says, pointing at us with his fork.
"You literally know nothing about politics, but secret tunnels and Marilyn Carter, these are the things you retain in your brain?"
Adriano grins. "It's a gift."
"It's something." Nathaniel snorts.
"The Playboy mansion had secret tunnels under it too," Adriano points out. "In the seventies. True fact – I read it on the internet."
"When did you learn to read?" Nathaniel asks.
"Wow, Nathaniel. Sex really makes you funny," Adriano replies. "Wait, nope, it doesn't."
"Have you two always been like this?" I ask.
"You mean brilliant and charming?" Adriano asks.
"She means you're annoying," Nathaniel chides.
I laugh. "That is not what I meant."
"We're worse when we go back to West Bend," Adriano says.
"You mean, you're worse." Nathaniel shakes his head and munches on a piece of bacon. "Keeping him from doing stupid shit used to be my full-time job."
Adriano snorts. "He's a liar. He used to do plenty of it with me."
"Nope," Nathaniel disagrees. "Remember when you tied mattresses to yourself and got on our roof and jumped off?"
Adriano laughs. "I'm lucky Mama Ashby didn't kick me out on my ass after that. She was pissed. I mean, cat-in-a-bath pissed off. You were the one doing the tying, though, so don't act like you're all innocent and I was just a stupid kid."
"Did it work?" I ask, laughing. "The mattresses, I mean. Did they cushion you?"
"Obviously, they did not. He hit his head," Nathaniel says.
Adriano grins. "It's okay, my brains are all in the head between my legs."
"Say what you will about him, but at least he's honest," Nathaniel says.
"Your poor mothers," I say, then immediately regret my words, thinking of Adriano's mother who died. "I didn't mean –"
"It's okay," Adriano reassures me. "Shit, if my mom were alive, she'd say the same thing. I gave her so much grief as a kid. Hell, Nathaniel and I both did. If we weren't getting into trouble at his house, we were getting into it at mine."
"It sounds fun," I say. "Small town life, I mean."
"Says the girl who grew up jet-setting around the world," Adriano replies.
"Uh… no," I say, laughing. "I mean, sure, boarding school in Switzerland –"
Adriano and Nathaniel raise their eyebrows dramatically and give each other meaningful looks as they pick up their glasses, pinkies extended.
"It wasn't like that," I protest.
"Boarding school in Switzerland wasn't fancy?" Nathaniel asks, his voice skeptical.
"It was a little fancy –" I start.
"Were there uniforms?" Adriano shovels a bite of what has to be his sixth pancake into his mouth.
"At boarding school? Yes, but –"
"Plaid skirt?" Nathaniel asks, suddenly enthralled with where this conversation is going.
"Navy blue, but –"
"Pleated?" Nathaniel asks.
"Pigtails and a white shirt, tied up under your –" Adriano starts.
"No, boarding school was not a Britney Spears music video," I say primly. "It was serious."
"You were a nerd, weren't you?" Nathaniel asks.
"Not… really."
“Were you valedictorian?” Nathaniel asks.
“Did you research me?”
“Just a hunch.”
“Fine. Yes, I was valedictorian.”
“Totally a nerd,” Adriano says. “Did you date any jocks?”
“In high school or in college?” I ask.
“Either.”
I exhale. “No.”
“No jocks, huh?” Nathaniel asks, eating a bite of eggs. “What was your type, then?”
My face reddens. “No one in high school.”
“You didn’t date anyone?”
“It wasn’t a priority,” I answer, suddenly defensive. “I was studying.”
“Like Nathaniel.” Adriano nods toward him as he puts another pancake – his seventh? – onto his plate. “He’s practically a monk.”
“Football was my priority," Nathaniel replies, an edge in his voice.
Adriano grins. “You know what my priority is right now?” he asks, his eyes on mine. “Dessert.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Dessert? After all this?”
Nathaniel and Adriano exchange glances. “Yup.”
“I can’t believe you guys can even eat anything else after - ”
I’m cut off mid-sentence as Nathaniel stands and picks me right up out of my chair, flipping me over his shoulder with my ass in the air. I let out a shriek as they carry me back to Nathaniel’s bedroom and show me exactly how much football players can eat.
