There's No Going Back

7. Weekend Worries

The ride back to Lake Tahoe was silent for the most part. They had brought their schoolbooks along with them in order to be ready for the week ahead and they tried to get some of the work done on the ride home so they had more time to fool around at home.

Jay took the wheel for the first half of the journey while Alex did some reading for his art class that the teacher had assigned them. It was mainly just the first few chapters on art during the Renaissance and it bored him to tears. Renaissance painting was dull as dishwater. It was rife with Holy works and while some of the art was astounding, he preferred less sacred works.

When Alex was driving Jay did the same, but he was mostly writing. They were supposed to do a bit of creative writing and he kept complaining whenever Alex hit a bump or went too fast around a sharp curve. He had an idea for a poem and he was trying to find inspiration in the scenery around him as he scribbled in his notepad. It worked for a while until the roads became windier past I-80.

"Watch it, you turd," Jay griped as his pen flew off the paper for the hundredth time during the trip.

"I didn't pave the roads, dude," his brother sniped back.

It was not the most pleasant of rides for either of the young men.

They filled up the tank in Placerville and got something to drink at the small cafe near the ARCO station. It was filled with older people mostly who were drinking coffee by the gallon and talking loudly to each other, forgetting that they could simply turn up the hearing aids many of them donned. Either that or they enjoyed annoying the staff and other patrons with their obnoxious yelling and stories about the aches and pains being a senior citizen.

Once their tank was full, they headed back onto Highway 50, glad to be seeing the last of the diner and its irritating occupants.

Their ears popped with the altitude every so often and Jay started to get a headache. They had only been down to sea level for a little over a week and already had become acclimatized to the lower levels. Alex hoped he wouldn't get his usual nosebleed. He was prone to them whenever he came back up the mountain from lower levels.

Pulling into their driveway, they saw their grandfather outside the house next door and with Elena, his long-time girlfriend turned wife of several years.

Once Stephen Bormann had retired, he had decided to take more of an interest in working around the house. He had gone from a full-time lawyer to a full-time retiree with nothing to do but veg and get olde. It drove the older man crazy to lay about the house. He was a man of action and liked to keep busy. So far the man had planted a hedge to separate his property from the neighbor's on the other side whose dogs tended to wander over to take a s**t on his neatly manicured lawn whenever the spirit moved them or the doggie Gods saw fit to frown upon the 66-year-old man. He had recently started on a rock garden, whatever that was.

With the help of Elena, he had a thriving garden in both the front and back of the house and was now trying to get into carpentry. Something about a gazebo for the backyard and he bought DYI magazines like they were going out of style. He also watched a lot of TV and YouTube videos in regards to doing things in and around the house.

Stephen stopped watering his flowerbeds and placed the spray nozzle onto banister of the front porch before coming over to greet his oldest grandchildren.

"Hey Grandpa," Alex said as he gave him a hug and made way for Jay to do so as well.

"How's university so far?" Stephen asked them.

"Fine, I guess," Alex stated.

"It's only been a week," Jay added.

"Any prospects with the ladies?" their grandfather asked. The two exchanged a look which Stephen readily caught up on.

"I see," he said, stepping back. "There's a story there, but I won't pry. That's your mother's job. You know she'll ask."

"And if she doesn't, Dad will," Alex stated. They referred to Emmett in this case. He may have been tamed by their mother into a husband and father figure, but he still acted the manwhore- just for old time's sake

It was going to be a long weekend.

******

The first night, their mother hovered over them like she hadn't seen them in months instead of a few days. It was nice to see her too, but they were 18 and preferred not to be coddled like an infant. She kept getting weepy whenever they talked about heading back to school on Sunday so they avoided the topic like s*x education at a Catholic school.

"I would run while you still can," their younger brother Caysen told them. "She'a been a wreck since you've been gone. She almost put a lock on your doors so that Emily wouldn't turn it into some girlie palace or an extra storage closet for all her shoes."

Oh, Lord.

"Yeah," Stefan concurred. "She might just cuff you both to your beds on Saturday night, so I'd sleep with one eye open if I were you."

The older brothers knew they were only kidding, but with the way Callie treated them the first night, they weren't taking any chances. They checked to see that they still had the ability to lock their doors from the inside and sighed in relief when they saw the mechanisms were still in perfect working condition.

The twins had hung out with the same group of friends during high school, but only a few of them stayed local. Both Jay and Alex spent a good portion of Saturday mingling with the remnants of their old crew.

Reece was learning his father's auto-mechanic business and was working full-time with his dad, and Shelly was studying locally to become a cosmetologist. The boys pitied the poor women of the Great Lake Tahoe area that went to visit her. Shelly was a loyal friend and a good person, but she wore way too much makeup. Especially eyeliner. She looked like a raccoon at times.

Both of the boys were surprised to see that Shelly had toned down the makeup in direct conjunction with starting to date Reece. They had dated a few years ago briefly, but it hadn't worked out at the time. Shelly's mother was against her 15-year-old dating. She wanted her to wait until she was at least 16. By that time, Reece was dating someone else and Shelly met Finn who was now attending Brigham Young University. They had dated until he went away over the past summer.

"Yeah, I guess we never really stopped caring for each other," Reece stated as he told them about how he and Shelly had started to date again over the summer. "We kept it on the down low at first. We wanted to see if it could work out this time. When she told me she was sticking around and go to school locally, I decided to give it another shot."

"I'm just glad to see she stopped looking like an emo chick," Alex said as he looked over at Shelly who was just getting to the front of the counter to pick up another coffee for herself.

They were at a popular diner that most of the locals frequented only when it was the off-season for tourists. It got too crowded otherwise and they would hang out at the Denny's on the edge of town.

"What about you two?" Reece asked them as Shelly sat down next to them with her latte. "Any chicks worth talking about? Or maybe a hot cougar of a teacher perhaps?" He wriggled his eyebrows lasciviously and grinned at them.

The two boys gave each other 'the look' but decided not to talk about it. They were still a bit butthurt about their rejections. They really wanted to speak to someone about it but were afraid to speak with their fathers. They would be of no help at all in their current situation. They needed a woman's standpoint. That meant talking to their mother.

It was a prospect that had both of them quaking in their Vans. They hated when their mother... shared too much. It was a habit she had as the only open polyamorous female in the area. She shared everything and with anyone who asked or even hinted at her unusual relationship with their fathers. Callie was known to clear whole rooms with her oversharing.

They decided to broach the subject of their rejections with her while she cooked dinner that Saturday evening. Ethan and Emmett were in the study going over a new scheme to modernize their local spa because they had some decorators coming by on Monday. They wanted to be ready well in advance.

"Mom, we wanted to ask you something," Alex stated as Jay nudged at him to speak.

"What's that, hon?" she asked as she stirred a large pot of spaghetti noodles.

They both told their stories to their mother, interrupted only a few times with clarifying questions. In the end, their mother thought hard as she stirred the meat sauce in the smaller pot.

"It sounds like you two have fallen for the same type of girl," Callie stated. The boys silently agreed. It wasn't much of a surprise being who their fathers were. "I can only tell you not to give up on them. I don't know if it's that time of the month or they had a bad day, but whatever it was I think it has more to do with their own reluctance to become involved with you rather than anything that you could have done." In simple terms, you haven't been there long enough to f**k up yet.

It made sense to both of them and they decided they would give their ladies some space and try again another time. Callie thought that was a good idea- at first. It would let her know they were serious and not looking for just a fling.

"Have either of you tried to make any contact with her since the last time you all spoke?" Callie asked as she tasted the sauce, making a face. She mumbled something about more oregano and opened the cabinet she kept the spices in, pulling out a small container of green leafy substance and shaking it over the sauce.

"No, I've been afraid she would just block me if I tried," Alex confessed.

"Maybe you should try giving them a call on the house phone then," Callie offered. "Does one of you have their numbers handy?"

They both did and pulled their cell phones out of their pockets almost in tandem. Alex located Piper's phone number first. He fretted a bit before giving his phone to Jay to read off the numbers. He could only concentrate on one thing at a time he was so nervous to make the call.

"Jay? I'm ready to dial," Alex prompted. Jay remained silent for a long time.

"Jay!" he called. "Give me Piper's phone number!"

Alex continued to stand there with the cordless phone before turning around. Callie and Alex both watched as Jay's face paled noticeably and their mother went up to him, hand out to feel his forehead.

"Honey?" Callie asked, worried.

Jay had been struck dumb. Literally.

"Dude, what is wrong with you?" Alex asked as he set the cordless phone back down on the cradle.

Jay didn't answer and took his own phone out, comparing the two numbers.

"You said her name was Piper, right? The girl you're interested in?" Jay asked him as he continued to hold both phones in his shaking hands.

"Yeah, why?" Alex questioned, apparently unaware of anything wrong.

Jay didn't say anything and merely held the phones up side by side so that Alex could see what he was seeing.

Piper

+1 (808) 832-4474

Madison

+1 (808) 832-4474

They were the exact same person.