They were seated at the dinner table the next evening when Andrew reminded her that she'd promised to tell him some stories about Boone from when they were kids.
She looked across at her brother, automatically thinking of him that way given the nature of Andrews' request, and ran through her catalogue of memories. Boone looked decidedly uncomfortable as a wicked smile spread across her face.
She watched and waited for his response as she said, "Your dad makes a very pretty girl."
'Oh shit,' he thought, knowing exactly where she was going with this, he winced, his cheeks starting to blush.
She laughed in appreciation at the look of embarrassment with which she'd been rewarded.
Andrew looked at him, appraisingly, "Yeah, I guess he would." giving Shannon a conspirators' grin, as she started recounting the story.
Her friend, Cindy, had been over. They were in her bedroom, putting makeup on each other, and had gotten bored with it, when Cindy had asked her if her brother was home. She'd been infatuated with him that summer, and had been trying, unsuccessfully to get Shannon to set them up. Even though refusing to consciously acknowledge her feelings for him, she'd kept an arsenal of excuses, for not hooking any of her friends up with him, at the ready. Her question had given Shannon an evil idea.
"How old were we, do you think?" She frowned at him, unable to remember.
He thought a second, "Must have been fourteen, fifteen. I wasn't driving yet, I remember that."
"No, if you'd had the car, there's no way you would have been home." The car had been his sixteenth birthday gift, and he'd used it to escape from the increasing awkwardness he'd felt living in the same house with her. His hormones raging once his adolescence had passed; and he'd entered his teen years.
"I can't remember where we found you, or what you were doing. Probably something dull and serious like reading War and Peace or some other stupid thing. God, you were such a dork."
"I was not a dork!" he protested, then paused. "Okay, maybe I was, just a little, but I was a hot dork, right?" he asked with a smirk.
"Ooooh, yes," she nodded. Even at fifteen he'd been incredibly good looking, "you were that." She reassured him.
They'd persuaded him to come upstairs with them, each of the girls promising him a kiss if he went along with what they'd had planned. Though all three of them knew that there was only one of them he was really interested in kissing.
Upstairs, she'd seated him in a chair and had begun to apply the makeup. Starting with eyeliner, mascara and eye shadow, she'd applied it carefully, with a practiced hand. She'd been careful to put on just enough; her intention had never been to turn him into a circus clown by garish over application. As she'd worked she'd become increasingly amused by how pretty he was turning out, while he'd stared, fascinated, at her face, so close to his. Standing in front of him, with the compact of blush in her hand, the brush poised over his cheek, she'd suddenly remembered the promise of a kiss, and had put the brush back, snapping the lid of the case closed. She'd then applied the same lipstick she'd used on him, and had leaned forward, kissing him hard.
She paused in her story, briefly, to reflect on a private memory of that day, recalling the thinly veiled desire that had been so evident in his eyes. He remembered the erection that he'd had; thankfully hidden by the makeup case she'd put in his lap when she'd started.
Her ploy had worked better than she'd anticipated. "When I pulled back, his cheeks were flushed so bright red; it looked like I'd smeared the lipstick on them." She laughed. "Anyway, the effect of the makeup was amazing; he looked so feminine, so very pretty."
Andrew has been sniggering through the whole thing, but at her last words he almost doubled over in the chair, holding his stomach; laughing uncontrollably.
She recalled that she'd remembered at that point that Sabrina had a few wigs in her closet. She'd gone and gotten one without telling either of the other two what she'd had planned. When she'd returned, and he'd seen what she was carrying, he'd flatly refused to let it go any farther. Even the promise of another kiss from her hadn't been enough to make him budge.
"Christ Shan, if I'd let you put that wig on me, the next thing I knew, you'd have had me in a dress and high heels! God you were a bitch! There was no way I was going to let you turn me into a cross dresser." He protested.
"Do you think we could do it now?" Andrew wanted to know.
"Yeah…" she started.
"No, no way, not a chance." Boone shook his head. "In case neither of you noticed, I'm not fifteen any more; and I've got work to do."
"I could promise to kiss you."
"Yeah, that'd really get you somewhere. It doesn't have quite the same allure that it had then." He smiled.
"Okay, then I could threaten to never kiss you again.' Shannon substituted.
"Suuure, like that'd last more than twenty-four hours." He laughed at her.
"Whoa, don't you sound all irresistible and sure of yourself." She grinned. "What do you want to do? Put yourself in a bottle and label it 'Obsession for Shannon?'"
He got up and moved around the table, leaning down and kissing her before whispering in her ear, "No, it's more like you're 'Obsession for Boone.'"
Andrew grimaced at the squickiness of his parents' kissing.
"Do the dishes," he instructed before disappearing through the door.
She showed up not more than fifteen minutes later. He was working in the other kitchen, the items he needed placed in a neat and organized fashion on the counter. "Where's Andrew?"
"Watching T.V., what're you making?" she perched on a stool. The conversation continued for a while as she watched him work.
At one point he reminded her of Andrew's approaching birthday. "I'm having a party for him next weekend."
"A party?" she grimaced, picturing a yard full of screaming kids. "Do we have to?"
"Shan, that's what kids do on their birthday's, they have parties, of course we have to. Jeeze, stop being so self-centred." He shook his head in exasperation.
"And what are you going to feed them, what with your 'food rules?'" she ridiculed him. "I'm sure they'll be just thrilled to see rice cakes, apples and fish."
"Burgers, dogs, cake, the usual stuff." He answered casually, shrugging. "Don't you worry about it, I've got more than a few secret tricks. They'll never know they're following my 'food rules.'" He mocked her, and then smiled, leaning across the counter to kiss her.
The following Saturday found them on the beach, surrounded by a group of Andrews' friends. The kids played with the water guns Boone had bought for them and splashed and swam in lake. He fired up the boat and took a few of the older ones water skiing, which meant that Shannon was left alone to deal with the remaining ones. She quickly became more than just a little frazzled as the kids screamed and darted around her everywhere, all of them, including her own son, seeming, to her, possessed. The eight little boys she was watching, somehow, in her head, multiplied three fold into two-dozen. She cursed Boone silently for leaving her alone with a pack of wild animals as she frantically tried to keep track of them all, picturing in her head trying to explain to a parent how their son ended up floating off into the middle of the lake, because she was incapable of supervising a small group of children for half an hour. She'd reached the absolute end of her patience, and was about to tell them all to sit the fuck down, when he got back.
He tried to hide his amusement when he saw the slightly wild look in her eyes. He quickly took charge and had the boys sitting quietly with plates of food in no time. 'Asshole,' she thought as he looked at her smugly.
When the last present was opened and the final car door slammed after the last of the guests had been picked up, they led Andrew into the garage. His brand new dirt bike stood in the center of the space, a card taped to the seat. He squealed in delight and threw his arms around each of them in turn, adding a kiss to Shannon's cheek. She smoothly accepted the thanks, though she'd actually had nothing to do with the gift. Boone had already bought it weeks before she returned, though he'd handed her the card before sealing it, so she could scrawl her name next to his.
She'd asked Boone why they were waiting until after the kids had left before showing Andrew what they'd gotten him, knowing that she would have wanted to flaunt something like that in her friends' faces at the same age. He patiently explained that revealing the existence of a brand new dirt bike to a bunch of kids their ages would only have been asking for trouble as they all pleaded to ride it, when he hadn't gotten their parents permission. Not only that, he wasn't prepared to take the responsibility if someone wrapped it around a tree.
Boone told Andrew that they'd signed him up for a one-week dirt bike camp later in the summer.
"Can I ride it now?" he couldn't wait to start it.
They let him tool around in the back yard for a while, dodging trees and lawn furniture, only dropping it twice and skinning the bark off the side of just one tree. He emerged from his novice run with nothing more than some skinned knuckles and grass stains on his knees.
Andrew went to bed early, exhausted from the day's activities, Boone tucking in him just before nine. When he returned to Shannon, in the back yard, he found her sound asleep in one of the lounge chairs. He breathed a small laugh at the knowledge that the day's activities had been hard on more than just their son. He got a blanket from the house and draped it over her, careful not to wake her, softly kissing her forehead.
She slid into bed with him several hours later. He was lying on his side, facing the wall, his breathing slow and rhythmic. She spooned up against him, wrapping her arm around his waist, pulling him tight. He moaned softly in his sleep, but let himself be drawn into her embrace without awakening. She kissed his neck and let herself drift back off.