One

A special silence of the soul, an expanse of the mind occurs when you’re faced with total chaos and irreversibly dire circumstances beyond preparation or foreknowledge, Becca learned.

Her tits were out and the secret lover that was certainly not the quarterback boyfriend she’d bragged about in her emails back home was struggling to pull jeans up and over his naked ass in front of god and her fifty year old parents.

Bile burned in the back of her throat. When Peter had a chance to catch Becca’s eye, she saw that his face was impassive. Waiting. Watching. He wouldn’t step in to save her this time around like he had with Coach Gaggle.

It was her world intruding on their private sins now and only she could posit the right lies or truth or compromise between to stop the screaming alarm.

“Mom! Dad! Please calm down!” Becca’s cries weren’t overly appealing or any louder than their dramatic expletives, but any interruption to the clamor was enough to leave their mouths dry.

Becca continued, lifting her bedsheet up to cover her nakedness, “I’m choosing to put aside the fact that you didn’t think to knock before entering a grown woman’s college dorm or give me any kind of warning you were in town. Now that you are here and you’ve seen what you’ve seen, you should know that this is Austin, my boyfriend I’ve told you about, and that we’re engaged.”

Peter’s eyebrows raised in shocked amusement at her bold lie, and Becca’s parents slumped from their thrashing. Becca was twenty two and well within her rights to engage in sexual relationships with men, but her roots reached from the south, where even modern, agnostic families called for young women to be engaged to a man before they could romp together with their family’s blessing.

It didn’t matter if that engagement stretched on into the decades or fizzled out all together in an ugly breakup. As long as the civilized, church going folk and family understood that you had intended to be married, whatever sexual vulnerabilities you were party to with your fiance were accepted and no deviance from a girl’s overall moral character.

It was extra cushioning to the initial blow that her parents understood, from her occasional correspondence and text, that Austin was the pick of the litter as far as Grand Ridge University bachelors went. Star quarterback, rich, handsome, popular. Another boon for Becca that the only pictures she’d ever shared had been distanced shots of Austin in his helmet. Peter wasn’t too much of a stretch from what they might have expected from a varsity athlete. More long-distance runner sinew than football brawn, but certainly fit and good looking.

Becca’s father rushed to Peter’s side and shook his hand so hard it nearly made Peter stumble off his feet. “Well this is a hell of a way to finally meet you, son! I’m proud to make your acquaintance. I’ve gotta say though - they make quarterbacks a little leaner than I remember!”

Becca’s helmet haired mother followed, reprimanding her husband with a playful swat. “Oh you’ll have to forgive George! He forgets that today’s athlete’s respect flexibility just as much as strength. I’m sure you’re a wonder on the field and no one can deny that you’re a strapping young man. I always knew Rebecca would marry well…”

Between the two, Becca trusted that Peter wouldn’t have a chance to spare a word or inadvertently expose any holes she hadn’t covered in her abrupt lie.

She put their captured attention to use by packing her bags for the weekend home visit she knew they had intended for her and, now, Peter.

She couldn’t risk them coming across the real Austin!