Page 17 of The Devil You Know
“Is that…new?” he asked, feeling like a failed chaperone.
“I chalk it up to midlife madness,” Jesse replied. “I mean, it’s good they’re happy together, right? They were probably getting it on all the time we were younger, but they weren’t quite so open about it. Not that there’s anything wrong—aw, fuck. They’re still our parents and it’s weird.”
“As long as I don’t walk in on them,” Seth murmured. “That would be—”
“Awkward.” Jessie and Seth spoke at the same time and started laughing far too hard for what the situation warranted. Maybe it was the wine from dinner, but Seth thought it was yet another phase of homecoming—feeling giddy with relief to be safe and reunited.
“Want to watch a movie?” Seth asked.
“I was thinking about poker, actually,” Jesse said. “Figured you might have learned a few tricks in the Army, and I’ve played some with my friends at school. You owe me a rematch.”
“Seriously? Dude, that was six years ago.”
“You won sole use of the car for a whole week,” Jesse replied. “And you were a dick about agreeing to drive me anywhere.”
“I really was, wasn’t I?” Seth smirked.
“Paybacks are hell,” Jesse warned.
“Big talk, little brother. Put your cards where your mouth is.”
“You’re going down.”
Best two-out-of-three games later, Jesse won fair and square. They played for who had to wash dishes for a week since Jesse had his own car now, and Seth’s motorcycle would give him his own wheels.
“Who did you go to college with—card sharks?” Seth complained good-naturedly. “I thought soldiers were supposed to have an edge when it came to cards and gambling.”
“One of my friends—Tony—earned his tuition money playing in poker tournaments,” Jesse said off-handedly.
“Now, you tell me?” Seth wasn’t annoyed—he was intrigued and would have loved to have met the friend.
“And one of my other friends is a math whiz. He’s a card-counter—been banned from the casinos in Indiana, so he has to go out of state when he needs to raise quick cash.”
Seth gave Jesse a look. “Do Mom and Dad know that they sent you to college to consort with gamblers and people with loose morals?” he asked with an exaggerated, arch tone and waggling eyebrows.
“They sent me to college. It’s synonymous.”
Once they put the cards away, it was close to midnight, but neither of them had an early morning, and Seth had a lot of movie-watching to catch up on.
He and Jesse had always seen the new superhero movies and blockbusters together, ever since Seth had gotten his license at sixteen. They smuggled cheap candy in the pockets of their cargo pants, splurged on a refillable bucket of popcorn big enough to share, and bought supersize drinks, making it a real outing.
Missing the big-name movie releases had been hard for Seth, and he’d been unprepared for the ache of loneliness it brought when he was half a world away.
“I bought the DVDs for all the big movies that came out while you were gone,” Jesse said, taking the puffed-up popcorn bag out of the microwave. “Figured we could watch them when you came home.” He opened a cabinet door. “I stocked up on gummy worms, Reese’s Pieces, and M&Ms.”
Looks like Jesse and I were on the same wavelength, even so.
“Thanks.” Seth hoped his voice didn’t break with emotion. “I’ve been looking forward to seeing all the movies I missed with you.”
They settled on the couch with the popcorn and the candy between them. Seth cracked open two longnecks and handed one to Jesse. With the lights out and the new, larger screen TV his folks bought while he was gone, the experience wasn’t as different from the theater as Seth had feared.
They picked a movie at random. The opening credits seemed to go on forever.
“So…got a girlfriend?” Seth asked as they watched the screen.
“Haven’t had time,” Jesse replied. The darkness made conversations confessional, creating an ease for discussing sensitive topics. “Engineering deserves its rap for giving you no social life, so no one from college. There’s a girl at work I want to ask out; she’s on one of my teams, but there’s never been a good opportunity.”
“Sounds promising.”
