Page 72 of Keepsake
“Oh, shit.”
I just shrugged. Getting left out of a bike ride didn’t even make the top ten for humbling things happening today.
Griff paused outside the cider house, his hand on the doorframe. “You okay?”
“Of course.”
“It’s time to barrel my first fermentation.”
“Then let’s do it. How many barrels you need? Four?”
“Yeah.”
As Griffin opened the double doors, I went around to the side of the building to fetch the empties we’d scrubbed down earlier in the season. The oak barrels that would take the cider through its second fermentation always smelled so good. The scent was a combination of wood and fruit, with an earthy muskiness that I loved.
I rolled the first barrel into place while he hooked up the siphon that would transfer the cider from the metal tank to the barrel. We worked in silence for a while. From time to time I caught Griff stealing glances at me.
“What?” I said finally, waiting for him to chew me out for starting something with Lark.
“Do you know about birth control?”
That was not what I expected him to say, and surprise made me laugh. “Yeah,” I choked out. “And so does Lark.”
Griff had the good sense to look embarrassed. “Well, good.”
“If you’re gonna lecture me, we’d best get it over with.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m not going to lecture you. Just making sure you had everything you needed.”
“We got it covered,” I mumbled as my face heated. There was no end to the humiliations today.
“You can’t blame me for checking,” Griff said. “I remember a time when you asked me what fapping meant.”
“’Cause that’s a weird word!” I argued, and Griff laughed. “Pretty sure I discovered it at the same age as everyone else.”
“Yeah?” Griff said, clamping down on his siphon now that the barrel was full. “That was probably a punishable offense where you came from.”
“It was,” I admitted. “You had to be stealthy. It was a middle-of-the-night kind of activity.”
“I’ll bet.”
“They made sure to shame the hell out of whomever got caught with his hand in his shorts.” I shuddered just remembering this. “One time a kid was jerking it behind the supply shed at just the wrong moment. One of the deacons made a spectacle of him that Sunday in church.”
I could still remember my throat constricting as the preacher railed about it from the pulpit. Every boy in my pew looked ready to hurl. “They didn’t toss that kid, though. He was only thirteen when it happened. They used him as an example instead.”
“That is fucked up,” Griff said quietly. “No wonder you weren’t in a hurry to have sex.”
That made me chuckle. “Some urges aren’t so easily suppressed. As a matter of fact, the reason I got tossed from that place was for fooling around with a girl.”
“Seriously?” Griff straightened up to his full height. “You never told me that.”
“I know.” Honestly, it was trippy having this conversation with Griff. “Thatis what made me not want to have sex. Sex made me homeless. And I can’t even guess what happened to her.”
“Jesus.” Griff blew out a breath. “That’s some kind of sex education.”
“True.” I checked the fit of the plug in the barrel. “Guess I prefer your version after all.”
He snickered. “Last year I tried to have a little man-to-man chat with Dylan. I got out a banana and a condom and showed him how to unroll it. He was not amused, but my dad is gone, so he had to put up with my meddling…”
