Free A Death On The Wolf by G. M. Frazier

leaned away from Mary Alice and turned around to see my aunt standing there with the open front door behind her and Sachet clinging to her. My aunt was clearly amused by what she’d just seen, which was a relief. I’d much rather she be amused than irritated at the thought her nephew was wooing her fourteen-year-old summer houseguest. “I thought you might like to know,” she said, “you missed the launch.”
    I didn’t care. I was already on the moon.

Chapter 7
    Best Friends
     
    I turned the lamp on beside my bed when I heard Daddy in the bathroom shaving. My alarm clock said it was twenty minutes past four. I hadn’t slept a wink last night. After I had gone to bed, it took me three sessions of frantic masturbation to relieve the sexual tension that had built up over the course of the day because of my romantic interlude yesterday morning with Mary Alice. But that wasn’t the reason for my sleepless night. The fight I’d had with Frankie was the culprit, and the coming realization that our life-long friendship had come to an abrupt and unceremonious end yesterday in Aunt Charity’s front yard. I was also bothered by Frankie’s declaration that he thought I was queer for his brother. What had I ever done or said for him to draw that conclusion? I had spent a good part of the night reliving every moment that I could remember being around Mark and there was just nothing there. I’d always been nice to Mark, and that was it. When I heard Daddy finish in the bathroom, I got out of bed, put my slippers on, and headed in there to pee and wash my face.
     
    “ Good morning,” I said as I entered the kitchen. My father was dressed in his work clothes and standing at the counter by the sink waiting for the coffee to finish. The kitchen was quiet and filled with the smell of Old Spice aftershave and perking JFG coffee. The windows were dark. Dawn was still over an hour away and the only light was the cool blue glow of the buzzing fluorescent tube over the sink.
    “ You’re up awfully early,” Daddy said as he turned to look at me.
    I went over and sat at the table. “I’ve been up,” I said. “I couldn’t sleep last night.”
    The percolator was giving off its last sputters. Daddy got a mug out of the cupboard. When the pot had given its final gasp, he unplugged it, then filled the mug to the brim with steaming hot coffee. I watched as he poured the rest of the coffee into his thermos and screwed the top on. He went over to the ice box and got out the paper bag with his sandwich in it, which Aunt Charity had prepared last night. He put the bag and thermos in his lunch box and then set the lunch box on the floor beside the door. This was my father’s morning routine, and he’d been doing it for nearly twenty years.
    “ How do you know when you’re in love?” I said as Daddy sat at the table across from me with his mug of coffee.
    He chuckled and took a sip. “I’d say not being able to sleep all night is a good sign. I assume we’re talking about Mary Alice?”
    “ Yeah,” I said.
    “ I’m proud of you, son—for the way you’ve treated her, I mean. You’ve made Mary Alice feel very special.”
    “ She is special,” I said. “How do you know how I’ve made her feel?”
    “ She talks to your aunt and your aunt talks to me.” Daddy took another sip of coffee and stared at me. “Anything else keep you up all night? Like maybe the fight you had with Frankie yesterday?”
    “ How do you know about that? Did Mary Alice tell Aunt Charity?”
    “ No, your sister did. But I heard about it from Frank Thompson.”
    “ Frankie’s dad? When did you see him?”
    “ I stopped by there on the way home from work yesterday to get some eggs.”
    “ And he knew about the fight?”
    “ Yes,” Daddy said, and took another sip of coffee. “Mark had told him.”
    “ What’d he say?”
    “ Let me hear your version first.” So I gave him a blow-by-blow account of everything that happened yesterday morning