— FRANKIE —
13. GLITTER BALLS
FIVE YEARS AGO — AUGUST 2012
Austin’s door banged open and I looked up from where I was lounging on his bed flipping through my motocross magazine. He had walked in with an armload of moving boxes and a roll of packing tape. He angrily kicked the door shut behind him and then tossed it all on the floor. The pair of scissors he’d been carrying landed point down into the hardwood and left a huge gouge.
I’d heard the arguing coming from downstairs but had stayed up in his room. Austin wasn’t normally the one fighting with his mom, that was Dallas’s job, and it worried me to hear him raise his voice. It had taken all of my willpower not to go down and be at his side, to make sure he was all right. But going down there would have only made things worse because, as they said in 10 Things I Hate About You, Chantel Stone hated me with the fire of a thousand suns. Chantel Stone was also a shrew so that hatred didn’t bother me all that much, but I usually did my best not to make things worse for my best friend where his mother was concerned.
I laughed to myself. Was I even allowed to call Austin my best friend anymore? There wasn’t really a good word to describe what we were to one another. I confided in him and trusted him with my life, but we were more than just friends. We were dating, but he was more to me than just a boyfriend. Lover? Partner? Soulmate? True love? Better half?
It all sounded so cheesy and manufactured, but I couldn’t deny that there was this feeling that we were meant to be together.
I once read a story about a Greek playwright who claimed that humans originally had four arms, four legs, and two faces. Fearing the power of such powerful beings, Zeus split the mortals in half and cast the halves asunder, condemning humans to spend their lives searching for the rest of their soul. According to the story, the separation left both halves with a desperate yearning to be whole again.
I knew it was just a story, something to explain why people felt such intense need for one another. But there were times when I held Austin’s hand, or saw him smile, or listened to him play music and I knew…I knew he was the other half of me. I never felt lonely when he was around…just whole.
That’s why the sight of those boxes, the evidence of his impending move, threatened to bring me to tears.
Frankie DiGorgio doesn’t cry, I reminded myself.
“Need some help?” I asked.
Austin sighed and put his hands on his hips, glaring at the boxes. I didn’t ask him what was wrong.
I heard the front door shut, and Austin continued to frown in what I assumed was a wish of death upon the packing supplies. Outside the sounds of an engine rumbled to life and then a few minutes later, it was quiet again. His parents were gone.
Finally, he lifted his gaze to look at me.
“Need any help?” I repeated. “I’m the queen of organization.”
He finally grinned and stalked toward me, stepping on the boxes and not even caring as they bent and warped under his weight. He shook his head.
“You may be the queen of a lot of things, but organization isn’t one of them. I’ve seen what you do to your clean laundry,” he said. “Balling it up and tossing it into your drawer from across the room doesn’t count as organizing it.”
“And yet,” I said, holding up a finger, “it is very effective at getting the job done.”
He reached the bed and leaned over me, his hands pressing into the mattress on either side of my hips. “The only thing I need right now is you.”
“Chantel might not agree,” I bantered back, tilting my head to brush a soft kiss on his lips.
“Chantel is out for the night, along with everyone else.” He kissed me soundly, forcing me to lay back onto the pillows. The pile of comic books he’d had at the foot of his bed tipped over and scattered across the comforter.
“She thinks you’re packing up your clothes.” I bit his lip and reached up to run my fingers through the hair at the back of his head.
He nudged my knees apart and knelt on the bed as he hovered over me. His finger slipped into the strap of my tank top and he teased it down over my shoulder, leaving a trail of hot kisses on my skin as he went. “The only clothes I care about are the ones we’re wearing, and the only place I want to see them is on my bedroom floor.”
I gripped the back of his head and pulled his mouth to mine again, kissing him until we both had to come up for air. “I think I can make that happen,” I said breathlessly.
I tugged at the bottom of his shirt and pulled it up and over his shoulders. I balled it up and tossed it across the room where it landed on the messy stack of boxes. I did the same with my shirt and bra, and then reached for Austin’s shorts.
He grabbed my hand to stop me and then circled both of my wrists with his fingers, lifting my arms over my head. His gaze hungrily roamed over my naked skin, and I had the impression he was trying to feast as much as possible, like a bear ready to go into hibernation.
Without taking his eyes off me, he stood up and yanked down his shorts and boxers in one smooth motion and chucked them behind him. Then he knelt on the floor and grabbed the waistband of my shorts, easing them over my hips and down my legs with agonizing gentleness.
Once my pants were gone, though, he didn’t move to the bed. He hooked his hands behind my knees and yanked me toward him where he was kneeling on the floor. He draped my legs over his shoulders, and then he leaned forward, his fingers dipping inside me a moment before his tongue followed in a lazy sweep of warmth and wetness. And then he was kissing me…there…right above where his fingers plunged inside me.
He’d never done this before, and if I had been able to form coherent words, I would have scolded him for holding back. Because holy fuck, his mouth and fingers had my hips twisting and rolling with every delicious touch.
There was a good chance I’d be embarrassed later by how loudly I moaned and how desperate I sounded when I said his name, but when I lifted my head to look down at him, he was looking back, watching me as if I was his fucking inspiration and he wanted to create something epic.
And because I wanted to believe that together we were something epic, I dug my fingers into his hair and held him to me, my body lifting and rolling as I moaned and begged him not to stop.
Those talented fingers of his moved faster, thrusting in time with my hips and I could feel my climax building like the crescendo of a song. He might have been a musical prodigy, but his hands and fingers and mouth were turning my body into his masterpiece.
I didn’t let go of Austin’s hair until the first orgasm slammed into me like a shooting star falling to earth, rocking me with tremors and scattering stardust in its wake. My head jerked back, and I closed my eyes, my breath stuttering with each echo of pleasure. My climax was still rippling through me when I felt him lift my legs and swing me around so I was lengthwise on his bed. The mattress dipped as he knelt over me. I opened my eyes to see him grinning.
“What?” I asked, giving him a lazy smile, my voice honeyed with lust.
“I think the whole neighborhood just heard you declare yourself the goddess of orgasms.”
I lifted an eyebrow, not in the least bit embarrassed. “Well then,” I said, reaching down to wrap my fingers around the hard length of him. “I suppose you need to offer up a sacrifice to the goddess.”
“Didn’t I just do that?” He lowered his hips so that the tip of him brushed across the flushed skin of my stomach.
I shivered. “A goddess can never have enough.”
“Good,” he said in a low voice, “because I don’t think I can ever get enough.” Austin leaned over to get a condom out of the nightstand, and I dropped my gaze to watch as he slipped it on. I wanted those talented fingers playing across my skin again.
He shifted, and I opened my legs wider. I tried to hold his gaze as he slowly entered me, but it felt so good, so right, that I closed my eyes, knowing I’d have to remember this moment during those three months that we’d be apart.
When he was all the way inside, he stayed still, tense above me.
“Frankie?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re not a goddess,” he said, thrusting slow and deep.
“I’m not?” I couldn’t even bring myself to be offended. He felt that good inside of me.
He lifted up on one elbow and held my waist with his other as his hips moved faster, pushing as deep as possible with every thrust.
“No. You’re my future,” he groaned. “My muse.”
Well then. Muse was an upgrade from friend. I could deal with that.
Austin leaned forward to skim his lips across mine, teasing me with half kisses, his movements becoming frantic. My hands traced the hard planes of his body until I was digging my fingers into his hips, pulling him harder into me.
And as the pressure built inside both of us, sweat slicking our skin, words and kisses becoming sloppy and wild, he murmured, “My muse.”
***
Popcorn was like the venereal disease of snack food. And that shit was everywhere. Every time I thought I’d found the last bit of it, another patch would appear, and I’d get irritated all over again. I couldn’t get rid of it. I kept finding kernels in unexpected places, and the smell had seeped into every corner of the house.
After Austin left, I was so frustrated and hurt that I had considered just getting back in bed and sleeping the day away. He didn’t say anything that wasn’t true, but the truth could still cut as deeply as a lie. Sometimes even worse because there was no denial to soften the blow.
But then I saw the popcorn scattered all over my floor and knew that if I left it there and ended up infesting the house with bugs or rodents, Austin’s words wouldn’t be the only harsh ones I’d be hearing. My brothers would rip me a new one for being careless and lazy.
And so, even though I wanted to give in to self-pity, I straightened my shoulders, fetched the dust pan from downstairs, and began the painstaking task of cleaning up what turned out to be three trash bags worth of Austin’s prank. Every time I dumped a pan full of mess into a bag, I turned around to find another pile of it. I could have sworn the popcorn was breeding under my furniture because it was literally in every nook and cranny of my room and seemed to be multiplying whenever I turned my back.
By the time I tied off the final bag, it was almost nine in the morning. And even though I’d promised myself a nap if I cleaned up the mess, I also knew that Drew would be showing up soon. We were finally going to work on the front porch, and he’d promised to let me help. The new planks and railing had been delivered already, and he said it shouldn’t take too long to repair the porch and give it a makeover. I was usually more than a hindrance than help when it came to construction, his words not mine, but I needed to get the repairs done, and he was willing to let me try my hand at being his assistant.
I took the trash bags outside and dumped them into the cans. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Austin coming around the bend in the road as he finished his morning run. He’d been gone for a long while. Not that I was a stalker or anything…Okay, I totally was. But after leaving my house, he’d been home only long enough to put on running shoes. He’d been gone for hours.
I’d planned to try to go with him this morning, that’s why I’d set my alarm, but it was probably a good thing it hadn’t worked out. I might be able to race a dirt bike with no problem, but it had been a while since I went running and I wasn’t entirely sure my sneakers or my body would survive one of Austin’s workouts. Especially the marathon run he’d been on this morning. And there was also the possibility that he wouldn’t have wanted my company.
So why did I want to go if I knew it would be a disaster? I’d finally decided that I was going to tell him the truth. It wouldn’t be long until I had to return home and time was running out for me to make my confession. When I first saw him again, he was so angry at me that I was afraid to tell him, afraid to trust him with something so fragile.
But with the way he’d followed me on my trail rides lately and after our evenings sharing music, I’d started to believe that he was the same boy I’d fallen in love with. I thought he would care about the truth and that he’d want to know.
And I thought that if we were running, I wouldn’t have to look at him as I confessed everything. That way, if he ended up furious, which was likely, at least there would be running to help burn off the anger. It had seemed like a brilliant idea as I’d dozed off last night.
But then he showed up outside my door this morning after his prank, looking bedraggled and exhausted, staring at me like I was his last meal. And I couldn’t control myself. I’d launched myself at him and begged him to fuck me. With my brother’s old leftover condoms.
Yeah. Not one of my finer moments.
God. I was such a fucking disaster. I should be thankful he came to his senses and left before either of us added any more mistakes to this shit storm that was our past.
Austin went into his house without looking at me. The coward that I was, I decided I wasn’t ready to tell him the truth after all.
I might never be ready.
Dropping the lid to the trash can, I went back inside the house and started a pot of coffee. I opened up the fridge door looking for something to eat. While I was standing in front of the open door, scanning the nearly empty shelves for some sort of magical food I didn’t have to prepare, my phone started to ring. I tugged it out of my back pocket and noticed Drew’s number before I answered.
“Hey,” I said by way of greeting. “What’s up?”
Drew coughed, and when he spoke, it sounded like he’d been gargling with razor blades. “I’m not going to be there today, Frankie. I feel like shit.”
Damn it. That porch was a death trap, and I was looking forward to having it fixed. Especially since it seemed every time I walked on it, it tried to kill me. Perhaps it was retribution for making Austin carve my name in it all those years ago.
I sighed. “I hate to tell you this, but you sound like shit too.” Drew tried to laugh, but it sounded like a seal barking. “Don’t worry about it,” I told him. “Take whatever time you need. I can handle things here.”
There was a moment of silence, and I imagined Drew frowning at me. I could almost hear his glare over the phone. “Promise me you won’t mess with any tools while I’m gone.”
And here I thought I’d been doing a good job of helping out.
“What? I’m the best apprentice you’ve ever had,” I boasted, pulling a carton of old leftovers out of the fridge and eyeing it dubiously.
He sighed. “You almost cut through the shitter pipe in the basement with the reciprocating saw.”
I turned and tossed the container into the trash and then shut the fridge door to lean against the counter. “Almost…but I didn’t,” I reminded him.
“Just… take the day off, all right? Go for a ride on the trail or something.”
“I can’t just take the day off!” I said, throwing my free hand into the air. “I have a yard sale next week, and then this house has to go on the market. There are no days off!”
“Look,” Drew said in a calm voice even though it was so jagged and raw I could barely hear him. “One day isn’t going to kill you. Take it easy today, and we’ll work a day this weekend to make it up.”
I wanted to argue that I’d been working on the weekends anyway, but I didn’t want him to feel bad. It wasn’t his fault that I had to sell the house. He didn’t know the real reason I was anxious to get back to Texas so quickly, and I certainly wasn’t about to tell him. Some secrets needed to stay that way.
“Fine,” I agreed. “I won’t handle any of the power tools without you around.”
He made a sound of relief.
“But,” I said. “Just so we’re clear, I’m going to work that screwdriver so hard it’s going to need a day of rest.”
He chuckled and then it turned into a coughing fit. Once he’d gotten himself under control, he said, “You can screw whatever you want, Frankie. Just don’t touch anything with a sharp blade.”
“Oh really? I can screw anything I want?”
He made a choking sound that almost sounded like laughter. “Jesus, Frankie. It’s too early for this…”
I cut him off to save him from replying. “Don’t worry, Weatherby. I’m only messing with you. Get better okay?”
“Yeah. And you stay out of trouble.”
“Not making any promises,” I responded airily. “Later, Weatherby.”
I hung up and then stared at the screen of my phone, wondering what I should do with my day. Everything I had planned was getting thrown right out the window. There had been no secrets confessed at dawn, and it seemed there would also be no repairs done to my old porch in the afternoon.
I attempted to convince myself to call Austin and have the heart to heart conversation that I’d been planning this morning, only as I began to work up the courage to do so, I came up with a million reasons not to. The main one being that it wasn’t only my life that could be destroyed by the truth. After the way Austin acted this morning, could I trust him to be rational?
Maybe one emotional confrontation per day was enough.
Swiping back a clump of hair, I decided I would spend the day tackling Nana’s room instead. I’d been avoiding it for way too long.
Grabbing my coffee and a granola bar out of the cabinet, I headed up the stairs and took a deep breath.
I could do this.
***
The loud rumble of an engine yanked me out of my nap and tossed me into wakefulness. I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands and then blinked a few times as I picked my phone up off the nightstand and looked at the time. Almost 5:30 in the evening. I’d been asleep for about two hours.
As I sat up, the sharp edge of the box that was next to me dug into my side, and when I turned to look at it, there was a sinking feeling in my gut that was just as sickening as the first time I’d lifted the lid and laid eyes on the contents inside.
While cleaning out Nana’s closet, I’d found the box on the top shelf, tucked away under a pile of hats. I’d expected to find some old pictures or random items she had nowhere else to put. Instead, I was shocked to find letters, dozens of them, all addressed to me in Austin’s handwriting.
In a daze, I carried them to my room, sat down on my bed, and stared at them for about half an hour, trying to work up the courage to open one. I was overwhelmed by the number of envelopes tucked inside which had been organized by delivery dates.
When I made my decision to leave Vegas four years ago without giving Austin an explanation, I vowed to completely cut myself off from him, to break any connection that might tempt me to change my mind and possibly ruin his future. My brothers and Nana had all argued that I wasn’t making the right decision, that it was wrong not to at least give Austin the chance to choose for himself, but in the end, they had stayed faithful and kept my secret.
Maybe deep down they knew I’d been right; that even though Austin deserved the right to choose, he probably would have chosen wrong and everyone would have suffered. I was willing to be the bad guy in this scenario, to take the burden of being hated.
Over the years, I had agonized over what Austin might have thought or felt, but I’d stayed strong. I’d stayed away. And I had been right. He and Dallas had gotten the success they deserved. Even though I wondered what he thought and how he felt, I stayed true to my vow.
And now, I had an entire box that would answer all those questions. If Austin had taken the time to write me, he would have told me exactly how he was feeling. He always told the truth. I was the one who lied.
As desperate as I was to know what was in those letters, I was also terrified. How much of it was worry for me and how much was hate? And could I deal with his hate and disappointment when I knew that both were deserved?
In the end, I didn’t have the courage to read them. I laid down beside the box, pulled it against my chest, and closed my eyes. The words would still be there in an hour. Days. Even months. And so I slept, the unknown lulling me to sleep.
But now, it was the familiar sound of an engine that was demanding my attention. I pushed up from the bed and went to the window, pulling back the curtain to peer down in my yard. To my surprise, Austin was sitting on Pauly’s old bike, a battered helmet under his arm and an impatient expression on his face as he looked up at me.
My heart lurched with hopefulness. If he was on the bike, then that meant he planned to ride with me today.
I pushed up the window and leaned on the sill.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
He cupped his hand around his ear and revved the engine of the bike a few times until I rolled my eyes. Finally, he shut it off, and the stillness of our shared yard sounded almost silent in the absence of the growling engine.
“What are you doing?” I asked again.
“You invited me on a ride, remember?”
There was a snarky response barking in the back of my throat, demanding that I tell him he refused the morning ride I’d offered him. But even I knew that bringing up the almost-sex we had was a horrible idea, so I went with a safer response instead.
“Give me a minute to change.”
He nodded, and I watched as he dismounted the bike and pushed it toward the front of the house.
Confused by his willingness to hang out with me, I quickly got rid of my shorts and replaced them with jeans and my riding boots. I ran a brush through the nap-induced tangles of my hair and then deftly braided it.
When I came downstairs, Austin had already loaded Pauly’s bike, and he was leading mine to the ramp that would guide it into the bed of my truck. When I tried to take the handlebars from him, he shook his head.
“I got this. Grab the bags.” He gestured toward my porch where two bags were sitting on the stairs next to the broken railing. I raised my eyebrow at his back but did as he said. I was usually the one being bossy.
We got everything secured and then climbed into the sweltering heat of the cab, rolling down the windows to let in some fresh air. Austin was quiet as I pulled out of my driveway and I bit the inside of my lip to keep from speaking, to give him a chance to say whatever it was I could tell he wanted to say.
“Frankie…”
Nerves fluttered in my chest and down into my belly as I wondered just how harsh he was going to be with me. If he demanded to know why I left and what I’d been doing the last four years, would I be brave enough to finally tell him the truth?
What he said caught me off guard.
“I want to visit Nana Ruth.”
I turned to look at him, and had a hard time getting my mouth to pick the right words out of my brain. “Oh…uh…yeah. Of course.”
He turned to face me, and I looked away, unable to hold the intensity of his gaze.
“When I came back and found out from Ms. Rose that she had a stroke, I wanted to go visit,” he said. “But she didn’t know where you all had taken her once she was released from the hospital.” Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the tension in his jaw as he turned forward. “After you left Vegas, Nana Ruth was the only person in the family I was still in touch with.”
I swallowed down the guilt. Of course. Jimmy was in Texas, Tommy was in New York, and Pauly lived in Baltimore. Nana had been Austin’s only link to me. I could only imagine the helplessness and bitterness he must have felt to come home after Dallas’s death and find her gone with no way to reach her. To have that final link severed.
“We…Jimmy and I…moved her to a nursing home near us. In Wortham,” I admitted.
“Wortham,” Austin repeated in a resigned voice. Like it was the answer to a question he’d gotten wrong on every exam he’d ever taken.
“It’s about an hour south of Dallas,” I explained, dragging my bottom lip between my teeth in nervousness.
“That’s where you’ve been. All this time?”
I nodded and took a deep breath, remembering when Beth had picked me up from the airport and taken me to live with her, Jimmy, and their son, JD. She had helped me find purpose and had given me a chance to discover a new path for my life. It hadn’t been the easiest path to travel, it wasn’t the one I had dreamed of, but it was a good one.
“Jimmy lives there with his wife. After…Vegas…that’s where I went,” I told him.
Austin turned his head to stare out the side window, and even though I looked over at him, I couldn’t see his face. Couldn’t guess his expression.
“And that’s where you’re going. After you sell the house. You’re going back to Wortham.” He phrased it as fact, not a question.
I squeezed the steering wheel. He wasn’t saying anything I didn’t know already, but his saying it out loud didn’t make it any easier to bear. “That’s my home.”
The radio hummed low, some country song droning in the background. Drew had put it on this station when he rode with me to the hardware store and I’d never gotten around to changing it.
“It’s not your home,” Austin finally said.
He was both right and wrong, but I didn’t tell him so. I kept waiting for him to ask why. Why Texas? Why didn’t I come to Vegas? Why did I cut him off?
But he didn’t, and instead of relief, I felt sad. If he didn’t want to know, then that must mean he didn’t care anymore. If he’d given up on us, there was no way I was going to confess anything to him because it would only cause unnecessary pain.
Austin rested his elbow on the center console and tapped his fingers against the old plastic. “So, is it okay if I visit Nana Ruth? You’ll give me the address?”
My eyes widened in surprise that he’d want to take a trip down to Texas just to visit, but it also warmed my heart. “Yeah, of course. She’d like that. Only…”
I could feel Austin’s gaze turn on me as I kept my eyes on the road. “Only what?”
Flicking on my blinker, I made the turn into the parking lot for the trail and guided the truck into a space. I switched off the engine and spun around in my seat, pulling my knee up and leaning against the window so that I could explain.
“She’s not the same,” I warned him. “Because of the stroke, she’s had paralysis, memory loss, and depression.” Absentmindedly, I twirled my key ring around my finger, listening to the keys clash against one another. “We’ve hired amazing physical and occupational therapists to help her and she’s on the best meds money can buy, but—” I tried to swallow back the emotion that was tight in my throat. “She doesn’t always recognize Beth, and she forgets Jimmy’s name all the time. The doctors think she suffers from dementia and that the stroke made it worse.”
Austin reached out and grabbed my hand, stilling the nervous energy I’d subjected the keys to. He rubbed his thumb along the side of my hand. “That’s okay. I want to see her.”
“She might not know who you are.” I wondered if that thought terrified him as much as it did me. Somehow, I felt like the moment that Nana didn’t recognize me anymore might be the moment I ceased to exist.
“It doesn’t matter if she knows who I am, as long as she knows I came to visit because I care about her. She doesn’t need to know names or faces to know that she’s loved.”
My lips quivered, half of me wanting to cry at the beauty of his words, the other half wanting to fall back into old habits and tease him for one of his deep thoughts like I used to when we were kids.
“She would like that,” I told him.
He dropped my hand and reached for the door handle. “Now that that’s settled…” He unfolded himself from my passenger seat and got out of the truck. Gripping the top of the door frame, he leaned back in and locked eyes with me. “You get the gear. I’ll get the bikes.”
“So bossy,” I accused him.
“Such a smart ass,” he shot back.
Austin went around to the back of the truck, dropping the tailgate and then securing the ramp to get the bikes out. I reached into the back seat for our bags, and when I saw Pauly’s old helmet there nestled next to a box of Nana’s craft supplies that I’d meant to take to the dump, all I could think about was the hours I spent cleaning up popcorn earlier in the day.
I cast a quick glance out the rear window to make sure that Austin wasn’t paying any attention. Then I rummaged through the box, found the container I was looking for, removed the lid, and dumped the contents into the helmet.
It took a while for me to tamp down my giggles and get my expression schooled into one of innocence and by the time I’d managed to do so and gather everything, Austin had already unloaded both bikes.
I shut my door and tucked his helmet under my arm, letting mine dangle from my fingers as I carried the rest of the gear with my other hand. We donned our jackets. I handed him his helmet and when he lifted it over his head, glitter rained down like his own personal, shiny monsoon.
Austin’s body went still, his arms lifted with his helmet poised over his head as the last bits of sparkly dust fluttered down over him. He blew out a puff of air, spitting glitter out of his mouth. I could no longer hold back my smile, and I made a huge show of appreciating his new getup.
“Huh,” I said in happy surprise.
“Go on,” he urged. “Get it out of your system. Say whatever it is you have to say.”
I stepped forward and brushed a bit of glitter off his shoulder. “I guess Edward Cullen isn’t the only boy who sparkles.” I furrowed my brows and leaned in to whisper to him. “Are you sure you’re not a vampire, Austin?”
He leaned toward me like he might answer or kiss me and then he shook his head, flinging glitter all over me. “Is that your way of admitting that you want me to bite you?” he asked, one side of his mouth lifting up in a smirk. He shoved the helmet onto his head, and then began to buckle it under his chin. “All you have to do is ask.”
And then he turned away from me and swung his leg over the seat of Pauly’s old bike, his entire body glittering in the late day sun, like a boy-shaped disco ball.
He seemed completely unperturbed by my prank, which I had to admit, was annoying. All I could hope for was that the glitter had been as successful as the popcorn in getting into all the available nooks and crannies. Austin started his bike, and when he reached between his legs to adjust himself and his expression briefly turned to one of discomfort, I smiled to myself.
Talk about glitter balls…