"She just doesn't want to be around people who drink." "Like your family?" That sounded worse than she intended, so she elaborated, "Your grandpa will have a beer with his brats today, and I would too if they'd let me. No one is gonna get shit-faced, so why does it matter to her if other people drink?"

Ben didn't have an answer, especially when Carrie pulled his grandpa into it. He had wanted Joelle to finally meet his grandparents today. It still stung that she wouldn't or couldn't come to the picnic just to meet them. Wanting to end this discussion, Ben turned the tables on Carrie, "Your turn. I spilled." He threw her term back at her with a challenging raise of his eyebrows.

Carrie worked on a way to comply and still keep as many of her secrets as possible. She shook the foot on her crossed leg quickly. Ben noticed, he knew this was her habit when she was scheming, "Don't over think this, spill."

Carrie went farther back in her story than necessary, hoping to find a way around revealing Chuck by the time she got to his part in it. "Michelle Wagner asked me to be on the homecoming decorating committee. I'm doing it because I like to paint and decorate."

"No, really?" Ben was being sarcastic. Carrie looked at him and smiled, remembering how she had recruited Ben so many times over the years to help her with her decorating projects. He could swing a mean hammer, even when he was a little kid. They had one of their biggest fights when they were seven, and Carrie decorated the cabin Ben's dad had built for him in the back yard. "Anyway," she pretended to be annoyed at the interruption. "My mom and I ran into damn-loudmouth Michelle at Target, and she tells my mom that I am on the committee and that she wants me to double date with her for the dance."

Carrie paused, waiting for Ben's reaction. When he didn't have one, she spelled it out for him, "my mom is pushing me to go because she wants me to hang around with anyone but MG."

"What about your boyfriend? Does he want to go?" Fuck . He was supposed to focus on the Michelle versus MG part of the story. She wasn't going to let go of her secret that easily.

"What boyfriend?"

"The guy with the loud Charger."

How the hell did Ben know about Chuck? "I haven't seen him around lately, but I've seen it in your driveway," he looked at her for a reaction, "with the windows steamed up."

Carrie blushed, "What! Were you watching?" Now Ben was embarrassed. He really needed to learn to think more before he spoke. He thought fast to cover his tracks, "I, just, wanted to make sure you were OK." That wasn't entirely untrue.

Ben must have seen Chuck bring her home back when they started dating. MG usually brought her home now, ever since her mom asked questions about Chuck's stupid loud car.

Ben looked at her and raised his eyebrows, waiting for an explanation about the guy in the Charger.

She could still do this and not show all her cards. "OK, that's Chuck."

"Your boyfriend." Carrie cringed. That description didn't fit Chuck. A boyfriend was someone your own age, someone you went to school with, and dances, someone who would meet your parents and spend time with your family. Never going to happen. "He's a guy I see. We hang around together on weekends."

Ben didn't understand why she wouldn't call this guy her boyfriend. They sure looked like a couple the night he saw them in the driveway. It was clear that Carrie was hedging, he kept questioning, "Where does he go to school?"

Shit, here comes the age questions, "He doesn't; he's out of school." As in, didn't graduate, if you read between the lines . Ben was getting a clearer picture of why Carrie didn't want her mom to push her to go to the dance. "How old is he?"

Carrie looked away. She never could look him in the eye and lie to him.

"Is he as old as MG's boyfriend?"

Carrie could talk around this on a technicality, "MG doesn't have a boyfriend."

"You told me the night of your birthday that she was grounded for seeing a 22-year-old."

Damn-it. Ben and his mega Mensa memory.

Carrie sat in silence. She had run out of replies, and she wasn't about to admit that Chuck was 21 to Ben. "Is he over 18?" He scanned Carrie's face for an answer when she didn't reply. She turned her eyes away from him. "Carrie, you know that's illegal, right? He could go to jail."

Carrie turned her head and looked out the window, panic gripped her. Her hands clenched together in her lap. She started to pull on her fingers, making the joints pop, and the foot on her crossed leg shook even harder. This was where her two worlds would collide. Ben couldn't let lawbreaking pass anymore than Superman could. He would tell her parents, and they would make her break up with him. If she was no longer his girlfriend, she couldn't hang out at his house, with her friends. Losing Chuck might mean losing her friends.

Ben saw and felt her defeat. Why would this guy mean so much to her? She could easily find someone her own age, someone from school.

They rode for a while in heavy silence. Ben turned over every option he could think of in his head. He had to know, "Does he mean that much to you? I mean, if he's not your boyfriend?"

Carrie was more than a little surprised that Ben wasn't preaching laws to her. Instead of quoting legal codes he was asking for more information, which she hated to give, but it looked like she might have to. "He's part of a whole group of people I hang around with. I guess he is my boyfriend," she made air quotes. The only person my mom knows about from the group is MG and she only tolerates her; she would die if she met the rest of them."

"Then why? Why hang around with them? You are smart and pretty and funny. You could hang around with Michelle Wagner or anyone you wanted to, why them?" The fact that he was pleading with her spoke volumes on what he thought of her friends.

Carrie recoiled and stared at Ben. Of all people, he knew why. She took a deep breath in, fighting tears. She would not cry. She didn't do tears. She did pissed, and he was about to get it with both guns.

"Really? Michelle Wagner? Sure, why don't I invite Michelle over to my house? We could have a sleep over! Then she could take her fucking, gossipy, loud-mouth self to school the next day and tell them, tell everyone about my bat-shit crazy mom. Maybe she could get a cake mix thrown at her head." Carrie stopped for a breath, "You know why."

She was right. Ben hated to admit it, but things were bad at her house. Her mom could put on a happy face for only so long before she would snap, and you never knew when that would happen. And it was really uncomfortable when her parents were both there. They either fought or there was a heavy silence. And Michelle would talk, to everyone.

He sulked for a moment, hating to admit defeat, "OK. I get it. But if you ever want to hang around with me and my friends ..." It was hardly worth saying, but he had to try.

Carrie looked at him, startled. "You're not gonna tell?"

"No."

To show how much his silence meant to her, she looked him straight in the eyes, "Thank you."

Chapter 4.

The picnic turned out to be a lot of fun with Carrie there. She had already met his grandparents a few times through the years, but this was the first time she had been to their house. His grandpa was a retired Colonel who had fought in World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam. Ben talked Carrie through every award, commendation and medal the Colonel had received that was displayed in their living room. It was impressive. He was super smart, like Ben, and he might have intimidated Carrie more, if not for Ben's grandma. Dorothy kept the Colonel in line and was clearly the one really running the show in their house. It was funny, the way she had both Ben and his grandpa running and fetching supplies and loading them in the trunk of the car. She was a petite, German woman with a sweet, steady voice that allowed for no argument.

Ben drove them all to the church in the Colonel's Cadillac. The Colonel sat up front with Ben, both of them looking like tall, stiff soldiers, without uniforms. Carrie knew this was where Ben got his love of everything Army. When they were little, and Ben's dad built him the cabin to play cowboys and Indians in, Ben renamed it Fort Gorman and led military raids from it. He joined some Jr. Army club in Junior High and started wearing a uniform to school once a week, goofy hat and all. It didn't matter that the other kids gave him a ton of grief about it, he still wore it. Now he was in ROTC and went to some Army camp every summer. His future was clear, and that made Carrie a little jealous. She really had no direction after high school, except to move out of her parent's house.

When they got to the church, Ben and his grandpa started to unload gun cases from the trunk of the car. Dorothy shook her head. Before she could finish saying, "We will eat first," they were putting them back. Carrie wasn't sure of her rank, but it definitely trumped a Colonel.

The church was solid and orderly, with a red brick exterior, and simple clean interior that reflected the heritage of the Germans who built it. The large gathering room in the basement was laid out with long tables, covered in white paper table cloths, each with two bouquets of fresh flowers, placed symmetrically. The smell of sausage, cabbage, and buttery noodles drifted from the steam tables at one end of the room. Dorothy positioned Carrie in front of her with a gentle nudge as they all four joined the long line that snaked around the outer wall of the hall.

"You're in the same grade as Ben, aren't you?"

"Yes ma'am," Carrie smiled down at Dorothy, who was barely 5' to Carrie's 5'7". "I'm a Junior."

"Do you have any classes with Ben?"

"No ma'am, not this year. We used to have a math class together, but Ben's too far ahead of me now."

Dorothy beamed up at her grandson.

"Couldn't talk your mother into coming, eh?" The Colonel addressed Ben.

"No sir, she doesn't like to ride in the Jeep, especially this far."

"I can see that." He granted, "Maybe next time you can drive her in her car?" "Yes sir. I'll do that." Both Ben and his grandparents were concerned about his mom. She had gotten more and more reclusive since the divorce. Growing up as an only child in a military family, Sissy was extremely shy and had a hard time making friends with each move. She seemed to blossom when she married and had Ben. At her husband's urging she joined the PTA and the Ladies Sodality at their church. When Don left she slowly stopped attending events or even going out. Ben could see there was a problem, but he wasn't sure what he could do about it.

They all stepped forward to a small table with a money box laid open on top. Carrie read the sign next to it, Adults $8, Children $5, Age 5 and under Free. She panicked. She didn't bring any money with her, and now she felt like a fool. The mom tape in her head reminded her that is was rude and stupid to go someplace and expect others to pay for her, and that she should have planned ahead. The Colonel pulled out his wallet to pay for everyone. Carrie was about to protest, knowing her mother would want her to, but she was hungry, and had no other way to pay.

Ben noticed her look of panic and leaned down to whisper, "He always pays. There is no way he would let you. He won't even let me."