Sam coughs loudly and when I sit here trying to come up with some excuse for the nickname on his bag, he continues coughing until Aunt Bobbie wraps her arms around him.
“Breathe, dammit, BREATHE!” she shouts, grabbing his head and pulling it down to her chest.
Now, he really is coughing, choking on a mouthful of spit and panic, as Aunt Bobbie nestles his face into the fake cleavage created by her custom-made silicone boob vest that’s barely covered by her low-cut red sweater.
“I don’t get the whole Sox thing. Your name is Logan Masters, why does your bag say Sox?” my dad questions again, totally oblivious to the molestation of Sam’s face in Aunt Bobbies tits at the back of the van.
“Cheeses Christ, Bobbie, let the poor man up before he suffocates!” my mother complains with a huff, prompting Aunt Bobbie to finally remove her hands from Sam’s head.
He jerks up and scoots as far away from her on the bench seat as possible, all while still coughing and shooting me the evil eye.
“The boy’s fine. Now answer the Sox question,” my dad reminds us.
“Uh, he likes socks,” I reply lamely.
Nicholas snorts from next to me and I punch him in the thigh.
“That’s dumb,” my dad quips, causing Sam to cough again, probably agreeing with him that the answer is, in fact, dumb.
You try coming up with something on the fly when your brain is filled with missed orgasms and you can still feel a big, warm, very skilled hand rubbing your vagina.
“Yep, socks. He collects them. Looooooooooves socks so he got the nickname Sox,” I add, crossing my arms and glaring at my brother before he even thinks of saying something stupid.
“Picked yourself a real winner there, Leon. A sock collector and he diddles you under mom and dad’s roof,” Nicholas laughs.
I really need to work on my glare.
“NO MILK FOR YOU!” my dad yells from the front seat.
All of us scream when he takes his eyes off the road to turn around and give Sam a dirty look, causing the van to swerve over the yellow line.
He quickly gets the van back in the right lane and everyone is quiet for the next few minutes until we finally pull up to the curb of our destination. The van doors quickly open and everyone spills out faster than they’ve ever moved in their life.
While Nicholas helps Casey, his very pregnant wife, maneuver the curb and start up the walk and my parents and Aunt Bobbie take the lead up to the house, I wait back for Sam, an apology for the disastrous car ride on the tip of my tongue.
“Don’t apologize,” he cuts me off as soon as I open my mouth. “Just remember you owe me later, and I will take my payment in the form of you, naked, moaning my name again just like this morning.”
And just like that, my vagina bursts into flames and I feel like it was completely unnecessary for the owners of this place to shovel the walk. I could just sit down on the sidewalk and scoot across it on my ass like a dog trying to itch its butt. My vagina would melt all the snow and ice in a matter of seconds.
Sam grabs my hand and laces his fingers through mine as we head across the street to join my family on the front porch.
“What is this place, anyway?” he asks, staring up at the yellow, two-story Victorian with green trim. “Is that a large leg in the window turned into a light?”
My family hears his questions and they all grow silent, turning to stare at him with mouths open and eyes wide.
“Are you kidding me, man? Uh, that’s a leg lamp. You know, THE leg lamp,” Nicholas informs him.
Sam shrugs and shakes his head.
“This is the house where they filmed A Christmas Story,” I add, figuring that will jog his memory.
His face is still blank.
“You know, Ralphie, Randy, tongue stuck to a flagpole?” Casey asks him with a smile.
“Nope, no clue,” Sam replies.
“Wow, what a douchebag,” Nicholas snorts, which earns him another punch from me, this time in the arm.
“Dammit, Leon! That hurt!” he complains like the fucking crybaby he is.
Everyone shoots Sam sad, pitying looks, like someone he loves just died instead of the fact that he’s never heard of A Christmas Story. I get it, only because this movie represents mine and Nicholas’s childhood and having the house where the movie was filmed only an hour away from where we grew up was always a big deal. Ever since they opened the house to tours eleven years ago, it’s been a tradition for our family to come here together and then go home and watch the movie. It only reminds me all over again that Sam doesn’t have a family. Never had a family and something like this is completely foreign to him.
While my dad buys everyone’s tickets right inside the front door, I push up on my toes and kiss Sam’s cheek, the scratch of his day-old stubble tickling my lips. When I pull back so we can walk inside the house, Sam looks down at me and smiles.
“What was that for?”
I shrug. “Just because.”