Cheery May sunshine beamed down on them through the window while Richard and Rebecca waited for the last bell of their junior year. Final grades were in, all A's, except for B's in English and Spanish. What could he say? He was rusty on the Spanish and was phoning in his English essays. Math and science mattered more. They had a summer to look forward to where they had jobs, a truck, Rich had a girlfriend, and Becca was in the best shape of her life.
"What do you want to do after school?" his sister asked casually. They weren't working tonight, but that didn't mean he didn't have plans.
"You remember that brisket I put on at three in the morning? We need to get home ASAP so I can wrap it in aluminum foil. It's had enough direct smoke."
Becca slapped herself on the forehead. "Right! I forgot about that. You were explaining it all to me. The wrapping will make it tender, right?"
He nodded. "And help bring it up to temp. Too much smoke will give it a weird taste. You smoke it just enough, then you wrap it. I want to get that hunk of meat up to two hundred degrees before I pull it." Rich was cursing this world's lack of apps. It would be nice to be able to check the temperature on his phone at any time. That was still years away. Most of life was better in the 2000s, but there were still lots of convenient things that he missed from the 2020s. As it stood, their only course of action was to rush back to their house so he could check on the barbecue.
"Hey, babe!" Julie was, of course, waiting for her goodbye hug once the last class of the year was dismissed. Crowds of high school kids were rushing in every direction, but his tall girlfriend was always easy to spot, towering over them all. She might be the tallest girl in the school, now that he thought about it.
"Hey," Rich said back, allowing himself to enjoy this much contact and relaxing into her embrace. They were going slow in their relationship, but that was fine. Julie was new to the whole dating thing, and Rich still felt weird about the time travel aspect. There were still times when he woke up, not knowing where he was, wondering if the whole thing was just a dream. It would be a while before he was comfortable here, really comfortable.
Julie pulled away just enough to look down into his eyes. "We still on for tonight? Meeting your dad and everything?" Her voice sounded confident, but Rich could feel how tense she was.
"It's just dinner, Jules. Relax, Dad will love you!" He tried to sound reassuring. Dad was more talkative lately. After a few months, the shadow of Mom's death didn't seem to sit on him quite so heavily. It helped that he was eating better. The whole family was. Rich made sure of it.
"Okay. See you at six!" She took another hug "for the road", practically crushing his ribcage in the process. Geez, sometimes reverse worlds were so unfair. He knew for a fact Julie was stronger than he was. Hell, Becca was stronger, and she'd only been seriously training for about three months. Speaking of which, his sister was smirking, watching their little goodbye ritual.
"Ready to go?" she asked, barely holding back laughter.
"Yeah, thanks for not making fun of me too much," he said on the way to the parking lot. "You want to try driving home? It's just fifteen minutes." He paused in front of the driver's side to let her get in first. Becca hesitated. "I understand if you're not comfortable yet. The stopping and starting that comes with getting out of a busy parking lot can be intimidating on a manual."
She shook her head. "No, I'm ready. We practiced this." He yielded the driver's seat to her, and she climbed in. With just a little coaching and a few sudden stops, they made it out of the parking lot alright. "I don't make fun of you and Julie because I'm jealous and I know it," his sister said honestly as she changed lanes on the way home. "I'm seventeen years old, never been on a date, never kissed a boy. It's like time is slipping away, you know? We only have one more year of high school!"
"It'll happen," Rich promised. "We've got nearly two more months of lifting and running to get you into really wicked shape. You're as tall as me, and I'm taller than most girls. Boys like tall. There are just a few things you need to work on. Hygiene is most important. Boys like it when you smell good."
"Julie been sniffing you?" Becca asked with a crooked grin.
Rich grinned back. "If she has, I haven't caught her. Next up is clothes. All your clothes are too loose, especially since you lost weight. You need clothes that fit, don't have to be super fashionable, just clean and well put together. As for talking to boys and being confident, I don't think you'll have too much trouble. You talk to me every day."
Becca snorted. "You hardly count as a boy. One minute you're serving us lasagna like a proper house husband, and the next you're playing Resident Evil 4 like a pro. You were like a speedrunner or something, couldn't take my eyes off it."
"Aiden Wong is peak!" Rich claimed indignantly. "He's who I aspire to be. I'm an Aiden Wong aspirant!"
"There you go again with the Louisiana slang. I can guess what 'peak' means from context clues, but you are just so weird, bro. You aren't like the other boys at all."
"So they tell me." They lapsed into a comfortable silence. He watched Becca drive, and she looked comfortable, changing gears nice and smooth. "Anyway, now that we're out of school, I'm going to start taking karate. Alice-sensei is a normal human without powers, and she can beat Stinger soldiers in hand-to-hand combat. I can't just rely on the suit. My skills need to improve, too." Rich had to remember the reason he was here. All this ordinary life stuff was great, but Stinger had to be stopped! They went after kids! They murdered his mom! They would pay!
"Do you want me to join you?" Becca asked as she pulled into their driveway.
"No. I need you focused. We're going to start doing speed squats with resistance bands, have to get your forty time down, three cone drill too. You're not just making the team, you're gonna start and be good, have a chance at all-conference at least."
She raised an eyebrow. "And this will help me get a boyfriend?"
"Yes, actually. Boys like popular, and I don't know if you noticed, the girls on the football team are the queens of PLUH. Julie says they have a good shot at the 4A state championship next year. You'll be a part of that. Oh, and we're gonna start studying for the SAT; I bought books for us."
"What?" Becca called out, but he was already running to the backyard to check on the brisket.
"Phew, just in time," he said when he saw the temp. Rich put on insulated gloves and wrapped the meat in aluminum foil. With one last check on the coals in their smoker to make sure they didn't need more fuel, he squared it all away and went inside to make cornbread.
Dad came home about an hour later. "Hey, son." He kissed Rich on the cheek when he walked into the kitchen. Receiving that kind of physical affection from his dad was no longer weird for him, just how guys were in this world.
"Hey, Dad, just a reminder, you know Julie is coming over for dinner tonight?"
Dad smiled. "Oh, I know. Am I going to be a grandfather before my time?"
Rich laughed so hard it turned into a case of the hiccups. "Definitely not! Julie has football, and we aren't doing that stuff anyway, not for a while. I told you."
"Yes, yes, not till you're eighteen. You're surprisingly mature about this stuff, you know. Why, when I was in high school..."
"Please don't tell me..." Rich begged.
"I'm just teasing, dear. Julie seems like a wonderful girl. Now if only Becca could meet someone..."
"Working on it!" he promised as he mixed the cornbread batter. Rich glanced at the clock on the stove and made a plan to check the brisket's temperature every hour on the hour. "We were just talking about it on the drive home. I'm going to make my sister popular if it's the last thing I do!" The vow came easily to him. Rich didn't have a sister in his first life, but now he loved her like a real twin, like they'd always been together.
"I know you will, son. You're the rock of this family." The word "family" came out with a slight quiver, like Dad was holding back tears. Maybe he was still hurting and not showing it. What was Rich saying? Of course Dad was still hurting; he'd lost his wife!
***
"Thank you for having me over, Mr. Rice!" Julie Cohen was the picture-perfect gentlewoman when she came over, wearing her Sunday best, or rather Saturday best. She was Jewish, after all. They never really talked about religion when they were together. Julie's favorite subjects were football, food, and him.
Rich made himself a busy little bee, buzzing around the kitchen. The brisket had come up to temp but was still resting before it could be served. The cornbread was about done, and the potato salad he'd made yesterday was waiting in the fridge.
Julie and Becca dapped up into a bro hug, or a sis hug in this world. They got along pretty well for the most part. His girlfriend wanted to impress him, and Becca didn't hold grudges from when they were at odds in the past.
Dad and the girls had a nice little conversation while he was putting the finishing touches on dinner. Rich only caught snippets here and there. Julie said something about "husband material," and they all laughed. Soon it was time to sit down.
"Oh my god," Julie said in appreciation when he started carving off slices of the brisket. "You made this, Rich? How long did it take? It's still so moist and juicy!"
It better be after he had to get up in the middle of the night to start it. "All day," he told her. Once he'd served everyone, nobody talked for a while.
"You've outdone yourself this time," Dad said after a bite. "Your mom really liked barbecue, you know. Did you learn it for her?"
The comfortable atmosphere instantly vanished, replaced with uneasy dread. Julie's eyes narrowed, and she tensed for a topic she'd been unprepared for. "Mom?" she asked. "Where's she?"
"No longer with us, I'm afraid," Becca said sadly.
Dad didn't say anything.
"Stinger," Rich said with quiet hatred. If anything, that made Julie tense even more. Her fork clattered to the floor
"No..." His girlfriend turned completely pale. She must've really hated Stinger, too.
"Don't worry," Rich said bravely, reaching out and taking her hand. "Future Hero got them. He'll get them all. Stinger definitely won't win."
Those long fingers his girlfriend used to throw footballs trembled, and her purple eyes went dark, almost black in their intensity. "I'm so fucking sorry, Rich," she swore, heedless of the company she was in. "You never should've had to go through something like that. The people responsible will pay. I promise on my honor as a Cohen. Nobody will ever hurt you again."
He squeezed her hand back in solidarity. "They already paid, Julie, but thanks for your support anyway. The best revenge is living well, right? So eat up and don't dwell on the past too much. I made this food specially for you."
She got up to get another fork that hadn't been on the ground, then looked back, muttering something almost too quietly for Rich to hear. "I'm going to marry that man one day," Rich thought he heard her say.
End of the introductory arc. The summer arc starts next episode.