"Maybe it just thinks that you're getting in touch with your feminine side," Nancy offered in defense of the bookshelf as she stood to the side of him and slid a paperback romance novel back into place, having finished reading it. She peered over his shoulder. "They're not all wedding dresses, are they? That could be an entirely different sort of message."
"Wedding dresses, cake catalogues, wedding accessories, and one really disturbing magazine about how brides can still feel sexy," Sam detailed, ticking off the variations on his fingers. "I really never needed to know that a publication like that existed."
"Oh, it's an enormous industry," Nancy informed him. "I'm afraid that unless you've been a bride you can't even begin to understand. The whole thing is so highly ritualized that by the time it's over you're more some standard of Bride rather than an actual human being."
"I swear to god, if I can help it," Sam began, with the utmost and total seriousness of a man who meant his words, "I will never be a bride if I can help it. Call me heternormative or whatever, but yeah, I have no desire to wear a frilly dress or have a party with hot male strippers."
"Well if you ever get married - " Nancy began, wondering if Sam was the sort of man she should have used "when" for instead, but then continued, "Just be sure to back off but be ready to be at the girl's beck and call. Oh, and to be available for distracting her mother at every convenience." Nancy grinned.
"I don't think the mother thing is bound to be much of an issue in this place," Sam said ruefully. "Seeing as it doesn't exactly promote family togetherness. At least, not if you're a healthy family." No, but if you were dysfunctional, it just about leapt to bring them all together.
Nancy sighed a little. "Indeed. Not that I was expecting to see either of my boys get married any time soon, but..." She offered him a small smile. "You're lucky to have family here. Even when they drive you nuts."
"Yeah, not exactly on Dad's train of love, right now," Sam commented, not even bothering to hide the bitterness from his voice. "But that's a personal issue and I'm sure it'll pass and I'll be grateful for him soon enough."
Nancy was immediately curious as to exactly what was going on, but wasn't rude enough to ask. So she just said, "Well, that's normal. I'm pretty sure Shane and Silas hated me half the time... especially after their dad died. Being a parent is pretty much constantly a lose-lose situation when it comes to that sort of thing."
"I think our family had extenuating circumstances," he offered, trying to assure her that her sons didn't hate her. "I guess maybe I won't ever understand until I'm a father myself and I've got kids that hate me for my own sins."
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