The time I tried to make my sister sleep in the hallway of a pretty seedy hotel in Oklahoma so I could be alone with my boyfriend.

Some of you may have noticed that Bubs has a new Reddit account, and he and I have been teasing each other over on my personal page. This makes me so happy because, out of everything that came out of last summer, the thing I enjoyed most was our online banter. We've always been pretty playful, but Reddit really helped us get our "mojo" back after a couple of years where we had grown kind of distant.

I don’t know what this means for our other readers—because while I love walking down memory lane or typing up stories that Bubs wants me to write about, I’m not so arrogant as to think our past is interesting to anyone but us. Still, it’s such a joy to see his face light up when he asks me to write about a specific memory. Plus, preserving these stories is always fun.

So, if you check my profile, you’ll see that Bubs responded to my request for him to call me a “delicate little bird” when I eat—by telling the story of a time I ate two full footlong meatball subs from Subway. Aside from me not knowing that everyone had a great laugh at my food baby, everything he said was pretty accurate. I’ve always been able to eat—and eat a lot. And while that's still true, it was especially true during my gymnastics years.

But there’s an even funnier part of that story, which still might make my little sister mad. I thought I could hold a grudge—Jessica NEVER lets anything go. So back in the day, she, Bubs’ little sister Addie, and I all did gymnastics at the same gym. It was common for the three of us to travel together for meets. Usually, we took separate cars: Jessica and I with our mom, and Addie with hers (aka Bubs’ mom). If it was an overnight thing, we’d stay at the same hotel. Even though Addie and Jessica were best friends, they always included me—which was sweet, especially since I later found out the whole carpool strategy was cooked up by our moms to keep me and Bubs separated. Apparently, they were pretty convinced we were going to get pregnant if left unsupervised for more than 30 seconds—so Bubs always got to stay home.

Honestly, the concern wasn’t completely unfounded—but I was still a prude back then. Mostly, I was just annoyed Bubs didn’t get to see me compete at out-of-town meets.

So it was a dream come true when my mom came up to Jessica and me and said something had come up, and we’d be riding with Bubs and his family to the upcoming meet in Oklahoma. I assumed it would just be us girls and Bubs’ mom. But then Bubs found me at school and said his parents were driving us all in the RV. I asked, “What do you mean ‘us’?” He said, “Like, all of us—I get to go.” I was ecstatic. Bubs was... excited for other reasons. He thought he was going to get laid.

The plan was: my parents would pay for a hotel room where the three girls would sleep, and Bubs and his parents would stay in the RV parked out back. If you're not American, let me explain—any hotel that offers RV parking in Oklahoma is not going to be the nicest of places. Think two stars, max.

That week, Bubs and I schemed about how we’d get time alone—despite our siblings, his parents, and the actual gymnastics meet. I wasn’t ready for sex, but at the same time I really enjoyed how excited he was at the potential prospect. I figured by the time we figured out how to actually be in the same bed, I could convince him that heavy petting and then falling asleep next to me was special in its own right. But then again, 16-year-old Bubs was pretty charming—there was a real possibility of me giving in and getting knocked up in the Flea Bag Inn just outside of Norman, OK. Every girl's dream.

In the week leading up to the big trip, I happened to be in the bathroom while my sister was showering, and her phone buzzed. Since I’m nosy (and not ashamed), I peeked—and saw a text from a 17-year-old junior she was very much forbidden to talk to—and while I won't give details, the text was far from innocent. Of course, I should have told our parents, but this was grade-A blackmail material. I called Bubs and told him I had a plan and asked what the chances were of him sneaking out of the RV. He said he’d done it before when he’d been on camping trips with his cousins. I was feeling very confident.

I kept it from the two younger girls until the three of us actually got into our hotel room. I was thinking two things. First, I was the older sister, and the two younger girls would unequivocally listen to my demands. Second, my blackmail material was just too good. When the three of us got in the room, I laid down the law and told them what I knew about Jessica hanging out with the high school junior and how things were going to go. I told them as soon as Bubs texted me that his parents were asleep, they were going to pick up their bedding and go sleep in the hallway, and he would come into the room so he and I could have some privacy. In the morning, Bubs would sneak back into the RV and they could come back and sleep for an hour or so in the bed.

Jessica was furious and called me a bitch (not incorrectly). But I had leverage. Addie, though, wasn’t having it. She looked me dead in the eye and said, “You’re trying to blackmail Jessica so you can fuck my brother in MY hotel room? Do you not see the problem here?”

I still thought I had the upper hand. I told her Jessica wasn’t supposed to be talking to that guy. Addie said, “Cool. Let’s go tell our moms you’re making us sleep in the hallway so you can be disgusting and see which one is worse.”

She was not bluffing. She marched down the hall and out the side door. I ran to the window and watched her walk straight to the RV. Jessica just stood there laughing at me being outsmarted by her best friend. “Did you seriously think that would work? Oh my God. You are such a bitch. Even if you tell Mom and Dad about Jason, you’re in way more trouble now.”

I sweated for about 10 minutes at the window, hoping that maybe Addie was bluffing and she would emerge from the RV, flip me off, and we could just go back to the original plan. But no—it was Bubs’ mom who emerged from the RV, phone pressed to her ear, talking in that frantic tone moms use when their children have disappointed them in brand new ways. As she opened the side door to the hotel, I could hear her walking down the hall, clearly on the phone with my mom, saying things like, “Yes, Janet, I agree. I’ll talk to her. I never thought they’d be this devious—yes, that’s so generous. We’ll figure that out when we get back. Trust me, they won't leave our sight.”

She sent Jessica and Addie to the pool and then sat me down for a very special conversation about teenage pregnancy, Bubs’ uncle in Bossier City who threw his life away at 17 because he got a girl pregnant, and how she and my mom just “wanted more” for us. She said Bubs and I weren’t allowed to be alone for the rest of the trip and told me—very kindly but firmly—that she loved me like a daughter, but this was unacceptable behavior. For the two nights we were there, she would stay in the hotel room, and Bubs would sleep in the RV with his dad so there were adults in each spot to keep an eye on us.

So my plan to make the two younger girls sleep in the hall was never going to work—but I went from sharing a room with my younger sister and her best friend (and really one of my best friends too), which would have been a lot of fun, to getting to share a bed with my sister while my future mother-in-law slept with one eye open in the next bed over—so she could keep an eye on the little tramp she was now convinced was bound and determined to be a teenage pregnancy statistic. Had I not tried to force it, there probably would have been a few moments here and there where Bubs and I could have snuck off and made out. Nope—aside from the gymnastics meet, the most fun part of the weekend turned out to be everyone else watching me devour two footlong meatball sandwiches.