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I cringe. “I’m really pale…”
“That’s fine. Yeah. You’re a man of mystery. I might put my hand on your knee, is that cool?”
“My leg is your leg.”
Bec clears her throat. “Can we get this over with?” She’s bobbing chest-deep in the water with her camera, shivering a little.
“Sorry,” says Abel. “Rebecca, what do you think? Is my hand on his knee too much?”
“Don’t pull me into this. I’m just the cameraperson.”
Abel nods. “We’ll play it by ear. See what happens.”
“Fantastic.” She rolls her eyes and hits record.
“Salut, dear Casties!” Abel says. “My partner and I are coming at you poolside from the, ah, Longhorn Campground in San Antonio, where we have been staying in all our carefree, half-nude glory for three days.”
“Three lo
“They have been especially hot, haven’t they, Bran?”
“Scorching.”
“Miss Rebecca, by the way, is looking stu
“It’s just a two-piece.”
“Whatever. Dave, if you’re watching, it was between this one and some striped tankini disaster. You’ll thank me when you see her in Long Beach.”
I break in, as scripted. “Ahem.”
Abel’s like, “Ye-es?”
“You have yet to comment on my new swim trunks.”
“I think that’s best reserved for a…” He leans in, stage-whispers. “Private moment, don’t you?”
I giggle; I can’t help it. “If you say so.”
“Aaanyway, guys: Two o’clock today, Q&A with Augie Ma
“Hmf.”
“Yes, dear? What is it?”
I feign a pout. “If you love him so much, why don’t you marry him?”
“Mm-mm. Not my type.”
“No? Who is your type?”
“I think you know, Brandon.” He rests a hand on my knee. A tiny spark dances up my thigh. “I think. You. Know.”
***
The second Bec snaps the camera shut, Abel grabs my elbow and hauls us both underwater. The blue shock of cold hits me hard—I’m not ready—but then I open my eyes and he’s making this face that makes me forget, crossing his eyes and puffing out his cheeks. His white hair billows around his face like the manes on Bec’s old Rainbow Ponies when we’d take them in her mom’s pool. For a long time we stay like that, in a safe underworld where our bodies stay light and dreamy. Five seconds. Ten seconds.
We come up laughing.
“’Best reserved for a private moment’?” I splash him.
“Did I go too far?”
“No! It was brilliant.”
“Um, so…”
“What?”
Abel bats his eyes. “Why don’t you marry him?”
“Ugh! I’m a horrible flirter.”
“No, no, no. You’ve gotten loads better since Saturday.”
“Really?”
“When you said scorching?” He taps his heart, smirking. “I felt it right here.”
Bec bobs by on a clear inflatable raft. She looks all patriotic: navy blue bikini, white belly, sunburn on her round freckled shoulders. She peers at us over cat’s-eye shades.
“You guys,” she tsks, “are mean.”
Abel’s eyes go wide and i
“But it’s not real.”
“So? They love fiction. Right, Brandon?”
“They do seem to enjoy it.”
He swims close to me, his chin skimming the water. “What’s your favorite fic?”
I peel my wet shirt away from my chest and pretend to think. I have a real answer to that question, but I can’t get into that with Abel. As far as he knows, the Abandon fic we’ve been reading for the past five days has been 100% pure comedy, something to giggle over in greasy diners and campgrounds while Plastic Sim and Plastic Cadmus perch on opposite corners of the laptop, watching us blush and bump elbows.
“I like doomerang’s stuff. And sadparadise. The Castaway Planet crossovers,” I lie.
“Yeah? Not a fan, actually.”
“How come?”
“They’re like, good writers.” He makes a blech face. “Well-written fanfic is no fun whatsoever. I loooove thanks4caring’s high-school-angst.”
“’The Locker Said FAG?’”
“OMG. The ultimate.” We’re bobbing in a circle now. “Brandon’s sea-blue eyes exploded into desolate tears.”
I grin. “He felt his tater tots rise up threateningly in his throat.”
“He raced breathlessly—Breathlessly?”
“I think.”
“—down the school hallway and stumbled falteringly into the men’s room to call the one and only person who would ever understand him fully:” He strikes a pose. “Abel!”
“The next part is best.”
“What part?”
“What the men’s room smells like.”
“Adverbs?”
“No.”
“I’m blanking.”
“Urine and boys.”
“Urine and boys!” He snaps his fingers. “Straight girls really do their research, no?”
“You don’t read the NC-17 ones, do you?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know.”
“Oh, jeez.”
He clasps his heart. “Abel’s piercing green eyes danced impishly as he unbuckled Brandon’s—”
“Stop!”
“His eyes roved hungrily over the smaller boy’s body…”
I plug my ears and la-la-laaa.
“…and he thought, For such a short boy, he certainly had a long—”
“Oh my God!”
I heave a shelf of water his way and he yelps and pulls me under again. I used to hate when I was a kid and things would get rough at the pool—the big Tortelli boys sneak-attacking in the deep end, yanking us down by our feet like Jaws and holding us under until we kicked and flailed. But with Abel it’s different. He lets me push back, only touches my safe parts—my elbow, my shoulder. And way before things get scary, he hooks my wrist gently and pulls us both up to the surface.
We stand there, chest-deep, smiling and shivering. The air is full of happy smells: snack-stand lemonade, soft pretzels, pina colada sunscreen. I almost strip my wet t-shirt off. Right now, right this second, if we were on Castaway Planet and Abel said hey, let’s check out this crystal spider cave, I think I’d go with him. I’d be scared, but I’d go.
“Abel,” I say.
“Yes, my pseudo-darling.”
I grin. I’m brave as ten Cadmuses. “Never had so much fun,” I say. “With anyone.”
He looks down, swirls a finger in the water. “Pas de quoi, cutie.”
“—Okay, you horndogs.” Bec’s standing on the lip of the pool, wiggling into her polka-dot flip-flops. “You want to eat something before the Q&A?”
Abel’s face gets kid-on-Christmas bright. “The Double T?”
“I think the lunch special’s fried meatloaf.”
“Sold.” Abel grabs the ladder and hoists himself out of the pool. There’s all kinds of dripping and glistening going on. I try not to look. “You in, Bran?”
I think it over. On one hand, it’s been great this week; flirting lightly and safely for the cameras, hanging out and playing five thousand games of WordWhap with a cute nonthreatening guy who knows how screwed up I am and still wants to be my friend. On the other, there’s something I desperately have to do back at the Sunseeker, and I need to be alone.
“Bring me back some cheese fries,” I tell them.
***
I pull down the Sunseeker shades. Lock the door.
Bec gave me the camera before they left, so I take a second to upload our poolside escapade to Screw Your Sensors. While it’s loading, my phone goes off. HOME CALLING. I pick it up, all relaxed and friendly. I wow-mm-hmm politely through the latest on the new-parish-hall saga and update Dad dutifully on my RV maintenance. Yes, I cleaned the fresh water tank, sanitized the hose.
When I hang up, I go straight to the Church of Abandon.
I know what’s going to happen there in the next ten minutes. Someone will link to our new post, and there’ll be OMGs and trembling-Spongebob gifs and dissections and debates over every little thing, from the sincerity of Abel’s dear to the way my eyes lingered on his wet swim trunks. Abel and I will soak it up later, and laugh.