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“Stuffy as hell. Like the atmosphere at the B and T.” He takes a deep breath. “Not like this.” Then he tugs me a little closer. “Or this.” Ducking his head, he rubs his nose in my hair. I brace my hands on his shoulders, lean closer, feel warm skin under his crisp cool shirt.
He steps back. “Okay, island girl. Give me a tour? The Insider’s Night Guide to Seashell?”
“We could just go to the Field House,” I say, then wince.
“Not about a jumbo box of condoms, remember? Come on. You’ve got to have some secret places no one knows about.”
In the Green Woods, through the tu
“What?”
“Peaceful,” he says. He shuts his eyes, drinking it in. “Barbershop quartet night at the B and T.”
Almeida’s has done functions at the Stony Bay Bath and Te
He stands there for a moment longer, then I whisper, “Come on, it’s better by the water.”
“It always is, Gwen.”
The moon silvers the creek, the bridge above it, gleams on the rocks. The breeze moves over the marsh, sweet with sea grass, the old-wet-wood smell of the pilings. Cass sits down, leans back on his elbows, and looks at the sky, deep indigo and cloudless. I hesitate, breathing in the cool night air. After a few minutes, I walk a few feet away, unbutton, kick my shorts aside and wade into the rushing water, dipping underneath, surfacing to let the current, stronger and faster near the surface than below, seize me.
Then what’s catching me are Cass’s hands at my waist, his legs brushing mine, chin dipping into the curve of my shoulder.
Because the creek flows from the salt marshes into the ocean, the water’s warm, half salty, half sweet. I taste it on his lips.
Like before, things move fast with us. Cass has quick reflexes, and I have curious, wandering, wondering hands. He pulled me out of the water, as certain of his destination—a circle of soft grass between the bushes at the top of the bank—as if he’d visited here before and kept the map in his head. This is where we will go. I lean back on one elbow, tipping my head to the side, as Cass’s lips skate slowly up from my shoulder to my ear, so lightly, his lips are soft as a breath, but still enough to blow almost every thought away.
“My traitorous body.”
That’s one of those phrases that pops up all the time in Mom’s and Mrs. E.’s books. A handy excuse for the heroines, like, “Gosh, I knew I should stop and be ‘good,’ but my traitorous body . . .”
I’ve felt like that before. Or like I was one place and my mind off in the distance somewhere. Observing. Or trying hard not to.
But not now.
My body doesn’t feel as though it’s betraying me, separate. I’m not drowning out thoughts and focusing on sensations. I trace the long line of Cass’s jaw, dip a finger in a dimple, feel it groove deeper as he smiles. When I slide my hand up his side, brushing a drier path on the wet skin, the bump and groove of rib to rib, I feel him shiver, then the shake of him laughing a little.
“Ticklish?”
“Happy.” He cups the back of my neck with one hand, nudges at the top of my neckline, edges it lower. But well before it tips into something more than making out, we both pull back, me bracing my hands on his chest, him moving back, breathing hard.
“Sorry. I—only meant to—” That flush edges from the tips of his ears over the rest of his face.
“I know. But let’s stop here.”
He pulls the straps of my tank top back into position, head ducked, gives a quick nod.
“Not, um, forever. But tonight . . .” I falter. “Because I want—”
Cass cocks his head at me.
I want. The begi
“A jumbo box of condoms,” Cass says.
“I’m not taking that off the table. I mean, not forever. Because I— Jesus. This is awkward. Feel free to chime in anytime.”
“You get pissed off when I rescue you, Gwen.”
“I get more pissed off when you’re all calm when I’m—”
“Calm?” He sets his hands on my shoulders and gives me the smallest of shakes. “Hardly. ’Cause, no, I don’t want to stop now. I mean”—glancing down at where our bodies are still against each other’s—“clearly. But you’re right to. We’re right to.”
“Right?” I’m not sure what he means.
“A do-over, do better, a redo. If this”—he twitches his finger back and forth between us—“goes, um, there, again—”
“When,” I blurt. “When it goes there. Since we’re telling the truth here.”
He squeezes my shoulders, gives me a quick, hard kiss. “When. We’re doing it in a place and at a time we both choose. Not in the car or on a couch in some other random hurried way.”
“Not in a boat, not with a goat,” I say, unable to help myself. He did sound like one of Emory’s Dr. Seuss books.
“No and no,” Cass says, laughing. “We’re doing it in a bed. No goats.”
“You WASPs are so conventional.” I give his chest a shove.
“The first time,” he amends. “After that, all bets are off. And we’re doing it when we have more than just the one condom I’ve had in my wallet since I turned sixteen.”
Not for the first time, I wonder why he didn’t use that thing, or any other one, ages ago—what exactly he’s been waiting for.
Leaning against the railing of our porch, I only wait for Cass’s silhouette to be swallowed up by the night before hurrying down the steps again, in need of the rush, the peace, of jumping off the pier, swimming alone.
Swimming with Cass in the creek, bumping up against each other in the water, skin to skin, slip-sliding so close, then him ducking away, dodging me, was hardly calming.
God, isn’t it supposed to be the guys who can’t think straight? Whose bodies are screaming at their brains to just shut up because everything feels so good? Or is that another rumor someone started? Without thinking who it was going to hurt. Or just confuse.
The moon’s full, leaving Abenaki bright as day, but without the clutter. Except that there’s a lone car in the sandy beach parking lot, parked far over in the corner, nearly concealed by sea grass. But no silhouettes on the pier or the boat float.
I’m heading out on the pier when I hear it, slightly louder than the waves—this little groan, echoing in the dark. I freeze, look back over the beach, my skin prickling. See nothing but the usual tangles of seaweed and rock piles.
Must have imagined it.
But then comes the quiet rumble of a male voice, the higher pitch of a girl’s. Him questioning, higher pitched at the end, her laughing, throaty. I find myself smiling. Some couple taking advantage of the atmosphere, the moonlight, the privacy, just as Cass and I did. I scan the beach, finally spotting a couple far away, beyond the bathhouse, all tangled up in each other on a towel.
The girl says something; there’s a short burst of soft laughter. They’re too far away to hear any distinct words and—
I squint to try to identify them for only a second before realizing how creepy that is and edge back toward the pier.
Then a cloud shifts away from the moon, and the parked car is illuminated in a flash of silver.
Why on earth would Spence Cha
It occurs to me in this second that since he knew the exact body count in the hot tub, Cass was clearly at that party. What was he doing while his best friend was having “just sex”? Serving drinks?
How can two people be so different and still best friends?
Another—possibly awkward—question for another—less awkward—time. But not now. Now I take a ru