Ace and Warren have rowed competitively ever since we were kids running rampant along the powder-white shores of Loveless. I miss those days when Ace was just like everybody else because we didn’t hold everything to the light of the almighty dollar, especially not people.
“Well then”—I lean into him, inching my lips toward his—“Warren definitely fits the description.”
“So, you dating him?” he asks, lower than a whisper. His shoulder bumps into mine, playfully, as if this were all a game. But, deep down, I wish he cared.
“He follows me wherever I go.” I take the opportunity to rest my head over his rock hard chest. My body goes rigid a moment because, holy hell, I’m touching Ace in ways that I’ve never touched him before. This is huge. But I figure if I want to round out the bases with him, we’ll have to start somewhere, and a face plant into the wall of concrete that is his chest is definitely a great place to do just that. “I guess we’re sort of ambush dating.” Stupid Warren. I hate that he’s even a topic of conversation. Then again, maybe Ace just wants to make sure that my innocent lady parts and me are single and ready to mingle with his far more experienced extra-curricular bits and pieces. Not that I’m accusing him of housing something bitty in his boxers, far from it. I’ve glanced down at his Levis a time or two, and it’s apparent he wields a nightstick. Nevertheless, Ace is a gentleman at heart, unlike Warren who’s probably using beer pong as an excuse to hit on Kennedy’s unsuspecting sorority sisters.
I curl into Ace as if I were snuggling up for the night, and I wish to God I were. Ace feels a thousand times better than I could have ever imagined. His soft breath tangles in my hair, enlivening my senses. His cologne holds a sweet layer that you need to be this close to truly appreciate. And, if I get my way, I’ll be even closer before the night is through. If there were a Worshiping From Afar Anonymous I’m pretty sure every one of its stalker-like members would be cheering me on right now. Not every obsession leads to a life of crime on the streets. In fact, I’m sort of hoping for a life oftimeunder thesheets. The only crime around here is the fact Ace and I haven’t explored a carnal connection as of yet. And that’s exactly what I’m hoping this summer will be about, the summer of sexual rectification.
“Ambush dating.” He rumbles beneath me with a silent laugh. “So are you blue-balling him?”
“Is that code for have we slept together?” I bite over a smile because the conversation just took a turn for the coital, and me and all of my Ace-worshiping girl parts completely approve. “If so, the answer isno.” A tiny surge of hope spirals through me because if he cares about whether or not I’ve slept with Warren, it might mean something. “But I came close at Kristen Woodley’s party last spring,” it speeds out of me like some midnight confessional. “She was serving foot long hotdogs, and I had a sudden craving, but I chickened out last minute—left him naked in the bedroom and ran like hell all the way back to my dorm.” Maybe this is a good time to mention the fact I have never seen nor imagined Warren’s ‘foot long,’ in fact, I’m betting there are an entire medley of adjectives to describe his push pop, andfoot longisn’t one of them.
“Good deal.” Ace holds up a hand, so I high five him. A spark ignites between us as soon as our skin connects, but we choose to ignore it—easy as ignoring a bonfire in a fireworks factory.
“How about we do some ambush swimming?” Ace peels off his T-shirt, nice and slow, and I watch as the moon illuminates him like a marble statue, nothing but skin over steel. His muscles ripple over his abs like a silent granite sea. His chest looks smooth like sheet rock, and I suddenly have the urge to map out the landscape of his body with my tongue—a task I could easily labor over for weeks. If Ace were willing to let me lap him up like a kitten with a bowl of cream, I wouldn’t rush the effort. Ace is a dessert that’s meant to be savored. If given the opportunity to leech over his abs with my lips, I’d languish for years, drag out the endeavor until the authorities stepped in, I’m sure my father would arrange for that. I can practically hear the theme music toCopsplaying on a loop. Crap. For sure if Ace and I were together, I’d make it a point to keep my father in the dark. The last thing I’d want is him ruining my moment with the god of the G-spot. My dad can have Warren and his whole damn family. I just wantoneperson, and that person just so happens to be off my father’s short-list of suitors for his only biological daughter. Not to mention the fact Ace has probably never even seen the inside of the Loveless Country Club—a sin of the highest order when it comes to cold, hard cash contenders for my father’s approval. Not that my father is all about money, he’s just all about Warren McCarthy.
Ace jumps to his feet and starts tugging down his shorts, exposing a glowing line of skin highlighted low around his waist. “You’d better spin around, or you’re about to see another foot long.”
“A foot long, huh? Is that wishful thinking on your part? Are you sure it’s not more of a centimeterpeter?” I tease as I turn toward the granite cliff side in the distance.
“You wish. We’re talking yardstick, baby.”
A splash of water rips through the air, followed by a short-lived howl.
“Get in, girl. It feels like a bath,” he shouts from the lake below.
“I seriously doubt that.” I turn back around and spot his slicked hair reflecting the moonlight like a mirror.
The night air blisters over my skin like an oven. I’m dying to fall into a body of water, but I’m iffy on the whole bearing more than my soul part of the equation. Ace has seen the body of a thousand girls, and not one pair of human eyes has laid eyes on mine.
A part of my mother’s last letter comes back to me,find the ecstasy where you can—catch it by the tail. It’s in those moments you really live. All those other gaps in time are just filler until the next bout of delirium. You could as easily find ecstasy in the silence as you could in a scream, it could be locked in a beautiful flower, the scent of a fragrant spring morning. It could be in a kiss from a beautiful boy.All of those sweet moments make one hell of an adventure.And if life doesn’t offer you an adventure—make one happen.
I love that letter, but it’s always the beautiful boy part that weirds me out a little. I used to cringe at the idea of my mother talking to me about sex at all, and, now, even with her gone, and with me just finishing my freshman year at Yeats, it still feels rigidly uncomfortable. And what boy is beautiful? I glance down at the lake and catch a glimpse of the only boy I have ever loved. His teeth illuminate as if his mouth were backlit with a flashlight, and the fire from that thousand watt grin sears over me like a nuclear heat wave.
Ace is clearly beautiful.
“You coming in?” he calls out. His ebony hair reflects in hues of blue as his face gets lost in the shadows. His chest is heavily glossed, annunciating his perfect-cut abs.
I cinch a smile in my cheek and wonder how the hell I got so lucky tonight.
“Damn straight, I’m coming in.”
I race down to the waterline and duck behind the shadowy pines, plucking and pulling at my clothes until I’m as naked as the day I was born. My feet grind into the damp soil as I take in the scent of moist earth and the viral perfume of the evergreens. This is a night I want to remember in detail. I want to soak it into each of my senses and make them regurgitate it back to me with a clarity far beyond any memory, so I can live it again and again—Ace and me naked in that black, inky lake.
“Turn around,” I command as I make my way into the open. Once I spot the back of his hair, I tiptoe my way in and seize, confirming the fact this was a piss-poor idea. If my feet are telling the truth, the lake has decided to do its best impression of an Arctic preserve, and we’ve picked a lousy time to reenact the bathing rituals from the Garden of Eden. “Oh God, oh God, oh God!” I whimper as I wade my way over to him.
“Just dive in. It’s worse if you take it slow. Once it hits your middle, you’re just torturing yourself.”
“Says the boy who swore it’s warm as a bath.” I give a little scream as a wave skirts my ribcage.
“It’s warm where I’m standing.”
“That’s because you probably relieved yourself once you got there.”
“No one knows me like you.” Ace glides backward, still facing the other direction. I give a private smile admiring his smooth skin, his shoulders as wide as a door. He starts to turn, and I splash a wall of water at him.
“Don’t even think about it.” A wave slaps me just beneath my shoulders, and I take in a sharp breath.
