"Oh, yeah, sure." I stretch my legs, too.
"We should go all the way," he says.
I blink. "What?"
"Stretch our legs all the way," Curtis explains and pushes his legs down until his legs are right beside mine, his feet beside my hips.
I do the same and I know I am touch-deprived because this has my body shooting with electricity.
He's Kennedy's boyfriend. I don't know why my brain reminds me. I already knew that.
I last thirty seconds before saying, "I can't do this," and attempt to get out of the hammock. Of course, I make a clumsy mess of the whole thing, my feet catching on the fabric, and I trip onto the porch, the water bottle in my hands rolling away.
Well. That was only the most humiliating experience of my life.
The hammock rocks like a boat on waves, and Curtis clutches the sides, attempting to control it. "What the hell, Liam?" For the first time this afternoon, he isn't smiling at me. It's a relief.
"Sorry. I should have thought before I… yeah."
"What's wrong?" Curtis asks.
"Um, nothing." It's an obvious lie because I've acted like a total maniac. "Sometimes I just get claustrophobic."
"Oh. Sorry."
"It's not your fault!" I say. "And you apologise way too much."
Curtis opens his mouth then closes it.
"You were going to say sorry again, weren't you?"
He betrays a hint of a smile. It's nice, but heartbreaking when I remember how freely he laughed fifteen minutes earlier. I was mean to him. And now I'm going to be mean again.
"I think I'll read in the living room instead," I say. "There's better air conditioning there."
"And more space," he says.
"Yeah. More space."
I pick up the water bottle which has rolled under a dusty table, then give Curtis an awkward wave. "See you."
"Bye," he says before his eyes flick back to his book.
Okay, yeah, I've been rude. But with Curtis, I'm realising it's safer for me to be on the aloof side rather than too nice to him.
He's not an idiot, and if I'm not careful, he's going to think of a reason I'm acting so strange, and that won't be pretty.
*
I read in the living room for the next hour, while the girls study in the dining room, their papers spread out across the table. When I get hungry, I go to the kitchen to make myself a fruit salad. As I'm cutting slices of watermelon, Bonnie enters the kitchen, an empty water bottle in her hands.
"Ooh, what are you making?" she asks as she fills up her water bottle.
"Fruit salad," I say, the chopping board surrounded by apples, watermelon, pineapple and grapes. "Want some?"
"Thanks! I'll cut this," she says, taking the pineapple I haven't cut yet.
I grab another bowl from a cabinet and start adding watermelon to it.
