A thought—a vision—sprang to mind, and I looked around Lily’s desk for paper and something to write with. I grabbed a legal pad and pen and stared at Lily again for a few minutes, happy just to watch her.
Christ, when was the last time I’d felt this…yeah, okay, happy?
I blurred my vision a bit, wanting to capture the whole, which was impossible, because my eyes kept coming back to her face, nestled in the sheets. Her black hair covered most of it, and ran down her bare back, almost to her spectacular ass. In silhouette, it almost appeared like the black of night hovering over dunes, with the white of the sheets being waves that rose from the ocean and broke against the sand of her skin.
I drew the lines and angles. Not really sketching, I sucked at that, but capturing the places body and sand and sea met and collided. I had an idea for the steam room and I didn’t want to forget how Lily’s body rose out of the ocean of her blanket.
Not that I was likely to forget her body. Or this day. Being inside Lily, driving into her as her body opened up to me—craved me—was far and away the best sex I’d ever had. And I’d been with girls—women—with a lot more experience than Lily.
But that was what it boiled down to—it wasn’t just sex with Lily. I could get that anywhere. And it wouldn’t be nearly the hassle as finding time for Lily, and getting to her on the other side of town, and all those fucking feelings of inadequacy that I had when I was around her.
Lily was a hell of a lot more than just sex to me, and that had scared the shit out of me on Sunday.
It still did, to be truthful. But now? Now it was worth being scared shitless all the time. Time to man up and deal with these all-over-the-place feelings I’d had since I first saw how good she was with those little kids.
That night with Stick and Jane in the car, when Stick had given the definition of that stupid Bribury Basics name? I knew Lily was thinking she fit it to a tee. And maybe on the surface she did.
But there was more to Lily. She wasn’t a Basic, no matter how many North Face pullovers she had in her closet.
I saw it right away, that first day in the pool.
The thing was, I wasn’t so sure that she saw it.
“What are you doing?” she said, startling me from my notes/drawing. Her voice was drowsy and full of…seduction. Though I don’t think she was being all sexy-voiced on purpose. That’s just what an afternoon of spectacular banging did to her. I smiled at my own stupidity (thank God unspoken), and she smiled back at me.
Holy Christ, when she smiled at me, it was like all the bad shit that had happened lately just fell away.
“Just jotting down some notes for the steam room job,” I said, ripping the paper off the tablet, folding it, and putting it in the back pocket of my jeans.
For our second round, I’d lifted Lily from the floor and moved us both to the small bed, pushing the covers aside so I could see her gorgeous body against stark white sheets. I’d been hard again in an instant, but we’d taken our time, kissing and touching and feeling more than we had that frenzied first coupling.
Now I sat in just my jeans, and even though I’d come like a motherfucker two times in the last three hours, her smile made me hard again in an instant. I was mentally doing the math of how late I could be to pick up Andy and how quickly I could get inside her, when she asked, “How did you become a tile guy, anyway? Or is this your first time doing it?”
The memories of how I learned to tile quickly went from fond and sweet to painful, and my fledgling hard-on subsided.
“I’ve known how to do it since I was a kid. But this is the first time I’m doing it as a major project on my own.” I patted my back pocket, where I’d placed my squiggles of her body as inspiration. “That’s why I want to do an extra-good job. Hopefully it will lead to more tiling jobs around campus and less…towel boy.” I grinned at her, remembering her standing in nothing but a towel that first day in the locker room.
“You’re averygood towel boy,” she said with a bit of sass. I liked it when she pulled out the sass. She didn’t do it often, which made it all the more potent.
“Not that good. I didn’t get the one towel I wanted,” I reminded her.
She smiled, but said nothing more. Oh, right. I was supposed to be doing the talking.
“My dad was a tiling expert. Did the usual stuff, kitchens and baths, but did a ton of custom work too. He’d take me on jobs with him when they fell on the weekend and my mom was working. He’d have me swirl on the adhesive, showing me just the right amount, the right technique. He had a great eye for colors and designs that you might not think would work well together, but they did.” I sat back in the chair, remembering.
I laid a hand on my bare stomach and noticed that Lily’s eyes followed my movement. There was just a tiny movement from her legs, but I knew that she liked watching me, liked my body. Which was only fair, because I was crazy about her long, lean—but just enough curves in the right places—body.
“And so he taught you? Your dad?” she asked, pulling my mind away from her body…as much as it ever could be.
“Yeah. Well, not really. I was just a kid, so it was more ‘See what I’m doing here, Lucas’ kind of stuff. Though he’d let me mix the grout up and things like that. But I watched. I…watched.”
I still remembered his strong and beat-up hands as he’d apply the adhesive. The precision with which he’d place the tile, even for custom mosaic work. Work that looked like he was making it up as he went, though I now knew he must have seen it in his head. Most times he didn’t even bother with the plastic dividers between tiles, so sure was he of his own skill at placing the ceramic and glass tiles.
“How old did you say you were when he died?”
“Twelve,” I said with no hesitation. Cursing the near croak that came out in my voice. I couldn’t look at Lily, didn’t want to see any pity from her. Instead, I stared out the window, seeing the Bribury campus from a view I’d never seen before. Inside and high up. It was a beautiful, small campus. Hard to imagine there was such ugliness only a short car ride away.
“He worked very hard to make a good living. My mom worked hard too. We didn’t have a lot, but he got us out of the worst neighborhoods. I mean, we weren’t on the Bribury side of town…” I waved at the scene outside the window. She didn’t say anything, and I silently thanked her. I didn’t need to hear any rich-girl guilt about how she was sure we did the best we could or some such shit. But Lily didn’t do that. She just waited. I could feel her eyes on me, but I kept my gaze out the window.
