No. No Rachel. Don’t do it. Once was enough.
She does it. I’m living my own private hell, so of course she does it.
She pauses and steps out of her heels as the song hits the first chorus. Her eyes light up in mischief, the same way they did four years ago, and a split second later she’s running down the path, flying into my dad’s open arms. He has the audacity to look stunned by this predictable turn of events. His eyes are wide and show signs of pressure, as he clamps his lips together. He’s making the same repulsive gurgling sounds he made when she did it on their wedding day.
I don’t feel well.
Seriously.
I keep my eyes averted as they kiss or whatever, but sadly I look up in time to see them walk down the path towards the house. They stop to let Rachel put her shoes back on. As she does it, my dad gives her butt a little pinch that makes her jump and giggle.
Blurgh.
They look back and give us a wave and call out for us to enjoy our evening as they head towards the house. They’re going out to the first restaurant they ever went to together. Also cringey, if you ask me, but at least it gets them off the property.
Luke makes a strange little sound. A little, “hmmph,” that sounds like a giggle and a whimper got their wires crossed. “Your dad looks weird. Looks like he’s trying not to sneeze.”
I clench my teeth and roll my eyes back so far my optic nerves feel strained.
“Yeah, don’t think that’s a sneeze, bro. Think he’s trying not to come in his pants.”
Luke blinks twice. His face is frozen for several seconds and then crumples in disgust. “Oh, God,” he yelps. “Oh God, that’s gross. Argh!” He covers his eyes with his hands and starts to shake with laughter.
Our parents haven’t gone far yet, so I take his elbow and pull him a few steps back, so we’re hidden from view by the jasmine bush that grows outside the guest house.
“I knew it!” I hiss. “I fucking knew you had to be freaked out by them.”
He dissolves. He’s helpless. Doubled over, laughter bubbling viciously out of him. “So gross,” he groans. “God, they’re too much. It’s terrible. It was so bad I had to move to the guest house. Couldn’t…” He’s breathless from laughter, “…couldn’t stand being around them.”
I’m laughing too. I’m laughing so hard I feel like I won’t ever be able to stop. I’m choking and tears are streaming down my face. I’m still holding onto Luke’s arm. I’m holding onto it for balance. I’m weak from laughter and so is he. His face is contorted. Mouth pulled back to show a full constellation of perfect white teeth. His eyes are so creased it looks like they’re closed. It looks like he can’t see me, so I look. I really look. What I see is so beautiful it takes me a while to notice I’ve stopped laughing. It takes me longer to notice he’s stopped laughing too.
Night falls silent. The song has finished. The evening is warm. It’s humid and hot. The air isn’t moving. It starts to feel suffocating. I become overly aware that for some crazy reason, I still haven’t let go of Luke’s arm.
Siri, in her wisdom, decides to playFaithfullyon repeat. Hard, decisive chords on the keyboard spark and take flight. They run through meridians under the ground that you can’t usually see or feel. I still can’t see them, but I feel them. The electric guitar whines and the drums reach into my chest and squeeze all four chambers of my heart at the same time. Sound travels through time, under the Earth, through the air. Up my legs. Up my arms. Electricity hums up my spine, burning hot where I’m connected to Luke. Not only there. I’m burning all over. I turn to him. His eyes are alight. Lit from within and lit from the reflections of the fairy lights that dance in the night sky.
Time converges. Then. Now. That night. This night. The past and the present swirl into one and I’m hit by the strongest, strangest sense of déjà vu I’ve ever felt. I’ve been here before. This has happened before. I’ve been here with Luke. I’ve hidden with him and laughed at the cluster fuck that is our parents in love.
That memory is distant and blurred. This one is clear.
In that memory he put his hand on my chest. His touch was light and tentative. I was nervous. I was deathly afraid. Afraid of what we were doing and what it meant. Terrified out of my mind. I’m scared now too, but I’m not out of my mind. This time, I place my hand on his chest, letting it settle and letting the heat from my skin seep through fabric and into muscle. His eyes spark in recognition and then in hope. In that memory, the faded, disjointed one, I put my hand on the back of his neck. I pulled him towards me. In this one, he watches me cautiously, taking the measure of me, and then he reaches up and curls his fingers around my neck, pressing his fingertips firmly into the tense muscle he finds there.
It’s the kind of kiss that starts with a hand on a chest, and a hand on the back of a neck, and it ends with his hands knotted in my hair and my hands under his top. By the time we step back, we’re drawing ragged breaths through wide open mouths, both shocked by the power of what just happened.
“This happened before,” I say dumbly.
He smiles a wry smile that makes me feel like I’ve been kicked in the chest. “I remember, you ass. It was the first time I’d done anything with a boy. How could I forget?” My hands are still under his top. He’s warm. More than warm. He’s hot. I run my hands over his pecs. He blinks slowly, losing his train of thought for a moment, but quickly regaining it. “That kiss was my first kiss with a boy.” He hesitates, then adds, “This one, the one we just had, was my second.”
I’m floored. The ground feels like it’s spinning. “Y-you waited?”
“I guess so.”
“Why?”
He smiles, twisting his mouth up at the sides, making my heart beat out of my chest before I even hear his words.
“’Cause I know what good feels like.”
By the time I lose count of how many times Luke has kissed a guy, I feel drunker than I did the first time I kissed him, his lips are stained dark pink, and both of us have our hands in the other one’s pants. We kiss until we’re unsteady, taking turns to push each other up against the wall and jerk each other off until neither of us have a drop left to give, and we hear our parents pull into the driveway.
