“Am I always in my suit?”
Sidney laughs and I can feel the vibration through the raft. Her head pops up again. “Hate to break it to you, but coaches don’t walk around deck in their Speedos.”
“I betIdo, in your fantasies.”
“So about Nadine.” She’s looking off into the distance, trying to be casual. “How do you feel about utilizing Saran Wrap on fish, instead of paper?”
She’s just trying to change the subject, so I do it for her. “My dad has a college-long apprenticeship set up for me.” It feels like the words came out of my mouth against my will, but once they’re out it feels right. Like I should have said it a long time ago.
“And you’re…” Sid spreads one hand out in front of her and I can almost see the invisible line there, waiting to be filled in.
“Indifferent?” I shrug. “Annoyed?”
She nods and looks past me toward the riverbank, like she’s searching for something there. “What did you want to be when you were younger? You know, when people asked you what you wanted to be when you grew up? Before you were old enough for them to be all judgy about it.”
“A swimmer. Michael Phelps, specifically.”
“Even when you were little?”
“As long as I can remember.”
She doesn’t say anything, just looks at that space over my shoulder again, like she’s not sure what to say.
“It’s not really a practical career, though.” I can almost hear my dad’s voice in mine. “It’s the kind of thing you do on the side. You know, nights and weekends at some high school or club team.”
“I mean, it’s not an actual college major, like that’s your only option when you graduate. It’s just an end goal. You get a degree in something else.” She shrugs. “Education, maybe? You’d be a great teacher… Or there’s business administration…sportsadministration. The grad student who helped my high school team was studying sports psychology.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to be a counselor?” I tease.
“Positive.” Sidney is smiling, and it’s the new normal. Everything seems to make her smile; it makes me wonder how hard she had to work to keep that from me every summer.
When our feet finally hit the rocky bottom again, we hoist ourselves back onto the rainbow-colored float, our bodies side by side, our feet dangling off the edge. Sidney’s head rests on my bicep, and our sides are pressed up against each other.
Just as I’m contemplating whether we could make out as we float, a group of canoes cuts through the water next to us. It feels like we’re alone out here, but we’re definitely not. So instead, I just think about dead puppy dogs and fish rotting under my bed, and definitelynotSidney lying right next to me in her bikini. And when I get back to my room hours later, I lay on my bed and stare at my phone as a list of careers that arenotwhat my dad wants fills my screen. There’s no harm in just looking.
Sidney
After being so close to Asher for three hours, it feels weird to be a room apart. I look at the bathroom door, imagining him on the other side, then look at my bedroom door, and wonder what’s on the other side. Could he be out in the living room, hoping I’ll come out, too? It’s a long shot that he’s as amped up to see meas I am him, but I slide off of my bed in my pajamas and take a chance anyway. I’m careful to open my door quietly, and to not look too eager when I emerge from the hallway, just in case the parents are still up. But the living room is empty and quiet and dark. I look down the hallway, all of the doorways dark.
Inside my room, I open my bathroom door and push through to find that Asher’s side is wide open.Interesting.I take a deep breath and walk across my room to press the lock on my bedroom door. The confidence I had walking out to the living room disappears as I cross the distance to Asher’s door and prop myself against the door frame, trying to look casual.Oh hey, I’m always strutting into guys’ bedrooms at midnight in my pajamas.Asher is lying in bed, his face illuminated by the soft glow of his phone.
“Hey,” he says softly.
“You wanna watch a movie?” I wonder if he sees through me, to the part that desperately just wants to be pressed up against him again, and will take any excuse to crawl into that bed.
He sets his phone down on his nightstand and picks up the little black remote that’s sitting there. His bed is pushed up against the wall under the window, so my choices are to crawl on from the end, or crawl over him. I choose the first. Asher props a pillow up behind me, and I settle next to him, our legs and arms pressed up against each other.
He sets his hand on the bare skin above my knee, and it takes every ounce of self-control I have not to close my eyes. Because this feels like a dream, alone in the dark with him. I shift toward him, curling my chest against his arm, and it shifts his hand to my inner thigh, his fingers grazing the sensitive skin there.
He points the remote at the TV. So I guess we’re going through with this charade, the one where we watch TV in the dark in his bed. “What do you want to watch?” My cheek is pressed against his arm and I feel the words vibrate through him.
“I don’t care.”
Asher stops at the first thing that comes on—a sad war movieI watched with my parents a few years ago—and I drown out the voices as every inch of me focuses on the spot where Asher’s hand rests on my thigh, his thumb stroking up and down, so slightly that I’m not entirely sure he knows he’s doing it. Maybe I’m the only one not watching this movie. Maybe he doesn’t realize that if his fingers keep rubbing in that spot, I will crawl out of my skin and leave it behind like a lizard. Because if I don’t run out of here soon, the only other option is to get closer.
As if he can hear me, his thumb strokes wide arches, and his fingers curl and uncurl, and with each stroke against my bare skin, my body feels like it’s pleading with me to push myself closer to him. When he moves his hand and puts it back at his side, it feels like a monumental loss, like taking away a birthday present or dessert. But then he twists toward me, and we’re chest-to-chest. Then we’re mouth-to-mouth.
Asher’s hand is back on my thigh, higher than last time, at the edge of my sleep shorts, very close to where none of my ten-day boyfriends ever touched me. He pulls his mouth from mine, the space so tiny our lips are almost touching. “Is this okay?” His fingers slip under the edge of my shorts, and I feel like I should say no, but I don’t want to. I kiss him, and nod against his mouth, and his hand moves against me again, a little clumsily, as layers of thin fabric between us are touched and lifted, pushed aside. Soon we are wrapped up together, a mess of kissing lips and searching hands, and twining legs seeking friction against each other.
