“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” I say. I’ve been thinking about it a lot over the last few weeks. And I’ve made up my mind. “If you want to, with me, that is. I’m not trying to pressure you.”
He swears softly. “It’ll be a miracle if I can make it all the way back to the van. But if you change your mind, you can, you know? At any point. Even in the middle of it.”
But I don’t change my mind.
Not on the way to the van, or when we’re dumping his surfboard out to make room. And not when he’s asking me a dozen times if I’m sure, and trying to convince me otherwise by doing the fabulous thing he did to me in the museum with his
ngers, which only makes me want him more. Not when we
start, and he’s being careful and slow and deliberate, and I can’t bear to look at his face, but I don’t know where to look, so I’m looking between us, because I’m worried it will be messy, and that it’s going to hurt, and it does, but the pain is over fast, and then it’s just … so much more intense than I expected. But he’s going so slow, and then he says—
“Are you still okay?” in a husky, breathless voice.
Yes, I still am.
And I don’t change my mind in the middle of it, when it’s overwhelming, and he stops, because he’s afraid I want him to stop, but I’m okay—I’m so okay—and convince him to keep going.
And not after, when we’re clinging to each other like the world just fell apart and is slowly clicking back together, piece by piece, breath by breath … heartbeat by beautiful heartbeat.
I do not regret a single moment.
• • •
“What is this?” I ask some time later, tugging on something white that’s wedged in a crevice as we lie tangled together on an old blanket in the back of the van. In the back of my mind, I’m thinking that I know for sure I saw another condom in the rst-aid kit, and I’m wondering how long I have to wait to bring this up without looking too eager. But I’m propped up on my elbows and Porter’s lazily running his ngers across my back, meandering down my butt and the back of my leg, and this feels pretty freaking good, so I guess I’m in no hurry.
?e jagged object I shimmy out of the crevice is about an inch long and triangular, and it’s got a piece of silver tted on one side, through which a silver jump ring is attached.
“Huh. I thought I lost that,” he says, pausing my sensual back scratch to take it from me. “?at came out of my arm. Genuine great white tooth. It’s a lucky charm. Or a curse, whichever way you want to look at it. I had it on my key chain, but I was switching keys out and set it down. Must have rolled off the seat or something.”
“It’s huge,” I say.
“No way, that’s just a baby tooth. You saw the sharks at the aquarium. Great white was twice their size. And he was a teenager.”
I try to imagine the tooth implanted in Porter’s arm. “I know it’s a bad memory, but the tooth itself should be survivor’s pride, or something. A badge of honor.”
“You want to borrow it?”
“Me?”
“For your scooter keys. Might match your whole animal-print vibe.” He pauses. “I mean, if it’s too much, no big deal. I’m not trying to brand you, like you’re my girl or anything.”
Because if people see this, they’ll de nitely know we’re dating each other. “Am I? Your girl, I mean.”
“I don’t know. Are you?” He offers the shark tooth in his open palm, hesitates, and closes his ngers around it. “If you are, you have to promise me something rst.”
“What’s that?”
“You’ve got to start opening up to me.” He glances toward my back. “Look, I totally understand why you didn’t tell me the whole story about the gunshot wound until now, but you can’t be that way around me anymore. I already had a girlfriend who kept things from me, and I spent weeks walking around oblivious while she was screwing Davy behind my back.”
“First, ew, I have better taste than that, and second, I would never do that to you.”
He kisses my ear. “I believe you.”
“So, yeah, speaking of Chloe … Were you and Davy having sex with Chloe at the same time?”
“Together?” He sounds appalled.
