“I amnotgoing to be asleep.”
He bought condoms and Cherry Coke and Pringles and lip balm. When he got back to Shiloh’s dorm, he stopped to use the bathroom on one of the boys’ floors. He was still in uniform. The only other guy in the bathroom looked at him like he was a cop. Cary washed his face and dried it with a paper towel.
When he knocked on the door to Shiloh’s room, she was still awake. She’d taken a shower and put on an old-fashioned nightgown. The only light was a reading lamp, and the stereo was on, turned low.
The first thing she said was, “Don’t make fun of me.”
“I’m not going to make fun of you,” Cary said. “I’m going to kiss you.”
She held up a hand between them. “First I want to tell you that you don’t have to go through with this.”
“Neither do you, Shiloh.”
Her voice dropped. “Please, Cary. I want to.”
So did he.
Cary had had sex before—in the back seat of his mom’s car and on the couch in Angie’s basement. Never in a bed. And never with all the time in the world.
And never with the girl he loved.
He worried about disappointing Shiloh. He knew what she didn’t: that this was going to be so much faster than she expected, and so much quieter. It really was just bodies and biology, and Cary knew he didn’t have the hang of it yet. He wasn’t an expert.
They did it the first time with her nightgown still on.
Cary was worried he would hurt her, but she didn’t cry or wince. The whole thing took a few minutes. Shiloh laughed when it was over, and she wouldn’t stop kissing his face.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah. Are you okay?”
The answer was no. Cary felt hot inside, and messy. Like his true feelings were going to flood in and destroy everything. Being with Shiloh was always hard work—managing his emotions, managing her excesses. This was too much. His safeguards were failing.
He sat up and took care of the condom. He handed her the Cherry Coke.
She was softer, after. She’d gotten what she wanted, and she hadn’t decided what she wanted next. This was Shiloh in a rare moment—without an agenda.
He took off her nightgown, and they kissed some more.
Shiloh’s body was different than he’d imagined. (He’d spent a lot of time on this.) She was smaller in his fantasies. More like the girls he’d seen in magazines. More like a doll.
In life, in her bed, she was Shiloh-sized—and all skin. He couldn’t get over how long she was. Their bodies met at every angle. He wanted to see her in the light.
The second time was better.
It lasted longer. Shiloh looked in his eyes more. She made more noise.
It felt so good that he lost track of himself. Shiloh must have lost track, too. “I love you,” she said to him, while he was still inside of her. “I love you, Cary. I love you.”
They were the best two days of his life.
Holed up in Shiloh’s dorm room, between boot camp and whatever came next.
They ordered pizza and ate it in her bed. They watchedStar Trekreruns.
Cary got glimpses of Shiloh’s body in the sunlight. Her shoulders, her knees. Her bare feet.
She was less self-conscious at night—they had two nights together. Cary tried to catalog and file away every minute.
