“You sure know how to make up for shit,” I reply and take it from Mrs. Jones.
“You boys enjoy your night,” she says, and we turn and walk through the crowd as I tear open the plastic bag and yank off a big, fluffy piece.
I shove it in my mouth and savor the feeling of it melting on my tongue as I tip the bag to him. He yanks off a smaller piece and pops it in his mouth. “I really shouldn’t. It’s pure sugar and I’ve got training camp starting soon.”
“All the more reason to eat garbage now. You’ll be on nothing but kale and egg whites there,” I remind him. “Where is this one again?”
Abbott goes away every summer for three weeks to different hockey camps. It sucks because I miss him. He’s been my best friend forever, and although I’m not a social recluse, and I have other friends, I find myself spending more and more time with him lately. He gets me. I get him. It’s just easy with Abbott.
“Montreal,” Abbott replies. “The coach of the NHL team there and a bunch of ex-players run it. My dad says it’s a good chance to get noticed. The draft is just two years away.”
“Is that why you made out with Stacy?” I ask when I could and probably should be asking a bunch of other questions. Like is he nervous for the draft? Does he care what team he goes to? Does he have a backup plan if he doesn’t get picked? What college will he go to instead? But no. Instead, I ask about the girl. Because it bugs me. “Because you’re leaving and wanted to hook up with her first?”
“Nah.” Abbott shrugs as I shove more cotton candy into my mouth. “I didn’t care if I ever hooked up with Stacy. But she wanted to hook up with me so… who am I to deny?”
I laugh and he does too as we wander away from the crowd. Without speaking we both turn right. We’re walking down Seaside away from the center of town. Seaside runs parallel to the beach. If we took any of the cross streets we’d be on the sand in a matter of minutes. But we always go to the last street, Porter, and head to the beach there. It’s got a bunch of rocks and the tide runs up and makes a sand bar there. No one really sits there because the fireworks are better viewed from the other end of the beach, since they’re shot off the pier by my family’s restaurant. But we always sit there.
“You don’t deny any girl,” I note as we continue walking, the road narrowing and turning from pavement to dirt. For some reason they never paved Porter. It’s still dirt. It always reminds me of what this town must have been like in 1881 when it was founded. “I’m not judging or anything.”
“Yeah, well you deny too many girls,” Abbott replies and tears off another piece of cotton candy. “Stacy said Kasey likes you. She says you guys text and stuff, but you haven’t made a move.”
“I didn’t know she wanted me to,” I tell him and furrow my brow. “She texts about algebra homework and French assignments.”
“God you are so dense,” Abbott complains and laughs. “Women are smarter than us, dude. They don’t need help with their homework. It’s a clear sign. If she wants help with French, it’s the tongue kind.”
“What?”
“French kissing,” Abbott says, and the toe of my sneaker catches on a piece of the sidewalk and I stumble. Perfect timing. His blue eyes widen and his mouth opens in an O. His tongue is bright pink from the cotton candy. Mine is probably worse. “You do know what French kissing is, right?”
“Of course I do, jerk,” I reply and stand straighter after my almost fall. At least I didn’t drop the cotton candy. Not that there’s much left. I’ve been shoveling it into my gob pretty fast. I take another big chunk and pop it in my mouth. “I’ve done it.”
“I hope so,” Abbott says but he still looks confused. The boardwalk to the beach is a few feet away and he doesn’t speak again until we reach it. And then his voice is different. Less upbeat or something. “Who?”
“Who have I kissed?”
“Yeah. With tongue,” Abbott’s voice is still weird. He isn’t looking at me so I can’t really read his face. His eyes are focused on the planks of the board as we climb the small incline to the beach. It’s not odd. The boards are old and uneven and he probably doesn’t want to end up on his ass in the dunes that flank the boardwalk. “I just… you don’t exactly hook up a lot and you’ve never had a girlfriend.”
“That’s a choice,” I reply. “It seems like it’s nothing but drama.”
“True. That’s why I don’t have one,” Abbott replies. “But I still get with chicks. You don’t.”
“I do,” I argue. “I’ve kissed Chelsea at the homecoming dance. And Miranda from the track team and I kissed the whole way back from a meet last year. In the back seat of the bus. It was dark and shit so no one noticed.”
“Why don’t you tell me about these things?” Abbott says, his voice lightening a little. He turns his head and throws me a smile but it isn’t his normal one. Something’s different. Or maybe it’s just the darkness from the barely-there moon that makes it look less jovial.
“I’m not into the locker room brag shit,” I explain. “It feels gross… and disrespectful for the girls.”
“I don’t want the details,” Abbott argued. “And FYI, I don’t do the whole conquest sharing shit that the other guys on the hockey team do. Trust me.”
“I do,” I reply easily. I’ve never doubted Abbott on anything. Besides if he was one of those fucking douches that gave all the private details of a hook-up to anyone and everyone I’d know it because he would have blabbed to me. But he never does. Not even that time I rode my bike to his place last year and he came out of his shed in the backyard by his pool with his shirt off and his swim trunks half off his ass and a girl from his chemistry class panting heavily.
We’ve reached the end of the boardwalk so we pause to kick off our shoes before hitting the sand. There’re clusters of people on the sand a few streets over and the crowds get bigger at the other end of the seven-mile beach, closer to the fireworks. I hop down into the sand and Abbott does the same a minute later. We walk right, even farther from the crowds, towards the rocks.
“Did you like it?” Abbott asks.
“Like what?”
“Kissing girls.”
