He throws his shirt at me and I throw it back, but not before catching a whiff of it. Ack. Sensory overload. I claim the lawn chair on the other side of my sister. Physical distance helps. I close my eyes and try to envision the perfect wave instead of imagining what Chris looks like naked. Unfortunately it morphs into what Chris would look like surfing the perfect wave while naked, so then I imagine my fingernails being pulled from their nail beds because only thoughts of physical torture seem to work in these situations.
Tabs sits up, hands the sunscreen to Chris, and asks him to do her back. Without waiting for a reply, she angles toward him and sweeps up her ponytail. Like it’s nothing.
I tell them I have to use the bathroom so I won’t have to watch the rub-a-thon. Inside, I say hello to Paloma and ask about her mother, who’s still recovering from a recent illness. They’re from the Dominican Republic, and I think she likes speaking Spanish to me. We catch up for a bit. Then I hang out for a while in the bathroom, wash my hands meticulously, and count to a hundred until I’m sure the sunscreening is over.
When I come back, they’ve traded places and Tabs is doing Chris’s shoulders. I can tell she’s enjoying it. Really working it in there with the palm of her hand and taking her time. Who wouldn’t? All that warm, teasing skin…. I don’t want to watch, but I can’t seem to look away, so I stand there trapped with a crampy feeling in my balls.
“You need sunscreen?” Chris asks.
I turn fifty shades of red and stammer, “No, I’m good.” The last thing I want is to sprout a hard-on while Chris rubs my back. Jesus, I hope this is just some weird hormonal thing. I’d take acne and voice cracks over impromptu erections any day.
“Brown people burn too,” Tabs says, our mother’s constant reminder.
“I’ll be all right,” I say tightly.
The three of us lounge around in the shallow end, soaking up the sun and our last few days of freedom before school starts. My sister gossips about what went on while Chris was away visiting his dad in California, which couples from school have broken up and who’s gotten back together, who’s cheated or been cheated on. Who’s pregnant or on drugs or in rehab. I tune her out and quietly float on a raft until I hear her start talking about our birthday.
“Guess who’s turning sixteen soon?” she says to Chris.
“Ummm, Theo?” he says with a smile on his face.
She punches his arm playfully. “And me.”
“Really, I thought you were at least seventeen by now.”
She shakes her head and laughs. It echoes across the water, and my twin-sense tells me she’s working up to something. My ears perk up.
“So, I was thinking…,” she says in that nasally voice she gets with my dad whenever she wants something.
“What were you thinking?” Chris asks, playing along.
“I was thinking maybe I could have my birthday party here.” She motions with her manicured hands at the pool and surrounding veranda.
“No,” I call from my inflatable island in the deep end. I hate it when she asks our dad for things. Asking Chris is, like, a million times worse.
Chris ignores me and says, “Will there be a lot of hot chicks here?”
I roll my eyes and groan at his predictability.
“A ton,” she says with this huge smile on her face, and I already know he’s going to give in to her. Everyone does. My sister’s a master at getting her way.
“Will you plan it without any help from me?” he asks.
“Of course I will.” She claps her hands together.
“Will you help clean up?”
“A thousand times yes!”
“One last question.” He glances over at me. “Will I be invited to this party?”
She laughs and strategically places one hand on his bare shoulder. Seeing her touch him like that gets me all moody and pissed. I hate feeling that way toward Chris. And my sister too. I wish I could stop it, or even better, rewind my biology back to when I didn’t have these feelings at all.
“You’ll be my guest of honor, Christian Mitcham,” she says dramatically.
Chris waggles his eyebrows at me. “And what about birthday boy over there, is he invited?”
Tabs turns and lowers her sunglasses, stares at me like I’m the mutant tail she just can’t seem to shake. “I guess so. It’s his birthday too.”
