Seth smiled affectionately. “Everyone, this is Hiroku Hayashi, and he’s here to make sure everything is OSHA-approved.”
They laughed at me, but it wasn’t in a mean-spirited way, more like I was a novelty to them. Seth situated me right on top of his crotch, which probably wasn’t an accident—he loved to make me squirm. The two girls in the back seat scooted closer together and didn’t complain about being squished.
Mitchell introduced me to his older brother Caleb and their girlfriends, Jeannie and Sasha. Sasha had died black hair, thick black eyeliner, and so many piercings she was probably magnetic. Jeannie had a pretty heart face and warm brown eyes with a dainty piercing in her right nostril. Except for Seth, they all called Mitchell by his first name, but I couldn’t get used to it, so I stuck with what I knew.
We drove out to McKinney Falls, a place I hadn’t been since I was a kid. The park has this huge limestone table where the water from Onion Creek flows over its edges into pools large enough for swimming. The distance from the stone ledge to the water below was about twenty feet. My parents were too afraid for our safety to let me or Mai jump when we visited, so we ended up splashing around in the water and having a picnic on the rocky bank.
But I remembered watching the older kids jump off the cliff and wishing I could too.
I didn’t have a bathing suit with me, but neither did anyone else, so we all stripped down to our underwear and acted like that was normal. Seth, for once, had worn boxer briefs. Black ones that clung to his ass like a second skin. Seth caught me checking him out and smiled roguishly, further evidence that my thoughts were completely transparent to him.
I never liked cursing in front of little kids, and our bunch was pretty foul-mouthed, but luckily there weren’t many other people out, so we could be as obnoxious as we wanted. They’d been to the falls several times before, so they all raced to the ledge and then debated as to who should go first. Mitchell grabbed Jeannie, lifted her easily over his shoulder, and threatened to toss her in. Jeannie screamed bloody murder until finally he let her go. She was still laughing though, and I thought the whole ruse was just an excuse for him to touch her. I wished Seth would do something similar because I wanted his hands on me.
“I’ll go first,” I offered because the longer I waited, the more my anxiety grew. Whenever I was confronted with a situation such as that, I always preferred to grit my teeth and get it over with, rather than dick around.
“I’ll go with you,” Seth said. “Count of three.”
We perched at the edge of the rock. The adrenaline thrummed inside me like vibrations through a taut wire as I surveyed the water below to estimate its depth. The surface looked farther away from up here, and it made my insides a little squirmy, but there was no way I could back down now.
“One…” Seth took hold of my hand. “Two…” He glanced over at me, held my gaze. “Three…”
We jumped, releasing each other just before we hit the water. I dropped in like a pencil. The water was cold and sliced right through me. I stayed there for a moment in the deep, letting the thrill of it roll through me, tickling me all the way to my toes.
When I surfaced, Seth’s eyes were electric. “Like that?” he asked, and I nodded enthusiastically.
The girls went next and then Mitchell and Caleb. Each time I was perched at the edge of the cliff, I expected the thrill to be dulled somehow, but my adrenaline spiked every time, the water shocked me, and my body responded.
“You might be an adrenaline junkie,” Seth said after my ninth go-round.
I was the last to jump. The five of them were all laid out on the rocks, warming themselves in the late afternoon sun like lizards. Nearly naked with their limbs draped casually across one another so that it was hard to tell where one body ended and the other began. I used the camera on my phone to snap a couple of pictures, wishing I had my real camera to properly capture the pastoral quality of our surroundings and the group of them lounging there like river nymphs.
Seth motioned me over. I dropped down, and he guided my head to his stomach. The rock was rough but warm against my back. My chest and arms had goose bumps and my nipples pebbled from the cold. Seth draped his arm casually over my chest and stroked my belly, which tickled a little, but I didn’t dare stop him. I luxuriated in his touch.
Mitchell and Caleb talked about some of the crazy shit they’d seen working at the gas station, and the girls’ laughter tinkled like wind chimes. A lazy smile stretched across my face. Even though I didn’t say much to contribute, I felt accepted and part of something in a way I never had before.
After a while when we were all dried out, the guys wanted to go make camp. We got dressed, and I started to go with them, but Jeannie grabbed my hand. “We’re keeping Hiroku here with us.”
Seth eyed Sasha in particular and seemed about to argue, but Sasha cut him off with, “Hurry back now, boys.”
We stayed there on the rocks, sitting with our legs crossed in a huddle like schoolgirls gossiping during recess. They wanted to know what grade I was in, how Seth and I met, whether we were together or not. I couldn’t answer the last one conclusively. “We’re together for now, I guess.”
Sasha laughed. “That sounds just like something Seth would say.” Jeannie nodded, but I could only worry at what that meant. I didn’t like to think about it.
“Seth’s a player, huh?” I asked them.
Sasha nodded enthusiastically. “Total slut.”
Somehow that sounded worse.
“But he seems to really like you,” Jeannie said. “He doesn’t usually introduce us to his…” She stole a glance at Sasha. “Friends.”
I wondered what it was she was going to say.
“Your skin’s so clear,” Jeannie said, perhaps trying to change the subject. “What do you use?”
I shrugged. “Soap.”
“Not fair,” Sasha groaned. “It’s so pretty. I wish I was…what are you?”
