Authors: Jolene Perry
It didn’t work.
“Are you that worried about getting so attached that you can
’t
just enjoy his
body
?”
My cheeks flame and I stare at the ground. “I can’t be like that. Like you and
Sam
. I just can’t. We’ve had this conversation
before
.”
“Well, I can’t either I guess because I’m all-in with Alex right now.” She slumps, but she’s also beaming.
I’ve been so wrapped up in myself that I haven’t been paying much attention to
Kay-Kay
or
Sam
. “What’s up?”
“I think you can guess.” She even tries to hold in her smile, which is so weird because she’s
her
.
“A big deal then, huh?”
“A big deal,” she agrees.
“Well, all I do is big deals, and I’m not sure if I can do the ‘big deal’ thing with someone who doesn’t live in this country and should be dating a supermodel.”
Kay-Kay
snorts. “You say that only because you have zero clue how gorgeous you are.”
My mouth hangs open.
“I’m off to set up targets. You should come by today. See if those swimmer’s arms can pull a bow.” She walks b
ackwards a few steps to wink at
me and jogs off.
“Maybe I will,
” I call back.
Anything to make sure I’m busy enough to not sink into my thoughts.
I catch sight of the boys hiking in a line on the trail that skims the outer edge of the camp. They do this hike once a year, sending the girls into a ridiculous uproar of girl squealing. Fortunately this year, they’re up earlier, and we won’t have to deal with the backlash of the boys being half inside the girls’ camp.
Jeff’s eyes catch mine—he’s pulling up the tail.
I don’t have it in me
to deal with Jeff today.
“Jody!” He jogs toward me, breaking their line and all I can think is that my name doesn’t sound nearly as amazing coming from him as from
Liam
.
“Looks like you’re busy, Jeff.” I point to the boys continuing to move through the trees.
“Trust me.” He smirks. “I can catch up.”
“What do you want?”
“I’ve been calling and calling.” He’s out of breath, and his foreh
ead is beaded fro
m sweat in the heat.
“And
I’ve
been not wanting to talk to you.”
“Yeah. I get that.”
“What do you want
,
Jeff? Because I’m all out of patience here.”
“I didn’t know I hurt you. I didn’t want to. I really thought you didn’t need me, and that—”
“Wait. Wait. Wait.” I hold my hand up between us. “You’re right. I don’t need you. I didn’t need you. That’s not what being with someone is about.”
He tries to hold in his sigh. This is something I’ve seen from him a few times. More than a few. Every time I said something he didn’t agree with but didn’t want to argue over. “Do you think we can get together and just talk?”
“I think I’m pretty talked out.”
He glances over his shoulder at the group of boys who is almost out of sight. “Will you at least answer my texts?”
“Maybe.” I turn to get breakfast before the masses of girls stumble out of bed.
I can hear Jeff start to say something else behind me, but
it’s lost on me
.
Probably
for the
best.
Kay-Kay
’s a brilliant teacher. Even the wimpy girls are into it. It helps, I’m sure, that the movie
Brave
came out not long ago—not to mention
Hunger Games
.
“You can’t have
some boy choosing your destiny,” s
he yells at them with a smile. “If you’re put in the position where a group of losers is fighting to be able to marry you, you want to be able to get in the middle of it and hit the bull’s eye!”
And then she stumbles over her words when Alex walks by and gives her a wink. She’s right. Whatever they have must be big. She never loses her cool.
I pull back the bow, and let it fly. I’m nowhere near the bull’s eye, but I did hit the target, and for me, that’s a win.
S
am
walks by, but she’s so buried in her phone that I don’t know if she sees anything else. I know her
decision to come
here was last minute, and it makes me wonder if she’s here because she wants to be here, or if it was an escape.
I’m loving the freedom I have this year. There’s a lot more paperwork in keeping track of the girls and the counselors, but having nearly all my nights off is definitely worth it.
It’s time to face
Liam
again, so it’s good that I have the time, but also bad for the same reason—no excuses to not talk.
My stomach’s in knots the whole way to the Little Minnow, but I called ahead this time to make sure he was off-shift.
Again I wish I could come back next summer. I think about how lucky Alex is in teaching school all winter, allowing him to be here every year. Though, it sounds like he won’t make it back next year. My heart leaps because that’ll mean his job will be open. I want it bad.
The Little Minnow is packed, like always, but I’m after
Liam
.
Bill has two cabins he uses for family to visit in the winter and for his bartenders in the summer.
Liam
’s supposed to be in the second.
I run all the details of him through my head, wanting to distract myself from how horribly I left things. Or how ridiculously juvenile I was.
There are three books on his small porch next to the large camp chair, and it takes everything in me not to peek as I knock on the door.
I clutch my hands behind my back
,
wondering what I hope to accomplish here. Apologize? Be friends? Try for another kiss? My heart sprints at that thought.
No
Liam
.
I knock again and lean sideways. The book on top is
Plato’s Republic
. Is he smart, or just into philosophy? Or is it on top to be pretentious?
Maybe I’d know if I could see the other two.
I scoot the first book over just enough to see a
Steph
en King, and I smile. Better.
“Jody.” His voice comes from behind me.
I spin around nearly knocking his books over.
“Snooping?” He’s smiling, but maybe trying to hold it in. It presses his lips and dimples in a very, very nice way.
“I…” I’ve lost all coherent thought.
And then I slump a little because I’m here but I have no words for him. I don’t know what to say, how to start, why I came.
“I’m glad you’re here.”
“Yeah…I…”
“Come inside.”
I’m not sure I should be inside with him for how my body reacts, but he steps through the door, leaving it open for me and my need to be here
,
and my curiosity
at where he lives take over.
I find myself closing the door behind me and stopping to take in the small room.
There’s a small fireplace in one corner. A large bed under a window, a
small
kitchen
ette
and a couple of chairs. Simple. There are four tall stacks of books near the bed. Two laundry bins. One has folded clothes, the other doesn’t. Not perfect, but not messy.
He glances to where I’m staring.
“I don’t know many people here. And despite how I seem to be with you, I’m not good at making new friends. And I like to read.” The pause is long. “And there are no bookshelves.”
“Oh. Look, I—”
But he star
t
s to say something at the same time, and now we’re both in awkward silence again.
“Please come in. You don’t need to stand by the door.” He sits on his bed, and I slowly move into the room to take a chair, but he pats the bed and we end up facing each other. Legs crossed. Sadly, I can’t relax into it.
We stare at one another for a moment, but I’m still not sure what to say. I’m here, and I
hadn’t gotten any
further than that.
“Okay.” He pushes out a breath. “I’m gonna start, because you seem to be out of words today.”
“I…” But I trail off, knowing it’s true. I’m here. I hadn’t thought
of what was supposed to be next
.
“We’re at that really cool place where we get to learn all about each other, and I screwed it up with a kiss.” He rests his elbows on his knees.
“No, I—”
“I screwed it up with a kiss,” he insists. “I want to know about your family and where you went to school, and how you got into doing triathalons, and when you started wearing those T-shirts.” He points to the phrase across my chest—
Run Like A Girl. If You Can Keep Up.
“And why you come to this camp. Everything.”
I still don’t have words, and
I
stare at him and wonder why he would care. At the same time, it’s all the same things I want to know about him. How he grew up. His family. Why he’s here.
“I think the
physical
stuff is
all here. I don’t remember reacting to a woman like I do to you.”
I blush at the way he’s looking at me and him calling me a
woman
. I still think of myself as a girl.
“
So
I think
that
part of
us, if we get to be an “us” is
here
and will be easy
.” He reaches out and runs his fingers down my arms
,
lighting my body on fire.
I close my eyes and pray that I don’t do anything stupid or embarrassing. I manage to nod. “Yes.” My voice cracks. “That’s all here.”
“So now maybe you and I get to decide if we match up here.” He touches his forehead and then mine. “And that’s the part I screwed up because I knew how good it would feel to kiss you
,
and you were talking and so worried and so full of things to talk about, and I didn’t think. I just had to know what you would taste like.”
“Like burgers, right?” I try to tease, but really am trying to swallow so I can breathe.
“Like
you
. And I want to know you more.
Better
.”
“But you live in Ireland,
” I blurt out. Because that’s something that’s been completely unspoken between us.
“Geography.” He shrugs.
How can he be talking about starting some kind of relationship and just ignore that we live a half a world away? “Yeah. Well. Kissing someone across an ocean doesn’t really work for me.”
“So. You want to
stop this before we even give it a chance?”
“I can’t believe you put it all out there like this.” I shake my head.
“It’s my weird thing. I’ve got to have everything in the open,” he says. “And, not talking doesn’t work either, does it?”
He’s right. Maybe the whole Jeff thing came out of nowhere because we had our routine, and it’s just what we did. We didn’t take the time to keep getting to know each other… I don’t know.
“No. That doesn’t work either.” I scoot toward him until our knees touch, and slide my hands down over his biceps, the crook of his arm, down his forearms until my fingers rest in his hands, and he clasps his fingers with mine.
Ther
e are parts of me that
never felt closer to someone than I do right now. I decide I’m going to take what I want. Or at least ask for it. I lean forward until my lips press against his. He kisses me back immediately and then pulls slightly away, just enough so that our foreheads are touching.
“Are you sure?” he asks.
“I want to know all the things about you still.”
“I know. I get that. But right now, I want the other part.”
“The physical part?” His voice coils around my lower belly and suddenly I’m burning hot.
I answer him with a kiss. Suddenly I feel like an amateur kisser because he doesn’t fall
into the rhythm that Jeff
did where it felt like
he was
trying to
swallow my
face.
Liam’s
taking his time. Tasting me. Sliding his fingers across my collarbone, behind my ear, through my hair, and then trailing his lips down the same path.
And his lip ring feels cool and strange and not at all awkward. I trail my tongue around it, pulling a moan from him.