Endless Summer: The Boys Next Door; Endless Summer (30 page)

I held up the wax. “For my own disobedience, I have to buff the boat. Then I’m going for a jog.” She tilted her head. Probably her eyes widened, but I couldn’t see them behind her sunglasses. I hated not being able to see her eyes. She asked, “In this heat?” I didn’t mind jogging in the heat. e heat was a big, friendly animal that liked to wrestle and only occasionally sat on me until I lost my breath. Anyway, she was missing the point. I repeated carefully, “I am going for a jog.”

“I heard you the first time,” she said. “It’s late afternoon in the middle of June. It’s ninety-five degrees out here.”

“He means he’s going for a jog,” Rachel and Tammy said at the same time.

“He’s going for a jog.” Lori still didn’t get it. Normally her blondeness was one of the things I loved about her. At the moment, not so much.

Exasperated, Cameron told her, “Adam wants you to go for a jog too.”

She said, “Oh!”

“If you two airheads have to hook up secretly for very long,” Sean said, “you’re not going to make it.”

“Like you’re an expert on making relationships work,” Rachel piped up.

Now Cameron and McGillicuddy moaned, rubbing in the jab at Sean. I couldn’t help but chime in. And when I saw the look Sean gave me, I regretted it. I didn’t expect him to be on my side against my parents, but I hoped he wouldn’t go out of his way to sabotage me. And sabotage was more likely if he and Rachel stayed broken up and he stewed in his own juices.

Lori was thinking the same thing—eyeing me, or so I thought. I desperately wanted to reach down from the wharf and take those sunglasses off her. She asked me, “Not that I have any interest in this whatsoever, but how long will it take you to buff the boat?”

“An hour,” I said.

“Thirty minutes,” McGillicuddy said. “I’ll help him. Then I’m taking Tammy bowling, so if you go for a jog, I won’t be around to see it.” Lori mouthed a thank you to her brother. “Okay then. Thanks for the wakeboarding tips, guys.” She started the engine and cranked the throttle into reverse.

“Wait a minute,” Rachel protested over the idling engine and the bubbling lake. “I thought we would really get some wakeboarding tips.”

“Are you kidding?” Lori shouted. “You chicks are hopeless.” Rachel and Tammy laughed with her as the boat floated backward and then idled forward, toward her dock.

We watched them go. McGillicuddy stared at Tammy’s ass in that bikini. Sean pined after Rachel. Cameron seemed astounded at the whole sight—Lori had never entertained girlfriends before—but it was impossible to tell which girl he was looking at.

And I decided that if I ever went out with Lori again, I would install ten or twelve alarm clocks in the truck to wake us up, just in case. Being grounded from her was torture.

Finally McGillicuddy said, “I’ll go get some wax.”

“Thanks, man.” I appreciated him helping me meet with Lori.

“Better you than Cameron,” McGillicuddy grumbled. “I know where Cameron’s been.”

Sean snorted.

Cameron said, “I already told you, I did not come on to Lori.”

He’d better not.

Half an hour later, I snagged two bottles of water from the fridge. I should have taken only one in case I was intercepted. But even though Lori and I had kissed a lot in the past week, Lori was squeamish about drinking after me. We’d shared drinks while riding around in my truck. She’d even used my toothbrush once. And I’d seen her hesitate. Probably because Sean had spit in her Coke ten years ago. If I were her, I would be grossed out for a long time too.

en I headed outside. e heat of the afternoon would take your breath away, but after the frigid air-conditioned house, my skin drank it in. I stuck the bottles of water in the mailbox, which couldn’t be seen from my house or Lori’s through the thick trees. She wasn’t at the road. Since hanging around our mailboxes would look guilty, she’d probably set off jogging. She was fast for a girl, but I could catch her.

Which way had she gone? We should have discussed this before. But if we’d agreed to go to the left or the right, she would have messed it up anyway. I gazed down the street dappled in shade, then turned the other way and jogged into the sun.

Normally I ran to detox my brain when Sean made me so mad I couldn’t think straight. This happened once a day or so. Running got my mind off my troubles.

is time, running did not get my mind off Lori. For one thing, the skull-and-crossbones pendant she’d given me banged against my breastbone with every step. I didn’t want to take it off, though. For another thing, when I finished this run, she would be at the end of it.

ree miles later, I’d returned to the mailboxes. at’s when I saw her jogging toward me from the other direction. Her blonde ponytail bobbed behind her. She wore nothing but a sports bra and very small running shorts, and her tanned skin shone with sweat. It was almost as good as seeing her in the bikini. Better, in a way. Lori’s body was most beautiful in action.

Lori’s brain, as usual, was a couple of steps behind her body. I swear she stared straight ahead without seeing me for a full ten seconds, listening hard to her music, daydreaming.

Then she broke into the biggest smile. She pulled out her earbuds and stuffed the cords into the armband that held the player. “Mr. Vader!” she called in the awful British accent she used when she thought somebody was mad at her. “We shan’t meet like this anon. ‘Tisn’t proper.” It was hard to stay angry. I did my best. “We weren’t even apart for twelve hours, and you flirted with Parker Buchanan.”

“I waved to Parker Buchanan.”

“You flirted with Cameron.”

“I knew you’d say that.” She reached me and put her hands on her hips, breathing hard. “He sat close to me in the boat so we could hear each other over the motor.” I believed her. The thing was—and I knew this was unreasonable—I didn’t want her talking to Cameron at all.

She bent over and put her hands on her knees. is gave me a nice view down her bra. “Cameron and I were talking about you,” she panted. “He said that you—” She straightened and looked around us at the woods. “We need to talk, and we can’t do it out here.” I stared her down, trying to stay mad at her, trying not to glance at her boobs.

She tilted her head to one side and grinned. “You’re sexy when you brood.”

I pressed my lips together.

“You’re cute when you try not to laugh.” She tickled my ribs, which were more ticklish than usual because I wasn’t wearing a shirt.

I grabbed her hand. With the middle finger of my other hand, I traced the neckline of her bra. I asked appreciatively, “Sports bra or what?” Her green eyes widened, the same color as the wild trees behind her, and her lips parted.

Suddenly it was too hot, even for me. We stood on an asphalt road that had been melting in the sun all day. I could hardly breathe the thick air. Her heartbeat raced under my fingertip.

I put my hand down. en I walked over to the mailbox and slid out the bottles of water. “Do you ever get the feeling you’re being watched?” I asked, handing her a bottle.

“Our parents may have mounted closed-circuit cameras in the poison ivy.” She uncapped the water and took a long drink.

“I wouldn’t put it past my mom at this point.” I drank too, then poured water over my head. Then poured some over hers.

She sputtered. “My hair just blew around a boat for nine hours, and I ran a few miles on the hottest day of the year. You’re ruining my look.”

“You’ll dry in thirty seconds in this heat.” I touched one finger to her wet lips. “And you’re beautiful. You’d have to work pretty hard to mess that up.” She moved her head ever so slightly. Her lips slid one millimeter against my fingertip, and electricity rushed through my whole body. I lost my breath again.

“Come on,” I choked out. With one last glance around our empty yards and the deserted road, I took her hand and pulled her away from our houses, toward the woods.

Adam let my hand go when we reached the side of the road. Blackberry brambles crowded the bank. As we tried to find a way through, it was every delinquent teenager for herself, apparently.

Out of habit I plucked a few berries and popped them into my mouth. Too late I remembered we were headed for a tryst in the forest together, not playing army with pinecone grenades and our brothers. I should not eat before kissing.

But three steps ahead of me, he plucked some berries on the fly too. Maybe this afternoon wasn’t as strange as I thought. Maybe we really were headed into the trees for a discussion, as I’d suggested. It was innocent after all. Relieved and disappointed, I bit down on the blackberries. Sweet juice filled my mouth, and then the bitter aftertaste.

I picked a few more berries as I passed. Just as my cheeks puffed out to full capacity in mid-chew, Adam found a break through the thicket and up the hill. He turned around and extended his hand to help me up.

I froze, staring at him in the thick heat, leaves tickling my legs. Boys did not help girls. Not in my experience, anyway. When I was one of the boys, they tromped ahead of me and never once looked back to see if I was still there, much less in need of assistance. Boys had helped me only recently, when they wanted something.

No, this walk through the woods would not be innocent.

Taking his hand, I said, “Fank woo.”

“Hm,” he laughed with his mouth closed.

We crashed through the forest. Since we were sneaking this time together, it seemed like we should have tiptoed along, but there was no way to walk quietly through dry leaves. It also seemed like his brothers and my brother would jump out from behind a bush at any second, or that a snake would fall heavily across my shoulders. Once Sean and Cameron had told me a story about snakes in the jungle dropping down on people from trees. en they hid in Adam’s tree house with a rubber snake and waited for me to pass by underneath. If I had not been six years old at the time and in perfect health, I would have had a heart attack.

e suspense was too much. We’d walked far enough. We couldn’t see the road or the houses that we’d reach if we kept going. e dark trunks of maples and oaks surrounded us, and the late afternoon sun made the green leaves glow overhead. I stopped behind a huge pine—keeping it between me and the road, because it offered extra protection from the prying eyes of boys and parents—and pulled Adam in front of me. “What I wanted to talk to you about was—” He kissed me. At first he gently touched his lips to mine. e more exciting development was that in order to do this, he’d stepped very close. His chest was an inch from mine. I could feel his heat. He tasted of blackberries. He leaned even closer and braced his muscular arms on the tree on either side of me.

When he broke the kiss to take a breath, I whispered, “Tree hugger.”

He opened his eyes, blue as the afternoon sky, and gave me this look. A combination of amusement and exasperation and hunger. He looked like a teenager making out in the woods. Puzzling through this, I realized that I was gazing at him from the perspective of a six-year-old girl playing army and dodging rubber snakes.

But he was this teenager, and so was I. I felt the same need for him that he felt for me, like a force was drawing me forward into his heat. I just didn’t know how to say it.

He cupped my chin with his big hand and watched me. He breathed hard through his nose. His shoulders heaved way harder than they should have after a few minutes of kissing. I was about to suggest some additional conditioning exercises before football season started. I opened my mouth to tell him.

He kissed me again. His tongue passed my lips and played across my teeth. We’d only been kissing like this for a week, but it seemed very natural when I kissed him back the same way. My body was on autopilot as I reached blindly for his waist and dragged him even closer, his torso skin-to-skin with mine against the tree. Who were we? I was turning into any of the assorted older girls who’d been seen leaving the cab of Sean’s truck at night. I’d always viewed those girls with a mixture of awe and derision.

Sexual attraction was funny. Lust was hilarious.

Now, not so much. Those girls had my sympathy, because I totally got it. I ran my fingers lightly up Adam’s bare back.

He gasped.

I opened my eyes to see if I’d done something wrong. He still touched the tree, but his muscles were taut, holding on to it for dear life. His eyes were closed. He rubbed his rough cheek slowly against mine. I had done nothing wrong. He was savoring.

I knew how he felt. Tracing my fingernails down his back again, I whispered, “Stubble or what?” Eyes still closed, he chuckled. “I’m not shaving until our parents let us date again.” He kissed my cheek.

“What if it takes… a… while?” I asked, struggling to talk. He’d made his way down to my neck. His tongue circled there slowly. “ere are only six or seven weeks until August football practice starts, right?”

“Hm.” His mouth moved up my neck, toward my ear. Oh.

“Will you be able to stuff your beard into your helmet?” I croaked.

In answer, he put his lips on my ear. I forgot the next joke I’d planned to make and lost myself in Adam.

I know this is hard to believe. We had a lot to worry about. My dad was threatening never to let us date again. And we were making out in broad daylight, with mockingbirds calling to each other and cicadas buzzing in the trees. We’d watched a lot of DVDs with our brothers over the years—or I had, and Adam had wandered in and out because he couldn’t sit still. We’d made fun of couples who suddenly decided to make out when they’d just escaped from a hoard of alien robots bent on killing them and taking their brains back to their home planet or an insidious, sentient slime that would hunt them down and eat through their flesh to their skeletons in a matter of seconds. Who could concentrate on kissing in these situations?