Thief
I woke up on one of the bench seats, hot beneath a thin blanket. It took a second for the night to coincide with the day—me, on Levi’s dad’s boat. . .
The bottle of wine several spaces from me on the sole of said boat. . .
Summer heat settling back in. . .
Levi.
He was up, folding another blanket at one of the other bench seats. He’d moved me from the sole to here, then stayed with me all night. Carried me. It was only a few steps, but the image still sent a wave of wakefulness through my skin.
I pushed myself up. “Hey.” My throat was scratchy and I could barely swallow.
Levi moved to the mini fridge and came over to me holding out a bottle of water. “Hey,” he said with a wisp of a smile. “Drink this slowly,” he warned as I took the bottle, slowing my rush to chug. My mouth was a desert, this water the miracle river.
The other bottle captured me in a stare-off, a challenge to drink what was left or release it to the bay. I wouldn’t drink more, because I didn’t like who I was when I drank. I learned I was way more awkward and that was a trait I’d been trying to extract from my molded marrow. And I wouldn’t contaminate the sea with my dad’s wine—with my dad—but I still pictured myself pouring the rest down a drain. So now I’d have to make the image real.
I next saw my phone, lying where I’d left it on my bed, and wondered if my dad had tried to call me when I hadn’t returned home. It wasn’t a crime free town anymore, since I stole his alcohol. I was a thief. Who learned from another thief. My dad, stealing a life. This town had let in a criminal months ago.
My dad had old, unfixable wiring, and he’d made me the same way with him, looking for any form of care around corners just for that appearance of love that came with metal bars I could reach through but never break through. Walls I could shake but never tear down. Clouds covering just a sliver of sun.
I needed that missed call and mixed messages as much as I needed a new number.
“I called my dad,” Levi told me, beside me again, when I managed to sit up. He was now folding the blanket he’d given me, just so, even lines and perfect corners, and I knew he’d gotten that from his mom. I pictured them folding things together.
Right before I froze at his words.
Right before I took in his face as he said them, seeing what it was like not to be hung up on. He had a truly caring dad. Sunny skies in open fields with only a fence.
But Elliot would still be disappointed. His son stayed with me all night as I engaged in underaged drinking on his boat.
Normal disappointment. Normal . Not stark and distant disappointment that led to silence.
“You don’t have to worry,” Levi told me next, a hold on my gaze, taking in the fragments of that worry in my face. “It’s cool. And you know,” he added, his tone a bit edged, his jaw a bit hard, “we’re supposed to disappoint our parents at this age.” He gave me a half smile, assuring. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Well, you did, but…” said a man—Elliot, as he walked into my sight on the dock, the older version of Levi’s half smile on his mouth. “It’s not the end of the world.”
Those were the words I needed to hear, an instant smile with my relief.
He joined us on the boat and shared a look with Levi, before Levi walked off to occupy himself at the bow.
I straightened, cagey, as his dad closed in.
“Are you okay?” he asked me, the question as firm and kind as his eyes, and my inhale was sharp at the immediate sickness in my stomach. The water I’d drunk sloshed. I told myself the feeling was from the hangover instead of the fatherly concern itself feeling off.
My smile came back, my relief. “I think I’m getting there.”
“Good.” He nodded, slipping his hands into his shorts pockets. “You’re not getting a lecture from me,” he said. “You’ve gotten enough of those when you didn’t deserve them. You might deserve one now, but in the end, it’ll just fuel a fire in you to do it more.” I chewed at my smile. “So I’ll tell you what I told my son the first time he did this. Be careful. And I’m here to listen. If you ever need to talk about anything, I’m here and Isolde’s here. Okay? And if you’re gonna do this again—don’t—but if you do…do it on Richard’s boat.”
A laugh popped out of me as I blinked my wet lashes. “Which one’s his?”
“ Sea duction,” Levi answered as he rejoined us.
“Like, s-e-a-duction?” I asked to clarify the emphasis.
He lifted his brows in yes and his dad said, “And he has none of it.”
Levi and I laughed. I mouthed thank you to his dad and he smiled another nod.
They had plans to sail later today and invited me along. I rushed home with the wine bottle clutched to my chest and real dreams on my heart.
Levi told me to ask him something tomorrow . It was tomorrow. And I was making things happen. I wasn’t sure exactly when , but today was the day.
My first stop was the vacant kitchen. The thud of the bottle in the trash was the final drop of my stomach, the last sinking in my chest.
But it wasn’t. How my dad had twisted me would always leave me bent. And that’s what he’d given me, dents in my heart to pump love around.
A roommate, until I was gone.
He’d tolerate me as I’d tolerate him. But we wouldn’t know each other.
I ate something to settle my stomach, then I used the bathroom and cleaned myself up, coaching myself in another one of my hottest outfits—my sleeveless white romper with buttons, the shorts part a pastel pink with a bow at the waist—at my closet mirror, complete with my ChapStick to keep my lips softer. I talked to myself as if I were Clara.
She told me I could do this.
She said Levi told me to ask him again because he wants to kiss me too.
She told me he wanted to be my boyfriend and cheered me on for planning to tell him I wanted the same.
I repeated after her, then I rushed back out the door.
You missed every shot you didn’t take, and it wouldn’t be in my blood to do that.
****
The lullaby of the sea was a steady vibration with my nerves as they got the best of me most of the trip.
And it seemed they were contagious.
Levi was the slightest bit shaky, in his voice and his breaths. We were both quieter, stumbling over steps and words, while we focused ourselves to the views outside the boat, saving our voices for what was coming, what had come, everything that was happening, everything we had to say.
When we made it back to the dock, Elliot got called off by a man who seemed to be waiting for us—for him, who turned out to be Sea duction Richard, who, though he had none of it, Elliot climbed off to meet like he could sense some kind of tension he had to escape on his Gilligan.
He’s leaving us alone.
I owed him another thank you.
And we were, finally, alone.
And there was tension. It was coiled through Levi’s arms as he worked around the boat, thick in the air, as I helped him.
Our different duties forced some space between us, because I really did want to help, but. . .
“Levi.” His name from my mouth was the snap we needed, an unwinding wind for the release of my next words and his gust of laughter after I said them. “I have a question.”
He tilted his lingering smile at me. “I might have an answer.”
I chuckled, the sound of my nerves. “Yours is the answer I want.”
He hesitated, for a few thudding heartbeats, then he moved to me, my gasp a yes and a please and an oh my god as he dropped the rope in his hands and filled them with me instead, holding me around the waist like he thought I’d fly away.
I held him back with fists at his shoulders like I wouldn’t dare.
His forehead touched mine, his eyes tracing like he was memorizing my face, his breath my breath.
The taste of the anticipation was almost as good as the taste of him, when he finally kissed me. A firm press of his mouth to mine.
I followed his lead. When his lips parted, mine parted. Soft, slow, lingering movements. Each one eased my thudding heart as it followed, too, a steady pulsing at each place we were connected.
“If I’m bad at this—” I breathed out when he pulled back the slightest bit, his hands moving up to my jaw.
“You’re not,” he breathed back, before his mouth recaptured mine in a much different way that had my knees weak.
This kiss was deep and eager and so wanting.
I was still squeezing wrinkles all in his shirt until he showed me where he wanted my hands, moving them up into his hair. He released a soft moan that shook through my entire body when I tugged on the strands.
I didn’t move his hands, because they felt good pressed into my hips, and because I could’ve collapsed right there if his hold wasn’t keeping me on my feet.
If his then moved and continued kisses to my face—my nose, my chin, both cheeks, everywhere—weren’t giving me a moment to breathe in gulps of air and out a giggle rush.
That was better than any first kiss I’d read about and I had a lot of them stored in my head. This was real , and I both never wanted to go back and I wanted to read a whole bunch more with this new perspective—my own, and see how no other hero would compare to mine.
Levi rested his forehead to mine as he rested his lungs, with the flickering remains of his own smile, catching the breaths I stole from him. “That night, when you said you needed things to happen to you…I’d just met you and…” His eyes sparked the same way they had then, his fingers curling in where he still held me at my hips. “I wanted to be one of those things.”
I sighed into him, ready to soar on finally knowing for sure he’d also felt something between us that night. “I wanted you to be too. And you did, you…are.” My voice dropped, shook. “And now we can happen to each other.”
My fingers touched the bob in his throat, shaky, too, against his skin as I licked my lips, now kissed and ready for everything that came next, saying what that was as an attempted flirt as I traced the column of his neck. “I’ve never had a boyfriend, either, so if I’m bad at this too…”
Levi’s lips parted, a breath, a pause, then I heard words, but they weren’t his.
He turned around to greet the voice—voices as his dad stepped into our view, with Adam coming up behind him.
“Look who I found,” Elliot announced.
Adam.
Adam was back. Today. He wasn’t coming back soon , he was coming back today.
“Whoa,” he said, his playful grin on me as he climbed down after Elliot to meet us. “Look at you.” He tugged lightly on one of my curls, the gesture and the suddenness of his presence tugging at my smile. Then he was beckoned away again by Elliot to continue their conversation up the boat.
I heard Levi tell him, “I thought you wouldn’t be in until tonight,” but I didn’t hear Adam’s response, as the three were now a group and I was one for a moment, my head spinning. Remembering. Wondering.
Remembering how Adam, though he just wanted to show me what I was missing, had asked to kiss me—twice, and I’d just kissed his best friend.
Wondering when Levi and I were going to tell him. Thinking how we were going to tell him we were dating now.
Levi hadn’t confirmed with his words, but his mouth had already said against mine that he was about to right before Elliot and Adam showed.
The moment blinked—or I did, and I was standing with them as they tried to pull me into the conversation. But I was still spinning, wondering, my insides tottery and heartened and giddy, secured by a kiss but needful for that next moment.
I swayed and smiled with my dewy-eyed hope through this present one, waiting for everything to really begin.