Chapter 43
— Chapter 43 —
I do not have a bathing suit. I haven’t had one in years. I change into a pair of cutoffs and a t-shirt. I’m wearing the best underwear I have, but they’re just black cotton and the waistband is starting to ruffle. It’s dark. Maybe he won’t notice. I don’t have a choice anyway.
When I walk down to the beach, Eddie is already swimming over from the far shore with long powerful strokes, rain splashing against the water all around him. The moon is full, shining through the parted clouds, and it looks like he’s swimming in liquid silver.
I run from the beach and jump in, fully dressed. The day was hot, and the water is warm, but as I swim out to meet him on the floating dock, my legs churn up the colder water from below.
I get there first. “Beat ya!” I say when he climbs up the ladder, dock dipping under his weight, water raining from his body.
“I had to swim twice the distance!” he says, pretending to be upset. He’s shirtless, soaked swim trucks plastered to his muscled thighs.
“You could have started from the same place I did.” I try not to stare, but I can’t help myself.
“Oh, I could have, huh?” He grins, steps closer. He’s staring too, taking in the way my wet shirt clings to my body.
I nod. Inch a few steps toward him. The dock leans. Fat, cool raindrops smack against our skin. It’s been muggy for days and this is the sweetest relief.
“I don’t think,” he says, brushing my wet hair from my face, “we ever would have gotten off the beach.”
He kisses me. Our bodies touch and I lose my balance as the dock dips lower into the water, our weight no longer dispersed. He catches me and I let him. I kiss him back. His lips are full and just a little bit chapped. I can feel the tiny chip in his front tooth with my tongue. I touch his face. Kiss the place where his cheek meets his ear. I don’t understand how any of this is happening. Eddie Davis peels my wet shirt away from my skin with his rough hands, rubs his palm down the loose wet waistband of my cutoffs, fumbles with the button fly. He kisses my neck and I feel it in my toes.
“Are you on the pill?” he asks.
I shake my head.
“I didn’t bring anything.” He threads his fingers between mine. His hand is shaking. “I’m really nervous. It’s been a while.”
“It’s okay. Same for me. It’s okay.”
So we use our hands, our mouths, the friction of our bodies. And it’s better this way for now. I don’t slip away. I am not watching us from above. I am on the water in the moonlight with Eddie, feeling the warm air on our wet skin, the gentle sway of the dock beneath us, the current of his touch.
I shiver when I come and then I can’t stop shaking.
“Are you cold?” Eddie says, as if it’s possible to be cold when it’s still eighty degrees in the middle of the night.
I shake my head. “I think you’re a shock to my system.” And then I cry. I don’t mean to. I’m not sad. I’m not scared. I’m letting something go.
Eddie rolls on his side to look at me, wiping tears and pond water from my face. He kisses my forehead, rests his hand on my heart until I run out of tears. We watch the stars fade into the morning light.
“Where were you?” Jam says when I walk in the door well after sunrise, soggy and hungry, hoping to hang on to the blissful haze of Eddie’s goodbye kiss. “You look like what would happen if we gave Lenny a bath.”
“I went for a swim,” I say, instantly angry at him for being here. For observing me.
Aubrey walks partway downstairs wearing a giant Marvin the Martian t-shirt like a nightgown. Shray is behind her, in a cropped white tee and a pair of red Tuskers track shorts that might have been his dad’s. They are sleepy-faced and cranky, yesterday’s eye makeup trailing down their cheeks.
“Can you assign him quiet hours or something?” Aubrey whines, pointing at Jam.
“Jam, you need quiet hours. What times?” I ask Aubrey.
“All of them,” she says, glaring.
He sticks his tongue out at her.
“Maybe not before ten,” I tell him.
“Noon,” Aubrey shouts as she storms up the stairs, Shray following.
“You heard her,” I say, holding up my hands. “She makes the rules.”
“Seriously. You okay?” He was actually worried.
My anger fades. “Coffee?”
“Are you asking for some or offering?” Jam says.
“Either.”
“I’ll make you coffee.”
So, I shower while he does, the memory of Eddie’s body against mine already slipping away.
But then I sit next to Jam on his piano bench, drinking coffee, while he plays me the melody he just wrote.
The windows are open and there’s a light breeze that keeps the sun from making the room feel stuffy. Jam’s song is patient and hopeful, notes climbing from darkness, cresting, then finding resolve just below the highest points. Jam meets my eyes as he plays the last few notes and I feel content, like a glow in my chest that might keep growing.
He smiles, looks at his hands. “That’s all I’ve got.”
“It’s beautiful,” I say.
“It’s brighter here,” Jam says, and starts to play again.