Chapter 6. Cait #4
When he kissed her again, his lips tasted like the barbecue chips they’d stolen from the cabana to eat on the walk to his house.
It wasn’t either of those bands, she thought as they lay down.
It was Pink Floyd, though she didn’t know the song.
She tried to focus on Luke. She shouldn’t have smoked as much as she had.
She went back and forth, trying to decide whether to tell him that this was her first time.
She’d almost lost her virginity to her boyfriend last year, but she hadn’t wanted to, and then he’d broken up with her to date a girl from another town.
As Luke kissed her neck, desire swelled between her legs, and in that moment she decided she wouldn’t tell him it was her first time.
She didn’t want to give him any reason to stop.
When his mouth made its way back to hers, she kissed him harder, and he hiked up her T-shirt dress to take off her panties.
She was higher than she’d thought. He watched as she unbuckled his belt.
Then, to fight off the wooziness, she grabbed him by his shirt and slid her tongue deeper into his mouth, and before she was ready, he pushed into her.
She gasped at the stab of pain. She had expected it to hurt but was shocked.
“Are you okay?” he asked, and when she nodded, he closed his eyes and pressed his hips into hers.
Something smelled weird. At first she thought it was the sheets, but then she realized it was the ragged sailor’s bracelet on his wrist. She turned away from it, but that set off a sudden vertigo, and she had to cling to his shoulders to steady herself.
She struggled to follow the rhythm of his body, but just when she had it, he reared and pulled out of her—a soft moan as he came on the sheets—then collapsed against her chest. She pressed her palm against the wall to stop the room from spinning and stared at the faded glow-in-the-dark stars covering the ceiling.
“That was awesome,” he said.
Was it? Was she supposed to have had an orgasm? The wetness between her legs embarrassed her. She knew that was supposed to be normal, but it seemed excessive and sticky, and kind of gross.
“Thanks,” she said, and immediately felt lame.
Luke slid off her body, and because she could breathe easier now, this helped with the vertigo. He bunched up his pillow and rested his head on his forearm. He started to say something, but then the CD switched and suddenly the title track from the Footloose album started playing.
He jumped off the bed, pulling on his shorts as he rushed over to the stereo.
Cait laughed as she reached for her panties. “My sisters and I used to belt out ‘Let’s Hear It for the Boy’ with our hairbrushes.”
But Luke wasn’t embarrassed. Rather than changing the album, he turned the stereo up.
“This was my jam,” he said, and pulled her into the middle of the room, laughing.
She wasn’t a good dancer, and on any other day, the idea of dancing in front of Luke would have mortified her, but the lights were dim, and his moves were a goofy imitation of Kevin Bacon’s, so when he grabbed her hand and spun her around, she went with it.
When the song ended, they collapsed onto the floor and laughed. Then Cait saw on the alarm clock that it was minutes after midnight. “Shit,” she said. “I have to go.”
Luke’s playfulness settled on the walk home along the oak-lined streets, and he was now mostly quiet.
Cait filled the silence by asking him questions about college, her chest tight as she waited for him to say once again that this had all been a mistake.
But maybe it hadn’t been a mistake? She didn’t want to get her hopes up.
She could already feel how much harder it would be when he let her down this time.
When they reached the top of the Folly’s driveway, Luke suddenly looked confused.
“Where’s Topher?” he asked, noting the empty space where Topher’s Jeep was usually parked.
Cait shrugged. “He blows off his curfew so much, my parents stopped trying.” Then she laughed. “Don’t worry about him. He doesn’t care about us.”
Luke shook his head, but his expression was serious. “That’s not it.”
Of course that’s not “ it, ” Cait thought, embarrassed by her assumption. That’s not “ it ” because there is no “ us. ”
“I just don’t like him hanging out with Marcus,” Luke said.
“Oh,” Cait said. “Yeah. I don’t get that either.”
Luke looked at her. “You know he’s Topher’s supplier, right?”
Cait laughed again. Her brother managed to get himself into plenty of trouble, but there was no way he was doing anything that stupid.
But then Luke said, “How do you think he bought his boat?”
Now Cait believed him. When Topher had bought his boat that spring, Cait had asked him where he’d gotten the money.
He said from his pizza-delivery tips, but he only worked two shifts a week, and she knew where that money had gone: to beer, weed, and tickets to Dead and Phish shows.
How clueless could she have been? She wasn’t sure when things had taken a turn for her brother, but lately, it seemed like there was always something.
Broken curfews. Getting kicked off the lacrosse team for missing too many practices.
Another notice from the school. What annoyed Cait most was how he always managed to get caught, then fought with their parents rather than just apologizing and promising to do better.
Still, when their parents interpreted his saving for and buying the boat as a sign that he was growing up, Cait had thought they might be right.
“What’s he dealing?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Luke said. “Dodgy weed. Maybe more? He won’t tell me. You should say something to him, though.”
“Like what?”
“To be careful.”
Cait turned to face the dark windows of her house.
She hoped her mother wasn’t awake to see her and Luke standing there.
The crickets and cicadas sang in the wooded shrubs across the street.
Everything smelled ripe and earthy from the rainstorm earlier that night.
The road. The wet soil. Her father’s rosebushes by the porch. Her own body.
The bathroom light flicked on in her parents’ room.
“I have to go,” she said. “I’ll see you tomorrow?” Their friends were throwing a boat party by the lighthouse for Luke’s send-off before he left for Boston the next day.
Luke nodded. “I’m taking Danny fishing in the morning, so you guys can meet us there.” Then he shuffled backward, gave a half wave, and turned to make his way down the street again.
By the time they got back to the house, the pizza had cooled, and Alice was annoyed at them for running late.
“We invited someone to dinner!” Poppy announced.
Cait caught Poppy watching her when she said this, as though her daughter knew this information gave her power.
“Who?” Alice asked.
Cait reached for the salad bowl on the counter.
“We ran into Luke Larkin,” she said. She sensed the energy in the room shift as soon as she said his name, and everyone seemed to stop what they were doing.
To avoid eye contact, she tossed the salad in the bowl and picked out a piece of wilted lettuce as she continued.
“He’s in town cleaning out his mom’s house.
He was a mess—” She turned to Maggie. “Right? I mean, a mess. Anyway, he mentioned he didn’t have plans for tomorrow, so we thought it would be nice to, you know, invite him. ”
No one spoke. Cait hoped they didn’t suspect she’d exaggerated the story to defend the invitation.
“Wait,” Alice said as she spun off the stool and stood. “You invited Luke Larkin to dinner?”
“Yes,” Cait said.
“Here?”
“Yes.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Yes!”
Cait turned to her mother. “I can cancel,” she said, though she’d never do that. Now that she’d asked him and he’d agreed, she needed to see him. To be near him.
Her mother sat on a stool by the island. “That won’t be necessary,” she said. “This is unexpected, but we can—”
“You have to be kidding me,” Alice said. “Like, is this a sick joke or something?”
Oh, stop it! Cait wanted to tell her sister, but she didn’t want to upset her mother more or give Alice reason to maintain her gripe. Instead, she said, “His mom just died and he’s all alone on Thanksgiving. Have some compassion, for God’s sake.”
“Girls,” their father said, as though they were still girls and not grown women. He wrapped his arm around Nora. “It’ll be fine.”
Cait found some comfort in her father’s optimism, but she couldn’t ignore how the announcement deflated her mother. “I know it might be uncomfortable at first,” she conceded, “but I think we can all be together for an evening.”
Alice plated the pizza. “You’re unbelievable.”