Chapter 6 April 2003
I don’t know that I’d ever been more nervous than I was when we got to the lake that night. Kent had been singing along with Spice Girls on my truck’s stereo the entire ride. He couldn’t hold a note to save his life, but his voice was still the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard.
My stomach was spinning when we pulled up.
I knew what I had to do—the words I needed him to hear—but the thought of saying them out loud overwhelmed me.
Trevor had asked me if I wanted to go to his buddy Tommy’s house to watch some scary movie Momma wouldn’t let us watch at home, but Tommy had always been a jerk to me at school—always giving me dirty looks like he’d catch me staring at Kent, and he was silently judging me for it—so he was the last person I wanted to hang out with.
I don’t even know if my truck had come to a complete stop before I’d jumped out the door and ran toward our spot.
I didn’t wait for Kent because I knew one look into those big brown eyes would put a proverbial pin in what I was planning on admitting.
As scared as I was of his reaction, the fear of letting him go without him knowing what he meant to me was overwhelming.
I’d spent the last two months breaking in front of him.
I needed him to either put me back together or let me shatter completely.
My shirt and jeans came off first, then my socks. I sprinted into the water, with Kent trailing slowly behind me. Once I was waist-deep, I turned around and held my arm out for him.
“Kent,” I said, my eyes tearing into him like a Christmas present. He jogged toward me, pulling his shirt over his head and throwing it behind me. He watched me watching him, and I made no attempt to hide what I was doing.
This was it. All or nothing. I wouldn’t look away from him. If he hated me after the words were out, then so be it. I wasn’t leaving that lake without telling Kent I loved him.
Once his pants were off, Kent walked into the water and swam toward me wearing only his boxer-briefs.
I couldn’t handle the sight of him approaching.
It was just too much. Too many nerves, not enough courage.
I just needed a moment. Diving down, I circled him, swimming around aimlessly.
I swam lower to the bottom, reaching up and tickling his feet.
“No, Gray, don’t. I hate when you do—argh, fuck!” His voice was muffled through the water, but I heard every word. I swam circles around him, my fingers exploring him freely. Tickling every exposed patch of skin I could find.
When I opened my eyes, I was behind him.
His butt was right there. Just within reach.
If this was it—if this was my last chance, I was going to take it.
I reached for him, sliding my hand against his cheek.
It was perfect. Just like I knew it would be.
Soft and jiggly. Gosh, I wanted to feel his skin.
Touch the light dusting of hair I knew grew under there.
I took in a mouthful of lake water and swam around until I was in front of him. I popped out of the water like a lake-living Jack in the box. Pursing my lips, I spat the water directly into his face.
This was it. I’d caught him off guard.
All or nothing. For Kent. For us.
“I hate you. God, I hate—”
I reached for him. He needed to know I could love him better than Kate. That I could give him what she couldn’t. I was his Two-liter, and I loved him with everything I had in me. He had to know. The second I came into contact with his bulge, he stopped talking. His eyes doubled in size, and …
I knew it! I freaking knew it!
He was smiling. Gosh, he was smiling so big.
More than that, he was getting hard, the way I got when I thought about him at night in bed.
I touched him the way I liked to touch myself, tracing his length with my finger.
Up and down, pausing at the curve where his shaft shifted into the head.
I flicked my finger against that bump over and over until his whole body was shaking.
Our eyes met, and I smiled at him. “Hey,” I said.
“Hey,” Kent said, paddling even closer. “Hey, Gray.”
He wanted this. I knew he did. I’d always known.
I was making him feel good, but he needed more.
He needed to know what I was willing to give him, and just how gone on him I already was.
My fingertips teetered on the edge of the elastic waistband separating him from me.
I wanted to rip them off and take him in my hand completely, but I needed his permission first. I tapped his hip like I was knocking on a door.
Kent’s arms looped around me, pulling me closer, then he nodded. Reaching inside, I wrapped my hand around it and stroked.
This was it. The moment of truth.
“I want you to break up with Kate,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady.
“You do?”
“I do, and I’ve got a list of seventeen reasons why.”
His head tilted back, and he let out a moan. Louder than the one he’d given Kate a few nights back. With his eyes closed, he said, “That’s—Jesus, Gray—that’s nice.”
I arched an eyebrow at him. “Is it?”
“So … so nice.” He bucked his hips forward, grinding himself into my palm. “Tell me. Tell me why. Your list … tell me about your list.” I wanted to lean forward and take him by the tongue. Invade every inch of his mouth and claim it for myself. I resisted that urge, because I needed an answer.
“All seventeen?” I asked.
“All of them. All of it. Let me have all of it. Just the… just, yeah. God, Gray. Just like that.” As I stroked him with one hand, I snaked the other around his back, grabbing his butt. He twitched against my thigh, rocking his hips forward, seeking even more contact.
“Well, first of all, I hate her.”
He chuckled. “That’s definitely a reason.”
I tried to hide the sound of my sniffle. He was too wrapped up in his erection to notice, thankfully. “Second, I miss you.”
His eyes sprung open like I’d just sent a stream of static directly into his heart. “You do?”
“Of course, I do. This is the first time I’ve seen you in a week.
You promised me you would still make time for me.
When you two started seeing each other, you swore it.
You can’t just forget about me. You promised.
” I was getting angry. Even though he was humping my hand, and even though I knew he wanted this just as much as I did, it hurt to think about the way he’d discarded me.
How easy it had been for him to let me go.
When I stopped stroking him, he thrust forward, seeking friction.
“You hurt me, Half-pint. You’ve been hurting me this whole time. ”
“Sorry,” he said between his panting. “So sorry. Didn’t mean … I didn’t …”
I shook my head, tightening the grip I had on his erection. “Third, I don’t know what you two do when I’m not around, and I don’t like it.”
“What do you mean?” His voice was shaky. Like we were walking on quaking ground that was crumbling around us, threatening to swallow us whole.
I squeezed it even harder. “You know what I mean.”
His eyes widened. “I wouldn’t. We haven’t—”
“Don’t lie to me.” I let go of him. Pulling my hands out of his underwear, I did a couple of backstrokes to put some distance between us. As much as I wanted it—wanted him—I wouldn’t sit there and let him lie to my face. “We don’t lie to each other.”
“I’m not.”
I stared out at the water, watching the stars’ reflections glittering against the rippling waves. “I love this place, you know. Our place. It’s still ours, isn’t it?”
“It always has been.” Kent paddled forward to get to me, but I held my hand up and shook my head. I needed him to be honest with me, the way I planned on being with him.
“Have you slept with her?”
His eyes bulged, and he shook his head frantically, like it might make it all better somehow. “No. I wouldn’t. I promise.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“She’s your girlfriend, Kent. Why wouldn’t you have sex with her.”
“Why are you bringing this up right now? Just come back here.” He tried flagging me forward, motioning for me to come back to him, but I couldn’t. I needed to hear it first. “Please, come back.”
As the image of him bucking up into her hand filled my mind, anger bubbled up inside of me like boiling water on the stove.
The longer he floated in front of me, doubling down on his lie, the closer that water bubbled toward the surface, ready to spill over.
“Why wouldn’t you let her rub her hands all up and down on you?
She’s your girlfriend. Why wouldn’t you bring her here?
” I jerked my head back in his direction, staring him dead in the eyes.
“To our spot, the one I found just for us, and lay down under that tree right there, and let her do…” I slammed my hand back into his underwear and stroked him once, root to tip. “This.”
“Were you following us?” Kent’s entire body went rigid. “So, you … what? Followed us out here and just watched us from the shadows? What the hell?”
“Don’t try to turn this around on me. I’m not the one who was—”
“Why do you care? Huh? Why does it matter what I did with her?”
“You know why!” I let go of him and floated back, trying to put space between us. He didn’t seem to care that I didn’t want him near me, because he met every one of my backstrokes with a lunge forward. “Break up with her. Do it tonight.”
“Tell me why. If you want me to leave her, I want to know why.”
“I just … I miss you.”
He came even closer, not stopping until he was right in front of me.
The anger in his face had faded, melting and morphing into a look that took my breath away.
He was desperate. Grasping at every possible straw to get me back to him.
To make it right. “Please? Please, just tell me why. I promise, it’s okay. ”