Chapter 16 Ash
ASH
You’re beautiful.
We’re sunning in the sand afterwards, our borrowed towels spread out beneath us as small airplanes towing banners buzz overhead.
Sam’s dozing on his stomach, arms folded beneath his head, the salt drying in his curls.
I want to run my fingers through it and tease out the tangles, but I resist because I don’t want to push it that far.
His brown skin glitters in the late afternoon sunshine and I resist touching that, too, tracing the lines of his shoulder blades with my fingertip.
You’re beautiful.
Touching my lips, my chin, closing my eyes and turning my face into the sun, the inside of my eyelids pink and my cheeks flushed and hot, I wonder if anyone has ever said that to me. Wondering, even if they had, would I remember it? Would it have mattered like it did now?
You’re beautiful.
He reaches for me, fingers closing around mine and his sleepy dark eyes peering at me beneath his messy, damp hair, mouth moving and asking if I’m ready to go yet and me nodding, wordless.
You’re beautiful.
No one’s ever said that to me. Or if they have, not in any sense that matters or that I remember mattering. Not even the most enamored trick. Not even Mr. Bigshot, who asked after me the most and took the best care of me, who told me things that would’ve ruined his career.
No one has ever, ever said it and meant it. Now I don’t know how to feel.
I sort of stumble through getting ready for dinner, not that there’s much in the way to do to get ready.
We shower together and it’s a dream, kissing and touching and wanting, so much of that, but having no time to do so.
Sam tells me how badly he wants to fuck me and I agree, breathless, but in my head I just keep wondering what it is we’re doing. What’s going to happen when this ends.
I keep holding those thoughts at arm’s length, the way I try to hold Sam. I keep trying not to like him as much as I do. I try not to want and I try not to give in. The sex is good—but it was supposed to just be that one time.
Except we did it again this morning, and almost again on the boat, and if we could’ve feasibly fucked in the ocean maybe I would’ve done it then too, and if we had more time in the shower—
He wants me to stay at his condo. It’s such a bad fucking idea.
I want to say yes, anyway.
I try to shove all this to the back of my mind as we walk to the pier Sam pointed out earlier.
We don’t hold hands, but like before, I wish he’d reach out and take mine.
He looks so good tonight, too, heartthrob with a capital H, chiseled jaw shaved and his muscles peeking through the sides of his tank top.
I’m so caught up between my thoughts and salivating over him that I almost forget that we’re meeting people at the restaurant.
Which doesn’t last long at all because the moment we step inside—it’s little more than an oversized shack, really, all open-air and fans whirling overhead and Jimmy Buffet blasting over the speakers—two guys stand up and start crowing: “Sam! My man!” “Dude! It’s been hella long!”
They’re suddenly crowding us, clapping hands with Sam, and they look exactly how I expect them to—tanned, white, with straight teeth, backwards hats, pukashell necklaces and ratty tanks. One is blonde and the other is brunette. Beavis and Butt-Head, I think.
“Man,” Beavis says, “you look so friggin’ fit dude. Hitting the gym in a big way?”
“I guess,” Sam says modestly, with a not so modest flex of his biceps.
I eye him sidelong. “Oh, I want you to meet my friend.” He claps a hand on my shoulder, propelling me forward like an offering.
“This is my new friend Ash. Ash, meet Carter and Brett. Two douche-nozzles I went to high school with.”
“Hi,” I say.
They both regard me with the kind of interest a pair of starving sharks might regard a bleeding baby dolphin. Their gazes eat me up. It’s…well, not what I’m expecting from them. “Word,” says Butt-Head—I mean, Brett—nonchalantly. “How’d you guys hook up?”
“Picked him up in—what was it, New Haven? When I was visiting Adriana.” Sam’s smiling at me like this is some fond memory when it’s not, really, it’s a sweat-soaked nightmare, hazy around the edges, and the only things I remember are the nauseating pain from the bullet wound and the fact I thought he was the hottest man I’d ever seen.
I give him a tentative smile back anyway. “He needed a ride to Miami, so...”
“Oh, dope. Like a hitchhiker,” Carter says. “Yeah, gnar-gnar. I’ve always wanted to do that, hitch a ride across the country to Cali or something. But my mom was all, ‘you’re gonna get murdered.’ So I didn’t.”
“And you’ve got the ‘vette,” Brett puts in. “What do you need to hitch hike for?”
“Our boy Sam wouldn’t hurt a fly, of course,” Carter goes on, taking as swig of his Busch Lite. “Couldn’t have found a better dude to thumb a ride off of.”
“Aw, thanks.”
“So, what, you two just kinda hit it off?” Brett’s eyeing me hungrily. There’s really no other word for it. If I was back home I would finger him for a john immediately.
“Something like that,” Sam says modestly.
We’re fucking, I want to say. I picked him. I’m not up for grabs. I don’t do that shit anymore. Buzz off.
The guys motion us to follow him, and we wend our way through the motley assortment of tables and people to one near the very back.
It’s crowded and loud, the scent of salt mingling with alcohol in the open air.
There’s a big open doorway here too, and we can see clear back to the end of the pier, where people fish off the back.
There’s a girl sitting at the table, pretty and waifish, with long, trailing blonde hair and a wispy sort of smile. Her huge green eyes are bloodshot. The reason why is immediately evident—there’s a joint marinating in the colorful ashtray in her lap.
“Hiii,” she purrs as we sit down.
“You sure this is okay?” Sam says, surprised. “Aren’t the cops here assholes? This ain’t Tampa or Orlando.”
“Fine. We know the bartenders here, they’ll give us a heads up if it’s needed.” Brett waves off his concerns. “We’ll just throw it out the window if someone makes a fuss.”
Carter introduces us. “This is Stacie.”
She holds out her hand limply for one of us to shake. Her nail polish is chipped and pink, and she has a rudimentary eyeball tattooed on her middle finger. “Hoooomygod, Sam,” she gushes. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“Have you?” he asks with a grin. “Do you remember any of it?”
“No,” she admits with an echoing smile. “But like, it was all good. Pretty sure.”
“She’s such a lightweight,” Brett says. “Aren’t you, Stace? You got a big head start, eh?”
“Gawd, well. I guess. You guys were gone for-frickin-ever.” She’s watching me like she can see into my fucking soul with those giant eyes of hers, framed by a messy coat of mascara.
“You feel familiar,” she blurts out. “I feel like we’re kindred spirits or something.
Like I knew you from another life. Or maybe I was you.
Do you believe in that kinda shit? Like, reincarnation? ”
“Nope,” I say, reaching for one of the menus. Which amounts to a ratty little laminated card with Xerox’d pictures so blurry I’m not sure what they’re supposed to depict. The food, I guess. “I guess you do?”
“I want to,” she confesses. “Only ‘cause I want a do-over. Ya know? I feel like I was meant to have a penis but something got mixed up in the cosmos and now I’m this. Ya know?”
“I have a friend like that,” I say. “He lives as a guy now. What’s stopping you?”
Her round eyes get rounder. “I don’t know…I don’t think I’d make a very believable man. I mean, right now.”
“Sure you would. It’s a matter of perception.”
Carter nudges her narrow shoulder. “Stop talking that shit, Stace. You’re perfect the way you are. Here, take another hit before you get all morose and junk.”
“So which one of you is dating her?” Sam asks, looking between his friends as he grabs one of the smoldering joints. “I can’t actually tell.”
They exchange a glance. Carter clears his throat and hands the second joint to Stacie, who is now sulking, and Brett puts an arm around her shoulders. “Y’know, we both are.”
Sam, mid-hit, coughs and splutters. “What? Seriously?”
“Yeah,” Stacie says. “We’re a ménage à trois.” She stumbles over the pronunciation a bit in her current state but we both get the meaning just fine.
I glance at Sam as he passes the joint to me, and he seems quite shocked. I just shake my head and take the biggest fucking hit of my life. I need it to get through this dinner.
“Like.” Sam’s still trying to process it and the weed’s not helping. “A V kinda situation? Or—”
“No, man,” Carter says scornfully. “Like a triangle situation. Get it?”
“Wait, what the fuck? You’re like, fucking fucking?”
“Yeah, man. It’s the nineties. Get with the times.”
“Dude,” Brett interjects. “You’re not gonna make it weird, right? Like be homophobe.”
“No, ‘course not. I just didn’t know you guys were, you know. We’ve been palling around since high school, and—”
I’m trying really fucking hard not to laugh, I am, but I’m already kinda floating and this is surreal, really. Meeting with his fuckass friends and it turns out they’re fucking each other in the ass with this petite chick mashed between them. It’s too much.
I pass the joint back to Sam—he needs it more than I do, I think—and I lean out the big open window. The dark water below roils around the pilings. Someone a few windows down is tossing bits of food and fish are gobbling it up the moment it hits the surface, their mouths gaping.
“I need a beer,” Sam declares. “I’m gonna order. Ash, you know what you want?”
“No,” I say. My head feels like a balloon. I’m a lightweight too. “Just get me whatever.”
“Crab cakes,” he says. “And just water, right? No alcohol.”
“Oh Sam,” I say. “You goofball. Yeah. Whatever you want.”