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Or at least it used to be, I think, then push that thought aside.
He backs out of the shed, arms full, and nudges the door shut with one foot.
“I can carry some of that,” I say.
“I’ve got it.”
“Let me help.”
“The artist didn’t ask you, she asked me,” he says, teasing. “And I can’t have you getting splinters on our first date, this is already going off the rails.”
First, I think.
“Technically, I think she asked your brother who canceled,” I say, walking beside him to the rowboat at the edge of the water, wedged between lily pads.
Caleb just laughs and puts the materials into the bottom of the metal boat, which rocks slightly.
“That would’ve been a real mistake,” he says, straightening. He stands at the edge of the water, holds out his hand. I take it. “Seth couldn’t fix this to save his life.”
I step carefully into the boat, my hand held tightly in his as I sit on one of the bench seats, careful to keep my knees together. I didn’t exactly pick my outfit with a pond construction outing in mind, but I’m not mad about it.
“So the brother who was supposed to come couldn’t fix it and the one who could fix it wasn’t supposed to come,” I say as he grabs the single oar from the bottom of the rowboat and looks around, like he’s trying to get his bearings.
“This is starting to sound like one of those logic puzzles you do in elementary school to teach rational thinking or something,” he says. “If Ben has a red ball and Dave is late for class on Tuesday, which student likes dinosaurs the best?”
“I always liked those,” I admit as Caleb looks over the side of the rowboat and carefully plunges the oar into the water, a lily pad sinking beneath it. “My favorite second grade teacher had a whole book of them for when I’d finish worksheets and quizzes early.”
“They’re satisfying,” he agrees, glancing over his shoulder at the dark frame of the sea monster, looming over us. “You had a favorite second grade teacher?”
It takes me a moment to understand what he’s asking.
“We moved twice that year,” I explain. “I had Mrs. Ferguson for a month, then Mrs. Gonzalez for six, then Miss Clampett for two.”
“Army brat?” he asks, both his hands clenched around the wooden oar, his muscles tightening as he draws it back, facing me.
For a moment, I’m rendered completely dumb at nothing more than an attractive man rowing a boat. In the moonlight and the cast-off neon from the Thai pavilion, the yellow and red and white all catching the curves of his muscles, his arms, his shoulders, his smile and all at once, something deep inside me awakens and yawns.
Suddenly, I understand why lust is so dangerous. I want to reach out and touch him, kiss him, climb on top of him and the sheer force of the wanting is so strong that I have to hold onto my seat with both hands to keep myself back.
I’ve thought I was in lust before. When I was thirteen and kissed a boy for the first time, then wanted to do it again. When I was seventeen and let my high school boyfriend touch my breasts underneath my bra for the first time. Last year, when I got to third base with a guy I was seeing.
Growing up very Catholic can do that to you, make you think that every little desire is lust.
They weren’t. This is.
“Navy,” I finally say, two oar strokes later, remembering that we were having a conversation and what it was about. I clear my throat, press my knees together, tear my eyes from his body. “We got stationed somewhere new every time my dad got promoted.”
“Was it hard?” he asks, glancing over my shoulder.
I turn. The monster is there, looming, unlit, jaw hanging at a strange angle.
“Yes and no,” I say, gazing up. “It meant that if I didn’t like somewhere, we wouldn’t stay too long, but same if we were somewhere I liked. I usually adapted all right. I think my younger brother actually preferred getting to start over fresh again and again.”
I stop short, not sure how much to say, how much to put off for later dates.
I’m oddly certain there will be later dates, the knowledge a warm, fuzzy comfort in my chest instead of the spiky panic that usually lives there during an outing with the opposite sex.
“But?” Caleb prompts. He’s stopped rowing and now the boat is gliding, gently, right past the monster’s gaping, ragged jaw. I glance in as we drift past, silent, and can see the splintered edges of the broken beam inside.
“But I think it was hard on my older brother,” I finish, still looking into the maw. “Javier…”
Wanted nothing more than to finally get my father’s approval?
