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I replied, “You look like a gamer nerd in that Super Mario shirt.”
“Well, your shirt is super girly,” he responded with neither admiration nor disdain.
“Thanks, I hate it.”
He sighed. “Okay. Look at me and close your eyes and concentrate on the happy memories.”
I did as he instructed, secretly hoping what was about to happen would happen.
And then it did. A small kiss. More than a peck. It lasted two seconds, but it was the warmest, sweetest, deepest experience I’d ever felt up to that point. I had wanted him to kiss me, and he did. It was a dry kiss, a chaste kiss. But it was a religious experience, and I suddenly felt five years older.
“I wasn’t expecting that,” I lied.
He smiled at me, a mouth full of braces glinting in the sun.
Whenever I’d bonded with girls my age, the one thing we always did was exchanged addresses. So I asked him for his.
“If I write to you, will you write me back?”
“I could just call you on my cell phone,” he said.
I shook my head. “I don’t have my own phone and Dad won’t let me talk to boys if they call the house.”
He’d scrawled out his address later and handed it to me while my sister and I loaded up the truck to leave the next morning. It was a jaggedly torn piece of paper, but it was there.
“Three-seven-three Cambridge Street.” It sounded so fancy. All the way home that day, and every time I carefully wrote his address on an envelope that school year, I imagined the letter was being delivered to a mansion in the countryside.
I’ll never forget the first time he wrote me back. I screamed and tore the letter out of my mother’s hand and bolted up to my room and shut the door.
It read, “Hey, Pigtails. I hope the rest of your summer was great. I miss the diving raft. Eighth grade is awesome. Have a good time at school. Don’t be like me, haha. Get good grades. Your friend, Josh.”
All of these recollections, along with the wine, warmed me down to my toes.
Maybe it’s not all bad if he can’t remember kissing me or writing me letters. It doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
And it doesn’t mean it can’t happen again.
Chapter 6
Josh
When I return from fishing later that evening, after having caught nothing that I can legally keep, I hear a strange noise coming from the bedroom in the back.
“Penny?”
She doesn’t answer. Apprehensively I ninja-sneak into her room and see that she’s fallen fast asleep on top of the covers while watching some romantic movie on her laptop. I silently back out of the room and go to the bathroom to shower.
When I finish, I can still hear the movie blaring from her computer.
I can’t let her fall asleep like that. Wrapped in my bath towel, I carefully pick up her laptop and shut it down. Using my phone as a flashlight, I find her charging cable and plug it in so it will be fully charged overnight. Then I carefully slip off her shoes and look her over. She’s holding something to her chest. I wave my light over her and see that it’s a box. A nice cedar box with hand carving in it, and it would be a shame if it fell on the floor while she slept. Carefully, I remove the box and place it on the floor next to her charging laptop. I go to the living room, fetch the fuzzy blanket off the futon, and cover her with it. It’s my only choice; I have no way to properly tuck her body under the covers without waking her.
I slink away, quietly retrieving a set of sheets from the linen closet and make up the futon. I make sure the front door is locked before I hit the hay. I’ve never seen a bear in the resort, but all of us kids had seen the claw marks on the sides of our cabins. If any hungry black bear thinks they can help themselves to a snack, well, I suppose I’m not going to stop them. But it’s better if I am the one to face the task of shooing away a bear in the middle of the night.
As I make myself as comfortable as I can on the futon, which is not very, I find that I enjoy the feeling of protecting her. The primal instinct is real. Yeah, workaholic aquatics director who spends half his day answering email. What a badass protector I am, I think self-deprecatingly.
Still, truly wild thoughts cross my mind as I lie there in the dark, enjoying the breeze from the ceiling fan on my damp, naked torso.
Thoughts of slipping into that creaky bed next to her sleepy, warm little body. Thoughts of sliding that body on top of mine, shocking her with my habit of sleeping naked. Thoughts of her hair blanketing my chest, exciting my nipples. Wondering what she normally wears when she’s not going to bed fully clothed. A frilly nightie or a simple T-shirt and undies? Both images make me horny as fuck.
