“Sam Florek is a fucking lunatic, and don’t you forget it.” Delilah was sitting on my bed, her pale legs folded underneath her, delivering a pep talk as I packed for the cottage. “You are a smart, sexy, seventeen-year-old woman with a ridiculously hot boyfriend, and you don’t need some small-town loser who doesn’t appreciate how incredible you are bringing you down!”
Delilah was on an anti-man kick. She broke up with Patel when he went away to McGill, and threw everything she had at school. She had gotten it in her head that she was destined to change the world, and she wasn’t going to let any guy stand in her way. Her grades were better than mine. Though she and Patel were now “on again” for the summer.
“You know it’s weird to call your cousin ridiculously hot, right?” I said, cramming bathing suits into my overstuffed suitcase.
“It’s not weird if I’m just stating a fact,” she replied. “But you’re missing my main point, which is that I don’t want you to get hurt again. You’re too good for Sam.”
“That’s not true.” I may have spent the past ten months convincing myself that I was over him and that he was right to want to keep our relationship purely platonic, but I didn’t believe for a second that I was too good for him. “And he’s not a loser,” I added.
Sometimes I wondered if Sam called things off last summer because he didn’t want to attach himself to me when he had all these big plans to go away to school and become a doctor and never look back. He didn’t want to get stuck in Barry’s Bay, but at my most anxious I thought that maybe he didn’t want to get stuck with me, either.
I had joined the swim team, to my mother’s delight, and had distracted myself with practice, writing, and Mason’s hockey games, while Sam had spent the year studying or working to save for university. He barely took a break. I had to convince him to go to parties or spend a night playing video games with Finn and Jordie. He never mentioned girls, but I knew he wouldn’t waste time dating—not that I cared. Okay, I cared. He was still my best friend. But that was it. Best friend. Nothing more.
“I’ll be the judge of that once and for all when we come up to visit,” Delilah said, reaching into the suitcase and pulling out my team suit. “I get that you actually swim when you’re up there, but please tell me you’re packing something a little more exciting than this,” she said, holding up the navy one-piece. I smiled: Delilah was nothing if not predictable. I grabbed a gold string bikini and threw it at her.
“Happy?”
“Thank god. What’s the point of all that time you spend pickling yourself in chlorine if you aren’t going to show off the results?”
“Some people call it exercise,” I laughed. “You know, for health?”
“Pfff . . . as if you and Mason don’t lie around naked talking about how hot your hot athletic bodies are,” she scoffed.
“Again, he’s your cousin.”
Delilah and Patel started having sex a while ago and she assumed the same was true of Mason and me. To correct her would mean having a detailed conversation about exactly what was happening between us, which I preferred to keep to myself.
“I can’t help it if the Mason family gene pool is prone to extreme good looks.” Delilah tossed her hair over her shoulder. She wasn’t wrong. Even with her red hair and explosive personality, she looked softer than me, with roller-coaster curves that were irresistible to the boys in our high school, who constantly stopped by our lunch table to flirt. She dismissed them all with a flick of her wrist.
I gathered up a couple of notebooks and paperbacks and placed them on top of the piles of clothing.
“I’ll never get this zipped up,” I said, trying to shove everything down in my suitcase.
“Good, then you’ll have to stay!”
“I’ll see you in a month, D. It’ll fly by. Give me a hand here?” Delilah pushed down on the bulging case while I zipped it up.
“Is Charlie still as hot as I remember?” She wiggled her eyebrows. Delilah’s version of man hating was admittedly pretty thirsty. Charlie had started school at Western in the fall, and I hadn’t seen him since the Christmas break.
“He’s not ugly,” I told her. “But you can be the judge of that, too.” My parents had agreed to let me have Mason, Delilah, and Patel up for the Civic Holiday, which they would be spending in Prince Edward County for a second year.
Mason had stayed in Toronto for university, and we had made it official in the fall. I’d been holding out hope that Sam would change his mind about us, but when I saw him over Thanksgiving, it was like the night we spent in his bed had never happened. The next weekend, I let Mason feel me up under my skirt at the movie theater. “I hope you start calling me your boyfriend now,” he had whispered in my ear, and I agreed that I would, reveling in the feeling of being wanted.
Sam had spotted the silver bracelet around my wrist as soon as he walked through the door to the cottage on Christmas Eve. My parents had invited the Floreks for holiday cocktails, and he pulled me aside and held up my wrist that wore the friendship bracelet as well as the one Mason had given me.
“Have any updates for me, Percy?” he asked, his eyes narrowed. It wasn’t exactly how I planned to tell him about our relationship, with our parents standing nearby and Charlie within earshot, but I didn’t want to lie to him, either.
“The silver doesn’t really go with ours,” was his only response.
THAT SUMMER, THE tension between Sam and Charlie was obvious almost as soon as I got out of the car. The Florek brothers stood towering by the back door of the cottage a full meter apart.
“You’re looking more gorgeous than ever, Pers,” Charlie told me, his eyes on Sam, before pulling me into a long hug.
“Subtle,” Sam mumbled.
Charlie helped unload but had to leave early to get ready for his shift, giving me another lingering embrace before he departed.
“For the record,” he whispered in my ear so no one else could hear, “my brother is a fucking idiot.”
“What’s going on with Charlie?” I asked Sam when we were lying on the raft later that afternoon.
“We’re not exactly seeing eye to eye on a couple of things,” he said vaguely. I rolled onto my stomach and rested my face on my hands.
“Care to elaborate, Dr. Florek?”
“Nah,” said Sam. “It’s nothing.”
That night, Sam invited me to come over after dinner. I showed up in my sweats with a copy of my latest story for him.
“I brought homework,” I said when he opened the door, holding up the pages.
“I’ve got something for you, too.” He smiled. I followed him to his room, trying not to think about what happened the last time we were in there.
He pulled out a stack of three somewhat worn books, tied up with white ribbon, from the top shelf of his closet: Rosemary’s Baby, Misery, and The Handmaid’s Tale. “I spent months tracking these down at yard sales and the secondhand store,” he said, sounding a bit nervous. “The Atwood isn’t really horror, it’s dystopian, but we read it in English and I think you’ll love it. And I got the other two because I thought you might want to see the words that created some of your favorite movies.”
“Wow,” I said. “Sam, these are so amazing.”
“Yeah?” He seemed unsure. “Not as fancy as a silver bracelet, though.”
I wasn’t even wearing the bracelet. Was it jealousy? I hadn’t known Sam to be insecure about money before, but maybe that was it.
“Not as fancy, but way better,” I said, and he looked relieved. I passed him the revised version of the ghost story I’d long been tinkering with.
“Reading time?” he asked, flopping onto the end of his bed. He patted the spot beside him.
“You’re going to read it in front of me?”
“Uh-huh,” he said, not looking up from the page and holding his index finger over his mouth to shush me. I settled onto the bed beside him and dug into The Handmaid’s Tale. About half an hour later, Sam put the pages down and ran his hand through his hair. He’d cut it a little shorter since I’d seen him last. He looked older.
“This is really great, Percy,” he said.
“Swear on it?” I asked, putting my book down.
“Of course.” He sounded surprised I’d asked and pulled on my bracelet absentmindedly. “I’m not sure if I’m terrified of the dead sister or if I feel sorry for her—or both.”
“Really? That’s exactly what I was going for!”
“Really. I’m going to read it again and make notes, okay?” It was more than okay. Sam was my best reader. He always had ideas to make the characters stronger or questions that pointed out a hole in the story’s logic.
“Yes, please. Delilah’s critique was very Delilah and totally useless, as always.”
“More sex?”
“Exactly,” I laughed. An awkward silence fell upon us, and I racked my brain for something not sex related to say, but Sam spoke up.
“So when did you and Buckley get serious?” he asked, squinting at me.
“Are you ever going to call him Mason?”
“Probably not,” Sam deadpanned.
“Well, I’m not sure if I’d say we’re serious,” I said.
“But he’s your boyfriend now.”
“Yeah, he is.” I played with the frayed hole in the knee of my jeans.
“So I think I know the basics: He’s Delilah’s cousin, plays hockey, went to a—shudder—private school for boys and is now at U of T, buys his girlfriend expensive-looking jewelry, has a terrible name.” I was surprised by how much he’d remembered from our emails. “But you haven’t really told me what he’s like.”
“He’s nice.” I shrugged, and studied the woman in a red robe on the cover of the book. What was she hiding?
“You’ve mentioned that.” Sam bopped my knee with his. “What does he think about your writing?” He tapped the sheets of paper on the bed.
“I don’t know, really,” I said. “I haven’t given him any of it to read. It’s kind of personal, you know?”
“Too personal for your boyfriend?” Sam asked, smirking.
“You know what I mean.” I kicked him. “I’ll share one with him at some point, but it’s scary to have other people read your work.”
“But it’s not scary when I read them?” He looked up at me from under his lashes.
“Well, when you read them in front of me, it is,” I evaded. “But no, I trust you.” Sam seemed satisfied with that answer.
“So other than the fact that he’s nice, what do you like about him?” It wasn’t a snarky question. He seemed genuinely curious. I twisted the embroidered bracelet around my wrist.
“He likes me back,” I said truthfully, and Sam didn’t ask any more questions after that.
EVERY NOW AND then I’d learn something about Charlie that threw my entire perception of him into question. He was driving around in a trusty old blue pickup truck that his grandfather had handed down to him “on account of my excellent grades,” he explained. I’d laughed, when he’d told me, assuming he was joking, but his dimples vanished. I frowned. “Full academic scholarship and everything,” he said. “Don’t look so shocked.”
He still preferred to take the Banana Boat in to work. “I like feeling the wind on me after spending the night in that hellhole,” he explained. “Besides,” he continued with a wink, “the boat is more convenient for post-shift skinny-dipping.” And that was the Charlie I knew.
Jumping in the lake butt naked after our shifts had become a ritual. I assumed Sue knew what was going on—we weren’t exactly quiet—and my parents had seen me walk into the cottage with a towel wrapped around me and my work clothes in my fist, but no one seemed to care too much. I caught bits and pieces of body parts, and that wasn’t always by accident, but mostly it was an innocent way to blow off steam.
Charlie’s latest fling, Anita, joined us on occasion. She was a bit older and had a cottage further down on the lake, but her presence did nothing to stop Charlie from crossing any and every line he could.
We were swimming after a Thursday shift. Charlie and Anita drank beers standing in the water by the end of the dock, whispering and laughing and kissing, while Sam and I floated on pool noodles further out.
“Don’t you think Percy’s a knockout?” Charlie asked loud enough for us to hear.
“I already told you that I do,” Anita giggled. I could see the tops of her small breasts peeking out from the water and felt my face heat.
“Right, I must have forgotten,” Charlie said to her with a kiss on her cheek.
“I’ll bet,” Sam laughed, but I felt uneasy. It seemed like Charlie was working up to something. I inched toward Sam and my foot kicked his leg, startling him. We were close enough now that I could see the way his chest glowed milky white under the water.
“You know, Pers,” Charlie drawled, “Anita and I both think you’re hot. Maybe you should join us sometime.”
My mouth dropped open, and I felt Sam’s foot wrap around my ankle.
“Leave her alone, Charlie,” Anita scolded. “You’re freaking her out.”
“I have a boyfriend,” I replied, trying to sound bored but bracing myself. It didn’t seem like Charlie had hit the punch line yet.
“Oh, that’s right,” Charlie replied. “Some rich guy. Sam told me. It’s too bad, though I’m not surprised. A beautiful, smart, funny girl like yourself, who not to mention grew quite the rack last year.”
“Charlie,” Sam warned.
“What? It’s true. Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed, Samuel,” he went on. “Seriously, Pers, I can’t imagine that any guy wouldn’t be falling over himself to be with you.” Bull’s-eye.
“Fuck you, Charlie,” Sam said, but his brother was whispering something to Anita, who was looking in my direction and making a sad awww noise.
“Oh my god.” I hadn’t realized the words had left my mouth until I noticed Sam staring at me.
“You okay?” he whispered, but I didn’t reply. Charlie and Anita were climbing out of the water, neither of them in any hurry to cover themselves with a towel.
“We’ll be in the basement,” Charlie called out as they headed up. “Offer still stands, Pers.”
“Percy?” Sam prodded me with his foot. “I’m sorry. That was far, even for Charlie.”
“You told him?” I whispered. “About last summer?” I swallowed back the lump in my throat and faced Sam, not caring about how much of me he could or couldn’t see.
“Yeah, not about all of it. But he sort of cornered me after Christmas Eve at your place, after he heard you talking about Mason and the bracelet.”
“Great. It wasn’t enough to be rejected the first time around, now your brother and Anita know, too.” I sucked in my breath, feeling the nettle sting of tears.
“I’m sorry, Percy. I didn’t think he’d ever bring it up. You don’t need to be embarrassed—my brother thinks I’m the idiot in this scenario.” I looked up at the stars, and he wrapped both his legs around mine, drawing me closer.
“Hey,” he whispered, putting one of his hands on my waist. I went stiff.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I just really want to hold you,” he said, his voice strained. “I hate that he upset you.” We floated there for a moment before he spoke again. “Can I?” There were a million reasons I should say no, or at least two good ones: I had a boyfriend, and that boyfriend was not Sam.
“Okay,” I whispered.
“Come here,” he said. We swam closer to shore to a spot hidden from the view of his house, standing where the water came up to the middle of his chest and my shoulders. We faced each other, maybe a foot apart until Sam stepped closer and wrapped his arms around me. He was warm and slippery, and I could feel his heart beat in impatient thumps against my chest.
“Charlie’s right, you know,” he said. “You are beautiful and smart and funny.” I curled myself against him more tightly. His hands slid up and down my back, and he whispered, “And any guy would fall over himself to have you.”
“Not you,” I said.
“That’s not true,” he rasped. He bent down and leaned his forehead against mine, cupping my face with his hands.
“You’re driving me crazy,” he said. I closed my eyes. Ice dripped down my spine as a fire blazed in my middle. I loved Sam, but this wasn’t fair. Maybe he didn’t know what he wanted, didn’t know how cruel he was being, but I couldn’t let myself be played with while he figured it out.
“You’re confusing me,” I said and pushed him away. “I should go home.”
I BARELY SLEPT. Sam let me go home without a word of protest—without any words, actually. Shortly after two a.m., I pulled out the notebook he’d given me for my fifteenth birthday, with the inscription For your next brilliant story, turned to one of the empty pages and wrote, Sam Florek is a fucking lunatic, before I started to cry hot, angry tears. I had spent the past year trying to move on, and I thought I had moved on. Was I kidding myself?
Sam didn’t say anything when he came by after his run. We barely said more than a word to each other that morning. It wasn’t until I cut my swim short and climbed up on the raft to maybe take a nap that he spoke up.
“I’m sorry about last night.” He was sitting next to me, his feet in the water. What part of it was he sorry for, exactly? Was he sorry for almost kissing me? Sorry for jerking me around?
“Okay,” I said, keeping my eyes closed and my cheek pressed to the warm wood, rage coiling up from my toes.
“I know you have a boyfriend, and it was a dick move,” he continued. He didn’t get it. I pushed myself up to sit beside him. His face was full of apology.
“Whether I have a boyfriend or not is for me to worry about, not you,” I sneered. “What you need to think about, Sam, is how your actions are in complete contrast to your words.”
He took a deep breath. “You’re right, Percy.” He lowered his face so that our eyes were level. “You said I was confusing you, and I’m sorry for that. Can we just go back to how things were?”
“I don’t know? Can you?” My voice went up an octave. “Because I’ve spent the past year acting like things are normal between us. You didn’t want me, and that’s fine. I’m seeing someone. I’ve pretended that nothing happened between us, because that’s what you wanted. And I think I’ve done a pretty great job.” I stood up before he could respond. “I’m going to go home. I didn’t get much sleep last night, and I need to take a nap before work tonight. I’ll see you then, okay?” I dove off the raft and swam toward shore without waiting for a goodbye.
There were ominous-looking clouds in the sky by late afternoon, so Charlie and Sam picked me up in the truck. I squeezed into my usual spot between them, in no mood to make small talk with either one.
“Think any more about that offer, Pers?” Charlie asked with a dimpled smile, his vision locked on Sam.
“You know what, Charlie?” I said, narrowing my eyes. “Screw you. You want to piss off Sam, that’s fine. But leave me the hell out of it. You’re too old for this shit!” Charlie blinked at me.
“I was just joking around,” he mumbled.
“I know!” I cried, hitting my hands against my thighs. “And I’m sick of it.”
“Okay, okay. I hear you,” he said. “I’ll be good.” He pulled the truck out of the driveway, and none of us spoke the rest of the ride.
IT WAS RAINING the next morning when Sam showed up at the cottage dressed in his running gear and dripping wet.
“Sam, you look like you’ve been drowned,” my dad bellowed when he opened the door for him. Sam’s shirt was plastered to his body, emphasizing the muscles in his chest and stomach. He looked good for a drowning victim. It pissed me off. “Wait here, I’ll get you a towel,” Dad said.
“You better get him a change of clothes, too,” Mom called from the couch. Dad tossed him a bath sheet and headed upstairs to find something dry for Sam to wear.
“What are you doing here?” I asked while he rubbed the towel over his head.
“I always come after my run. Also,” he added in a lower voice, “I want to talk to you. Can we go upstairs?”
I didn’t see any way to disagree in front of my parents without causing a scene, and I’d had my fill of Sam-related drama this week. Dad handed Sam a stack of clothes as we passed him on the steps, and he changed in my parents’ room while I waited in mine, sitting cross-legged on my bed, listening to the patter of rain on the roof.
As mad as I was at him, when Sam entered the room wearing a pair of my dad’s track pants that were several inches too big in the waist and a green fleece pullover that was several inches too short in the arms, I burst out laughing.
“I hope you don’t plan on having a serious conversation while wearing that.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said with a grin, his eyes sparkling.
I miss this, I thought, and felt the smile vanish from my face. Sam closed the door and sat across from me on the bed.
“I was wrong,” he began. “So wrong.” My eyes collided with his. “And you were wrong, too. Yesterday, when you said I didn’t want you.” He spoke softly, his blue eyes fixed on mine. “I did want you. I do want you. I’ve always wanted you.” I felt a sharp pressure in my lungs, like his words had sucked all the oxygen out of them. “I’m sorry for making you think otherwise, for confusing you. I thought we should focus on school for now. What my mom said last summer—that we had plenty of time to be in a relationship—made sense to me. And I thought we would mess things up if we tried to be something more, but I messed things up trying not to be.”
“You really did,” I said, a poor attempt at humor. He smiled anyway.
“I told you last summer that I don’t know how to do this.” He motioned between us. “I said we should wait until we’re ready.” He took a deep breath. “I don’t know if we’re ready, but I don’t want to wait anymore.” He put his hands over mine and squeezed.
I wanted to jump onto his lap and throw my arms around his neck and kiss the crease on his lip. I also wanted to pummel him. Because what if he changed his mind again? I didn’t think I could survive that.
“Sam, I have a boyfriend,” I told him, forcing the words to sound strong. “A boyfriend, who, by the way, is going to be here in just over a week. I just need you to respect that right now.”
“Of course,” he said, though his voice was ragged. “I can do that.”
“SO, THAT’S HIM.” Sam peered through the kitchen window into the dining room, where Mason, Delilah, and Patel were sitting at a four-top while my former favorite server, Joan, handed out menus. They didn’t arrive at the cottage until midafternoon, just a couple of hours before my Saturday shift, so they decided to show up for dinner to spend more time with me. Mason said they wanted to surprise me. It worked. I wasn’t going to mention their presence to Sam, but Joan had burst into the kitchen after seating them to tell me I was “one lucky bitch” for having “such a hot boyfriend.” I used to like Joan.
Mason did look good, though. Now that hockey season was over, he’d cut his dark hair shorter, which had the effect of drawing attention to his jawline. He was wearing a tight black tee that made all the hours he spent at the gym abundantly clear, a pair of aviators tucked into the neck of his shirt.
“Yep,” I said, feeling the heat from another body behind us. Charlie leaned over me, taking a quick look through the window.
“I’m better looking,” he declared, then went back to his station.
Things got more awkward when Delilah insisted on Sam coming out to say hello. I apologized as he made his way to the table, wiping his hands on his jeans and pushing his hair off his face. He shook hands with Mason and Patel, but Delilah threw her arms around him, mouthing “holy shit” to me from over his shoulder.
“Come over after your shift tonight, Sam,” Delilah told him. “And bring that handsome brother of yours.” Sam raised his eyebrows and looked to Patel, who just grinned and shook his head in amusement.
“I think Charlie has plans with his . . . Anita later, but yeah, I’ll come over. After washing off the sausage and sauerkraut,” he added, “unless you like that sort of thing.” He grinned at Delilah, who beamed back. Mason watched the exchange with a smile on his lips that didn’t quite reach his eyes.
The three of them were already drunk by the time I got home. I could hear Mason and Patel arguing in slurred voices about whether beards or mustaches were the superior form of facial hair before I got inside. Delilah was sprawled over Patel’s lap on the couch reading a Joan Didion memoir, her tank top riding up her stomach. She was very clearly not wearing a bra. She lifted her head when I walked in, her eyes slow to focus on my face.
“Persephone!” she called, holding her arms outspread and waving me in for a hug. “We misssssed you!” I bent over to give her a squeeze.
“Looks like you survived without me.” Empty beer bottles were lined up in a row on the kitchen counter. A few of Dad’s records were scattered on the floor, but someone had managed to put on Revolver. There was a melting bowl of ice and a bottle of tequila open on the coffee table, and the guys each held glasses of the clear liquid.
“Come sit, babe,” Mason said, pulling me down onto him and planting a kiss below my jaw. “No offense, but you kind of smell.” I elbowed him in the stomach.
“I’ll go shower.” I moved to stand, but Mason held me tight, running his tongue up my neck.
“Mmm . . .” he murmured with a chuckle. “Tastes like pierogies.”
“Very funny. Now if you’ll allow me to excuse myself, I’ll go clean up.”
I lingered longer in the shower than I needed to. I knew that Sam would be arriving any minute, and I was half dreading it and half excited. It felt like this huge part of my life was closed off to him, and now I could introduce him to the people I spent time with when he and I weren’t together. I wanted Delilah to see him. I wasn’t worried about Sam and Mason. Mason wasn’t the jealous type, and Sam wasn’t the confrontational type. And I thought maybe if I saw them in the same room together, I would be reminded that Sam was just a regular guy. That maybe I had built him up as this mythical creature, a perfect friend and potential boyfriend who wouldn’t seem so precious and rare out in the real world.
When I came out of the bathroom, Sam was sitting at a dining chair he’d pulled up beside the couch, his still-wet hair combed neatly off his face. He was wearing the dark denim jeans that I knew were his nice jeans and a white button-up, the sleeves rolled past his tanned forearms. His feet were bare. He looked good. He looked grown-up. I, on the other hand, was wearing a pair of terry cloth shorts and a pink Barry’s Bay pullover. Mason passed him a full tumbler of tequila, and they clinked their glasses together before tossing back a gulp. I could see Sam struggling to keep a straight face; he wasn’t a drinker.
“Don’t you usually drink that stuff with limes and salt or something?” I asked, joining them.
“We neglected to bring limes,” Mason explained. “But this is really good shit, so it’s wasted on shots anyway.” He filled another tumbler and passed it to me. I took a small sip and coughed at the burn.
“Yeah, really good shit,” I rasped, still coughing. Mason pulled me toward him, and I froze, realizing he wanted me to sit on his lap.
“Come keep me company, babe,” he said, tugging harder. I perched awkwardly on the end of his knee. Delilah, who had made it to an upright position, threw me a questioning look. I moved my eyes toward Sam, who was watching Mason’s hands trace curlicues on my bare thigh. His brows drew together, then he downed the rest of his drink. Delilah’s gaze swung between the two of us, her eyes widening with understanding, a drunken smile forming on her lips.
“Thatta boy,” Patel said to Sam, reaching for the bottle to pour him more.
“So, Sam,” Delilah purred, leaning toward him with her elbows on her knees and her face propped on her hands, “it’s been so long since I last saw you. You’re like a big, juicy piece of man now. Tell me all about this girlfriend of yours.” Sam looked at me in confusion, but I had no idea where she was going with this.
“No girlfriend,” he said, tipping back more of his drink.
“That’s hard to believe,” Delilah went on. “You know,” she said, looking at Patel and Mason, “Sam can be a real heartbreaker. He can play very hard to get.” I gave her a warning look, but she just smiled and shook her head slightly. “He once flat-out refused to kiss Percy in a game of truth or dare.” Thank god.
“That’s harsh, man,” Patel said while Mason pulled me back against his chest.
“Poor baby.” He wrapped his arms around my waist and pressed his lips to the side of my neck. “I’ll make it up to you tonight.” I automatically looked to Sam, who was staring at us with a clenched jaw and dark eyes. He was bouncing his knee.
“Anyone want a snack?” I jumped off Mason’s lap and headed to the kitchen.
“I’ll help,” Sam offered and followed me while Patel and Mason reminisced over a particularly memorable childhood game of seven minutes in heaven.
I was on my tiptoes reaching for a serving bowl when Sam came up behind me.
“I can get that,” he said, grazing his fingers over mine.
“You smell nice,” he whispered as he brought the bowl down to the counter. A chill ran through me at the feel of his breath on my ear, and I shivered.
“The wonders of soap,” I replied. “I almost didn’t recognize you in this snazzy ensemble.”
“Snazzy?” His eyes glinted.
“Very snazzy.” I grinned.
“You two coming back with the snacks already?” Delilah hollered from the couch. I dumped a bag of chips into the bowl and placed it on the coffee table, perching on the arm of Mason’s chair. He and Patel had moved on to an impassioned hockey-related argument.
“Don’t mind them,” Delilah told Sam. “They’re slightly obsessed. But we’ve got better things to discuss, like our dear Persephone.” She poked him on the leg. “I hear that you are her very favorite reader. She won’t shut up about how great your feedback is.”
Sam’s face cracked into a wide grin. “Is that so?” he said, looking at me.
I rolled my eyes. “His ego is healthy enough as it is, D.”
“I disagree,” said Sam. “Tell me more about how smart I am, Delilah.”
“I’d find you a lot more intelligent if you told her to up the sex and romance content,” she said, laughing.
“What are you all giggling about?” Mason piped up.
“Percy’s stories. What do you think of them?” Sam asked, and my stomach dropped. I still hadn’t shown Mason my writing.
“She’s never let me read one,” he said, eyes narrowing at Sam.
“No? She’s incredibly talented,” Sam told him, eyes sparkling. “She asks me for feedback on them all the time, but she really doesn’t need it. She’s a natural writer.”
“Is she?”
Sam went on like he hadn’t heard him. “You should read ‘Young Blood.’ She wrote it a couple of years ago, but it’s still my favorite. God, remember how late we’d stay up talking about character names, Percy?”
Sam was marking his territory, and all I could do was murmur in agreement.
“I didn’t realize how close you two were,” Mason said, eyeing me now. “It’s so nice Percy has a friend up here to keep her company.”
He pulled me down onto his lap, turning me at the same time, so that I was straddling him.
“What are you doing?” I whispered.
“You don’t mind, do you, guys?” He tilted his head to look around me. “I haven’t seen my girl in ages.” He took my face in his hands and brought my mouth down to his, kissing me sloppily. When he let me come up for air, Sam was already halfway to the door.
“I should head out if I want to run tomorrow,” he said, not looking at me. And then he was gone.
Sam kept his distance for the the rest of the weekend, and I was itchy for everyone to leave so I could see him. The summer was already half gone, and I was resentful that Mason’s behavior meant I lost time with Sam. He had been particularly handsy the entire visit, like he was trying to lay claim to my body. It made me anxious. Even his goodbye kiss was a groping, tongue-filled affair.
Sam was different after Mason’s visit. Reserved. Sometimes our eyes would meet across the kitchen or when we were hanging out in the basement, and the air would crackle. But otherwise, it was like he had put a lid on his feelings for me, which was exactly what I’d asked for. But as it got closer to the end of summer, I realized it wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted to crack the lid open.
I broke up with Mason the last week of summer break in an awkward You’re a great guy! phone call. He was surprised but took it better than Delilah, who pouted about the end of our double dates before I reminded her she was planning to pause things with Patel for the school year.
Sam and I were sitting on his bed reading in our damp bathing suits the last day before I’d be heading back to the city with my parents. It was hot, and Charlie and Anita had annexed our usual basement hideaway. Sue had refused to put on the AC, so Sam closed his bedroom blinds and set up a fan to oscillate between us, he at the end of the bed, his back pressed to the wall, and me at the head facing him, knees drawn up toward my chest. He was studying a diagram in one of his anatomy textbooks while I was reading The Stand. Or I was trying to. I hadn’t managed to make it through a page in the past ten minutes. I couldn’t stop looking at Sam: the tan line around his ankles, the muscles of his calves, the bracelet around his wrist. I stretched my leg out to rest it on his thigh, and as soon as my foot made contact, he jolted.
“You okay, weirdo?” I asked. He eyed me and then sprung off the bed and dug through his dresser drawer.
“Do me a favor,” he said, throwing me his old Weezer T-shirt. I pulled it over my head while he sat down, his nose back in the textbook.
I prodded his leg with my toe and noticed an apple blush creeping into his cheeks. Getting a rise out of Sam was one of my top three favorite things to do, and it was a rare thrill these days. But something had punctured a hole in his calm reserve, and I wanted to rip it wide open with my teeth.
“And you’re kicking me because . . .” he said in a deep monotone, not looking up from the page, brows knit. I put both feet on his lap, feeling his whole body stiffen.
“That must be a fascinating book—you’ve been reading it all summer.”
“Mmm.”
“Really good plotline?”
“Riveting,” he deadpanned. “You know, I can usually count on you not to give me shit about studying.”
“No shit-giving here,” I swore, then dug my heel into his thigh. “Lots of sexy parts, huh?” He finally looked at me from the corner of his eye, shook his head, and then returned to the book.
“Actually,” I said, moving my feet off his lap and sitting up with my knees bent out in front of me, pressing my toes into his thigh, “the human body is pretty sexy. I mean, not the picture of that skinless man you’re looking at . . .”
“It’s a diagram of the muscular system, Percy,” he said, turning his face to me. “This”—he put one hand around the back of my leg—“is a calf muscle.” His voice was sarcastic, but it felt like someone had replaced the blood in my veins with caffeine. I wanted his hand on me. I wanted his hands on me.
He looked down at where he gripped my leg and back to me. His eyes were a question mark.
“Calf muscle?” I said. “Good to know . . . I’ll be sure to try to use it one day. I’ve heard of this thing called running.” I laughed, and he moved his hand away.
We sat with our books open for several minutes, neither of us turning a page. I felt the promise of something more between us slipping, to be tucked away like the old box of embroidery floss in my desk drawer. So I tried to hold on.
I pushed my toes under his thigh.
“Learn anything else from that book of yours?” I asked. His eyes snapped to mine. He nodded slowly.
“Want to enlighten me, genius?” I made my best attempt to sound playful, but my voice was shaky.
“Percy . . .” It took every ounce of confidence I had to not break eye contact.
“I guess I’ll just have to get some other future doctor to educate me,” I teased, and he blinked rapidly. And then I knew. I knew that this was his weak spot. He hated the idea of someone else touching me. When he moved his hand back to my calf, I wanted to scream in triumph.
He didn’t grip it this time. Instead, he ran his fingers back and forth over the muscle, shooting electricity through my body, every nerve ending sparking to life. Sam’s lips were set in a serious, straight line, his face a mask of concentration. We both watched his hand moving over my calf and then slowly down my leg. He grasped it at the bottom. He looked up at me with a grin.
“Ankle,” he said.
I let out a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a gasp. He shifted so that he knelt at my feet and took my other ankle in his right hand so that he was holding on to both my legs. He looked into my eyes for one, two, three seconds. I swallowed. And then, watching my reaction, he skimmed a finger slowly up my leg.
“Shin.”
I had plotted, dreamed, obsessed about Sam touching me. I had lain on my bed with my hand between my legs fantasizing about his hands and his shoulders and the crease in his bottom lip. I wanted so badly to touch him, to move my fingers along the faint line of hair that led from his belly button and into his bathing suit. And now I was frozen. I was terrified of ruining the moment, of shaking Sam out of whatever magic had come over him.
He cupped his palm around my knee following with his other hand on the opposite knee. He pushed them apart and crept slightly up the bed so he was between them, then grabbed my ankles and pulled my legs flat against the bed. He leaned over me, and my arms shook from holding myself upright. I could feel his breath on my face. Without moving his eyes from mine, he whispered, “Lie back, Percy.”
I did what he told me to, my heart pounding in my chest, and he knelt between my legs, looking down at me, his eyes dark. His long torso blocked the breeze from the fan, and suddenly I was overheating. I could feel sweat forming on my upper lip. Not taking his eyes off mine, he put his hand back on my knee.
“Knee,” he whispered. I blinked up at him. The air felt heavy.
“Knee, huh? What grade level is that book at?” I teased.
A small smile played at his lips. “Vastus medialis, vastus lateralis, tensor fasciae latae,” he said softly, moving his fingers higher. It felt like all my nerve endings concentrated underneath his fingers. He grazed the soft flesh on the inside of my thigh. “Adductor longus,” he murmured, and I sucked in a breath. He trailed his index finger from the sensitive part of my inner thigh, following the crease between the top of my leg and my pelvis, under the hem of the T-shirt. He flattened his hand over the protrusion of my hip bone, then wrapped it around my hip, over the ties of my bikini. He held it there, watching me, the smile gone from his face. I wanted to pull him down on top of me and feel his weight pressing me into the bed. I wanted to tug at the waves in his hair and put my mouth on his warm neck, but I kept still, my chest rising and falling.
He pushed the shirt up over my stomach, and slowly he untied the bow at one side of my bathing suit. When he had it loosened, he pulled the strings apart and ran his hand up and down the curve of my waist and hip. “Gluteus medius.” He moved his hand around to the back. “Gluteus maximus.” I let out a nervous laugh.
“Done with anatomy lessons for today?” he asked, his voice hoarse and deep. I swallowed and shook my head. His eyes flashed with victory, and he shimmied the shirt up higher. I lifted my upper back off the bed and he pulled the T-shirt off over my head. I lay back and the sudden exposure of air on my damp suit made me shiver. His eyes dropped to the pieces of triangular fabric that covered my chest, where my breasts spilled from the sides, my nipples tight peaks against the cool material. His gaze lingered, and when he looked back at me, his eyes were the deepest shade of blue I’d ever seen them.
He moved his body down the bed slightly, then leaned down, pressing his mouth to the skin below my belly button, whispering the names of muscles as he moved his mouth across my stomach, leaving a trail of kisses on my body. He ran his tongue over the crevice of my belly button and then moved it in a hot, wet line up the middle of my stomach, pausing to deliver kisses to different parts of my abdominals. My hips jerked, and I gripped the sheets in my fists. He passed the space between my breasts, and when he pressed his tongue to the hollow between my collarbones, a guttural moan sounded in my throat. I flattened my hands against his back, where his skin was hot and smooth, and he sucked on my neck just below my jaw, then ran his tongue to my ear, nipping at it slightly.
“Auricular lobule,” he whispered, his lips moving against my earlobe. Then he hovered over me, his face directly above mine. He held himself up with one arm while his hand moved to my waist, down over my bare hip.
I moved my arms around his neck, and he brought his lips to mine softly. I kissed him back, harder, parting his lips with my tongue. His mouth was a warm cave that I wanted to explore. It tasted like salt and oranges. I dug one hand into his hair and bit his lower lip. When we pulled away, he moved his hand to my inner thigh.
“I want to touch you, Percy,” he whispered roughly. “Can I?”
I let out a strangled-sounding yes. He shifted his weight onto his side, and we both watched as his fingers crept under the gold fabric. He traced the damp cleft between my legs, my bathing suit falling to the side with the movement. He pressed his finger gently inside, and then looked up at me, his face filled with amazement.
“Are we doing this?” he said quietly, and I didn’t know if he meant what was happening right now or some bigger question about us, but either way my answer was the same.
“Yeah, we’re doing this.”
