Kenzi is gone for a total of four days, three nights, and six hours.
But who’s counting?
I’m the first standing at the tip of the finger pier when Sweet Serenity makes her slow turn into the neck of the marina.
The boat purrs around into the slip, Terry at the helm. Kenzi is stretched out on the bow like a cat, sitting on a towel, headphones hanging around her neck. Her legs are incredibly long underneath her cut-off jeans and she has her shirt tied in a knot underneath her breasts, exposing her soft belly. Her oversized sunglasses turn my way and she smiles.
She’s such a sight for sore eyes, it makes me ache.
The boat pulls into the slip. She comes to the side and I toss her a rope.
“Missed me?” she asks.
“You wish.”
The engine hasn’t even cut, but she jumps from the boat to the pier and we take off down the dock.
Smoke fills my lungs and fills my skull.
I close my eyes and drop my head against the wall.
I feel hazy, quiet, relaxed. All my tense, tight muscles gain some slack.
Someone’s laundry tumbles and thumps in the machine beside mine. The laundry room smells like Clorox, handfuls of earth, and weed. People so rarely come in here, Kenzi and I have claimed this spot for our intermediate smoke breaks.
“Maybe we might’ve judged Jason too harshly,” Kenzi says suddenly.
I open my eyes just enough to narrow them at her. “What?”
She shrugs. She’s twisting the joint between her fingers, examining the glowing cherry. “I’m just saying…maybe he’s not the complete dick we thought he was.”
“So he’s just a small dick. That’s what you’re saying?”
The edges of Kenzi’s mouth twist in a grimace. She looks away.
My throat, already smoke-swollen, fills with acid.
“Jesus Christ,” I say. “You fell for it. His charm.”
“I did not.” She looks at me now. Those sea glass green eyes look equal parts angered and hurt.
The mood is broken. There’s a tension in the toxic air between us.
“Why are you defending him?” I counter. “He hates people like us. We’re not worth licking the dirt on his shoes, according to him.”
“And what exactly is that? People like us?”
Her eyes are challenging me.
Like an idiot, I meet the challenge. “Losers.”
A shard of hurt slips across her eyes. “Is that what you think of me?”
I lift a hand, drop it. “That’s what they think of us. Jason and his crew.”
She pushes herself off the dryer and brushes off her dress. “That’s funny, because Jason never called me a loser. But you did.”
I jump off and follow her down the gravel pathway to the dock. “Kenzi, that’s not what I meant…”
She turns to me suddenly. “Is that why you couldn’t…?” But her question catches and her voice trails off.
My throat lumps. How do I tell her now that it’s not that I don’t want her…
The problem is wanting her too much? The type of longing that makes your soul ache.
My words go brittle and crack. “Kenzi…”
She shakes her head. “Just leave me alone for a minute. Please.”
Please. When she says please, I can’t do anything but obey.
My feet are trapped to the ground like they’re stuck in tar and I watch her walk down the dock and away from me.
I don’t see Kenzi for a couple days.
It feels like a lifetime.
I’m not sure if she’s still mad at me about the loser comment. I spend nearly a full twenty-four hours downloading music off of Limewire and burning it onto a CD. I put it in a case, climb onto her boat, and leave it trapped in the hatch window that leads to her room.
But the next day, the CD is still there. She hasn’t come back to the boat.
I’m trying not to let it consume me. But it’s a challenge. I find myself spending too much time staring off into the void blankly.
“Donovan.” I glance up from my notebook. I’ve been distractedly doodling the letter “K” in the corner.
I’ve been zoning out during the Tomorrow’s Doctors class. Dr. Esmerelda is staring at me expectantly from across the conferences table. “Team up with Jason for the assignment, please.”
My chest gets tight. I look at Jason, but for once, he doesn’t have murder in his eyes.
Actually, he’s been in a bizarrely good mood today. And I feel like I’m walking on a minefield around him, waiting for the bomb to detonate, because it can’t be this easy.
The class dives into teams of two. Each team is given a stethoscope and a blood pressure cuff. Our task is to accurately take the pulse and pressure of our partner.
Simple enough, at least. Jason goes first. I have to roll up my sleeve so he can take my blood pressure. This is easy for him.
He jots down my statistics in his notebook. Then he rolls up his sleeves and extends his arm. He’s distracted, though. He keeps glancing off into nothing, getting lost in his thoughts.
“This is familiar,” I say, trying to draw him back to reality.
For the first time, his blue eyes meet mine. “What?”
“Come on. You don’t remember?” He looks at me blankly, so I continue: “Four summers ago. I was practicing to get my lifeguard certificate so I could pull a couple shifts at the pool. You volunteered to be my CPR dummy, and then complained that I nearly broke your ribs.”
Jason looks startled. “I forgot about that.”
“I didn’t,” I say. “You weren’t always an asshole.”
He grins. “But always a dummy.”
I bite back a smile of my own. “Won’t argue there.”
I count his blood pressure and then remove the sleeve. Then I attach the stethoscope. He’s wearing a white knitted sweater and it’s going to be hard to hear anything through that. “Can you take off your sweater?” I ask.
He answers by lifting his sweater an inch. Nothing but bare skin underneath.
“Do you mind if I go underneath?”
“Go wild.”
I cup the stethoscope and rub it between my hands. “What are you doing?” he asks.
“It’s cold.”
Jason snorts a laugh, but he doesn’t say anything else.
Once I’ve gotten the temperature of the stethoscope up a bit, I roll my chair directly in front of Jason. His limbs are too long and he has to splay his knees to make room for me. I slip the stethoscope underneath his sweater. His skin is warm and I hear him make a small intake of breath—the metal is still a little cold, despite my best intentions—but he otherwise doesn’t complain.
I slide the tool up his chest and over his heart. I’m focused, zeroed in on the whump-whump beat.
It’s strong. Loud. And thumping quickly against his chest.
“Are you nervous?” I ask him.
His mouth screws. “Why would I be nervous?”
“Your pulse is fast—”
I stop my tongue. It hits me then. We’re so close like this. His heart is pounding. His pupils are dilated. His chest rises and falls in short, quick breaths.
Jason is not nervous. He’s aroused.
I know. And he knows that I know. I can tell by the spike of fear in his eyes. But then they narrow. “You’re doing it wrong,” he mutters.
His heart is hammering in my ears.
I suggest: “Try taking a breath—”
But Jason suddenly rips the stethoscope from me and throws it across the room. “This exercise is stupid!” He snaps. “Twelve-year-olds can play with stethoscopes!”
“Jason!” Dr. Esmerelda is livid. Her eyes are sharp, her mouth is a thin line. “Don’t make me call your father down here, because you know I will. Outside. Now.”
Jason doesn’t look at me. He just snatches up his notebook and leaves, shutting the door hard behind him.
