Summer Boys

by Hailey Abbott

  She kept walking—away from the bonfire, toward where the houses completely fell off and it was just beach and dunes and rocky outcroppings into the water. She stopped and turned to look behind her. Maybe she’d overshot him. Maybe he’d gone back to his car and gone home. A lump formed in her throat.

  She needed to see him tonight. She needed to know what happened next. It hadn’t been so urgent just half an hour ago, when he and Kelsi were still together, but it was urgent now.

  Ella walked into the dunes, not knowing what else to do. She climbed the first mound of loose sand, her feet sinking with each step. She descended to a small valley, then climbed again. She reached the top and froze. Down the hill in front of her, Peter was lying on his back, his body propped up against the next rise. He’d taken his shirt off and tucked it behind his head. He looked incredible, sprawled against the sand, his bronze skin glinting in the moonlight. Ella looked at his flat stomach and noticed that the top button of his shorts was undone. She caught her breath. Ella wasn’t sure he had seen her yet, though his body was directly facing her.

  “Peter,” she said tentatively. He lifted his head, then sat up. “I wanted to…” she began, but Peter raised a finger to his lips.

  “No one is allowed to talk until they’ve taken their shirt off,” he said. Ella smiled at the joke, but Peter didn’t. Her feet felt sturdy in the sand now as she made her way toward him. Her pulse pounded in her ears. Suddenly, she didn’t feel the cold at all.

  She kept her eyes on his as she reached back, untied her halter top, and then pulled it off entirely.

  21

  Beth was lying on her back, checking out the stars. It wasn’t hard, considering there were only about six or seven peeping through the clouds. The moist air made her skin clammy. She rubbed her upper arms, then put a hand to her throat. She thought she was going to cry.

  “Look who we found down the beach.”

  Beth jerked up. George and Cara, with Jamie in tow, were approaching the edge of the fire. George had his arm wrapped around Jamie. “A lone mermaid washed ashore.”

  “Oh, God, I loveThe Little Mermaid,” Cara added. Beth didn’t crack a smile.

  George caught her eye, then widened his own eyes as he took in the deserted fire. He looked at his watch. “Are we late?”

  Beth put her index fingers in the sand on either side of her waist and drew concentric circles. She didn’t reply.

  “Oh.” George crouched and popped open the cooler. “We better start catching up then. Beer?” He offered a can to Cara, who took it, and then to Jamie, who shook her head. He popped open his own and took a few long gulps. “I have to say, Beth, I thought we’d get rained out. But you were right, as always.” He sank down on the sand beside her. Beth just shrugged.

  “I’ve never had a bonfire on the beach before,” Cara chirped. “I mean, it’s one of those things you always think you’re going to do, but never get around to it. It’s such a great idea, though.” She looked out at the ocean, running a hand through her perfect hair, which was down and wavy tonight, silky as an actual mermaid’s. “Isn’t it cool down here in the dark?”

  “Bonfires are the best,”George said, sitting cross-legged. Beth could feel his eyes on her for a moment. She looked back at him, and he glanced away. George never managed to get a real tan like everyone else. In the dim moonlight, he glowed.

  Cara seemed to notice it at the exact same time Beth did. She turned to him and gave him an exaggerated once-over. “Did somebody turn on a black light?”

  “Ha, ha.” George put his arm around her and pulled her onto the sand.

  “Ha,” Beth said sarcastically. Suddenly, Cara was even more perfect than ever.

  George sat up again, polished off his beer, and opened another one. He dunked the base of the empty can into one of the sand mounds Beth had made earlier on, the metal and sand crunching together. His eyes met Beth’s again, over the top of the can as he gulped. He tilted his head back and placed the can perpendicular to his mouth, his Adam’s apple bobbing. He finished the beer in a matter of seconds and leaned into the cooler for another.

  “You think maybe you should slow down, George?” Beth didn’t bother to keep the sternness out of her voice. George hardly ever drank, because more than a can of beer could knock him flat.

  George winked at her. “I don’t think so, Mom.” He popped the top loudly.

  “Want me to go get the beer bong?”

  George pulled the can away from his mouth, mid-sip, and said lazily, “Are you auditioning for Miss Bitch U.S.A.?”

  Everyone sat in silence for a moment. Beth felt like she’d been punched in the stomach. “Whoa,” Jamie breathed, finally.

  “If all you ladies will excuse me.” George stood abruptly and stripped off his shirt, then bent over to pick up his beer. “I’m getting naked. Who’s coming with?”

  Cara put her hand to her collarbone. “You mean, skinny-dipping?” Everyone looked at her. She laughed. “Wow.” She stood with an air of determination. “Okay.” As if everyone were pressuring her, or more likely, as if George had asked her, specifically.

  “Beth?” George raised his eyebrows at her, a peace offering. He knew Beth was always up for skinny-dipping. Last summer they’d gone a couple of times with Ella and Kelsi. Cara stood beside him and brushed at some sand where it had gathered on his elbows.

  “No, thanks.” Beth avoided his eyes, and tried not to look at his chest. She ended up staring at some invisible point just beyond his head.

  “Jamie?” George asked.

  “I think I’m going to pass.” Jamie wrapped her arms around her knees, as if somebody might actually force her to get naked. She looked petrified. “I’m not a skinny-dipper.”

  “Jamie!” George put his hand to his heart as if he’d been stabbed. “Not a skinny-dipper? Don’t you know skinny-dipping is as close to heaven as a human being can get?”

  Jamie shook her head. “No, I didn’t know that, George.”

  “Well, now you do. C’mon.”

  “Please, George. I hate being naked.”

  George’s eyes widened. “Hate beingnaked? How is that pos—”

  “Jamie and I are gonna go for a walk,” Beth said abruptly to the spot beyond George’s head. She didn’t think she could take watching George and Cara naked in the water together. She didn’t think she could take seeing George naked at all. And anyway, Jamie obviously didn’t want to go swimming. Sometimes George didn’t know when to quit. He was clearly drunk.

  She and Jamie watched as the pair headed toward the water, which because of low tide, was about a hundred yards away. Beth could see them peeling off their clothes and hobbling along, getting smaller. “Jackasses,” Beth said as she scooted closer to Jamie.

  “Does it make you jealous?” Jamie asked.

  “What?”

  “George and that girl.”

  “No. Who cares? He’s so in over his head, it isn’t even funny.”

  Silence.

  “He’s a guy. He thinks with his dick,” Beth said nonchalantly. She felt as if saying things like this might actually become second nature to her if she kept it up for much longer.

  “Do you really believe that about guys? That they only think with their penises?” Jamie asked earnestly.

  Beth shrugged. Truly, maybe George didn’t. Cara was annoying, but maybe he didn’t see her that way. She remembered the girl they’d seen at the minigolf course at the beginning of the summer. Maybe being girly was something you just had to do. Maybe it didn’t make you any less of a person.

  “Let’s walk,” she said to Jamie. They both rose and brushed the sand off their legs.

  Beth’s eyes lit on something on the ground. “Just a sec.” She grabbed George’s shirt from where he’d dropped it, then went running off in search of his shorts and boxers, kicking up sandy mud behind her as she got closer to the water. She could see him, splashing out there, surrounded by white foam waves. He and Cara were two separate figures, and then th
ey merged for a second, and parted. Beth tried not to think about them kissing naked.

  Standing there and looking at them in the water, Beth caught her breath sharply. She didn’t want to see them together, but at the same time, she needed to watch. Suddenly, she realized that she might have been the one who was in way over her head. I want to be where Cara is, she thought, her cheeks flaming with desire and embarrassment. It should be mewho’s out there alone with George. She understood it now, the mix of all those strange emotions that had been tugging at her heart all summer long. It was quite simple, actually. She reallywas in love with George. There could be no more denying it. She turned away from the water, and spotted Cara’s stuff in a neat, tiny pile not far from the water. Beth left it alone.

  Back where the road bordered the sand, she dropped George’s clothes underneath a streetlight, where a collection of A-frame houses with huge windows marked the beginning of town. She made sure the clothes were well into the circle of light, then stepped over the curb. That way, he’d be naked on a floodlit stage. For only a minute, Beth wondered, What am I doing?

  Jamie caught up and walked alongside her, but turned once to look back at the water.

  “I’d be jealous,” Jamie said, her curly hair rustling against her shoulders in the breeze. “George is supposed to be yours.”

  Twenty minutes later, Beth and Jamie were turning onto Conch Road, which ran straight through two neat rows of houses. They’d been silent for the past few minutes, spying through the windows of the houses whose lights were still on. They could see people watching TV, empty rooms filled with furniture, a middle-aged lady knitting. Jamie stuck her thumbnail in her mouth.

  “Beth, I did something stupid.”

  “What?”

  Jamie hesitated, her head tilted thoughtfully. Beth wondered what it was like to be that delicate. She almost felt jealous of Jamie, even when she was clearly so miserable. She was soft in all the places Beth was hard.

  “I just really messed up. I broke something of Ethan’s on purpose. I don’t know how I’m going to fix it.”

  Beth stared at the street beneath their feet, deep in thought. “What was it?”

  Jamie shook her head. “Just this thing he made. It doesn’t really matter. It’s just…I ruined it. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  Beth shrugged. “You were probably thinking you were pissed off.”

  “No. I’m not pissed off. I don’t have anything to be pissed off about.”

  Beth stared hard at Jamie. “C’mon. Jamie, the guy dumped you.”

  “Yeah.”

  They both stopped to look in the triangular windows of a giant A-frame. A man and a woman were lying on the couch watching TV, fitted together like two spoons.

  “But maybe I was too…I shouldn’t have thought there was so much there. I just feel…so hugely stupid.”

  “Oh God, everybody’s stupid,” Beth gushed. “You need to find a guy who lets you know it’s okay to be stupid.” Of course, she was thinking about George. He always made her feel like her stupidities were cool.

  Jamie thrust her hands into the pockets of her overalls, unconvinced.

  Beth thought hard, trying to do better. She needed to separate herself from the George situation long enough to actually be helpful, but it was hard. She could only say what sounded right, hypothetically. “Look, maybe you’re just trying too hard to hold on to something that you can’t hold on to. Maybe there was never any way to keep that guy. If he let you go, he probably wasn’t even worth keeping.”

  “Yeah.”

  Beth swallowed, feeling useless. Oh God. She loved George. She couldn’t stop thinking about him. She missed him like crazy, even though they’d only been apart for these twenty minutes. Out of nowhere, tears pooled up in her eyes. Beth looked back over her shoulder toward the water. For all she knew, Cara and George were having sex on the beach with the waves crashing over them, like in that old movieFrom Here to Eternity. It was too much.

  She and Jamie took a right onto Peachtree.

  “I CAN’T SEE THEM ANYWHERE!”

  The voice came from up the street ahead of them. Somebody was yelling at the top of their lungs, and of course Beth knew immediately who it was. She started hurrying toward the sound, Jamie trailing behind her. After a few seconds, she could just make out Cara up ahead. She was bent over laughing so hard she looked like she was going to pee her pants. Beth scanned the space around her for George. To the right, a light popped on, illuminating the windows of a low white ranch house.

  “I think somebody HID THEM.”Crap. Beth craned her neck upward, sucking in her breath. He wasn’t…

  George was on the roof of a green split-level on the left, his naked body lit against the dark sky. With his free hand, he was exaggeratedly scanning the horizon like a sailor. His other hand covered himself in front. “I wonder WHO did it? I wonder if it’s because they’re MAD AT ME.”

  Cara giggled and held her fingers over her lips to try to shush George, but it came out as part of the giggle.

  “God.”Beth walked up to the foot of the house. “George,” she hissed. “Get down.”

  George threw his shoulders back and widened his eyes, as if he was surprised to see her. “Beth! Tell me, do you have any idea where my clothes might be?” Beth could hear the undercurrent of anger that ran behind the words. His face looked like the normal, goofy George. Only his eyes were angry.

  “George, do you hear me? Get the hell down from there!”

  Suddenly, a red-and-blue flash ran the length of George’s body and the house, lighting up the trees. “Shit, cops,” Cara said, and dashed off toward the woods. Jamie sprinted in the opposite direction, toward the beach.

  Beth looked down the street, then back up at George. The flashing lights of the police car seemed to recede. “George, come on. It isn’t funny. Get down.”

  “Not until you tell me what the hell your problem is.”

  “My problem is that you’re on the roof. You’re gonna fall.”

  “You better apologize,” George said, now using both hands to cover himself down there. He swayed slightly on his feet.

  “God, George. Please come down.”

  “Say you’re sorry for acting like such a bitch.”

  “Whatever, I’m sorry. Come down.”

  George seemed to consider the situation for a second. Then he turned and padded toward the back of the house. Beth hurried around into the backyard, keeping her eyes on him for as long as she could. There was a lattice covered in roses that stretched from the ground to about two feet below the roof. George climbed down it gingerly while Beth averted her eyes. He fell the last couple of feet.

  Beth crouched down beside him on the grass. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  He rolled over, wincing, seeming to forget he was naked. Beth tried not to let her eyes travel south, but she couldn’t help it. They scanned downward and her skin started prickling. George tilted his chin against his chest and peered at her, which made her clear her throat and look at the grass. She’d seen him naked before. Just last summer, in fact. But she’d never really looked.

  “C’mon, we gotta go,” she hissed. She put a hand on his wrist, noticing the feel of the skin against her fingertips, and yanked him up. They ran toward the woods at the far end of the street. Once they reached the trees, they stopped and breathed hard for a second. Beth peered down the length of Peachtree, then up Oceanview Drive.

  In another second, the police car appeared at the far end of the road. Beth tugged George back into the woods, her heart beating faster than it should have been. She was as excited as she’d ever been in her life. Silently, stealthily, they stole away—one girl in a too-big T-shirt and one skinny boy, naked and pale but undeniably cute, alone in the dark, hand in hand, running away to places unknown.

  22

  Ella stood in just her shorts and her strapless bra. She waited for Peter to do or say something, but he didn’t move from where he sat. She tucked her
thumbs into the waistband, her own fingers feeling strange against her skin, waiting some more.

  Ella was trembling with anticipation. “Aren’t you going to get up?”

  Peter shook his head, just slightly, coolly. In the dimness, Ella could see his Adam’s apple bob once. Her chest shuddered slightly as she breathed. She’d worn less than she was wearing now to plenty of family gatherings, but she’d never felt so naked. She couldn’t bring herself to take the shorts off, too.

  Where had this timid, unsure Ella come from? She didn’t want her to stay. Boldly, suddenly resolved, she took the few steps between them and drifted down to her knees on the sand. She leaned over Peter and gently touched her mouth to his. She could feel his smile against her lips.

  She pulled back, gazed into his dark eyes, and then leaned in to kiss him again. This time, neither one of them was gentle. Peter’s tongue was in her mouth, and Ella sucked on it. She knew that trick could drive boys crazy. And Peter was no exception. He floated his hands to her thighs and stroked her skin. She could feel how much he wanted her.

  Ella let out a sigh of pleasure. She felt her old confidence—which she’d lost somewhere at the beginning of the summer—flooding back. She stopped kissing Peter for a second and traced the curve of his strong jaw with one finger. “I have you,” she whispered. Finally, she did.

  He responded by trailing his finger along her cleavage. Then he buried his head in her neck, kissing her throat. “You do,” he breathed against her ear. “You’re amazing.”

  It was all Ella had needed to hear, all summer long.Poor Kelsi, to miss this feeling, Ella thought, as Peter dipped her back, his mouth still pressed against her neck. She wondered if her sister had ever had it, or would ever have it with anyone. Peter pressed her against the sand, and she rested her hand on the zipper of his shorts. He ducked his head and kissed his way down to her stomach.