Perfect Couple

by Jennifer Echols

  “This isn’t fun,” Kennedy said. I’d gotten so lost in my own thoughts again that I’d almost forgotten he was there, complaining. “Funny how one jock turns the entire vibe into a fraternity mixer.”

  There were two jocks here, counting Noah—three if you counted Will, even though our school didn’t have a hockey team. I assumed Kennedy was referring to Brody.

  “No, I’m not ready to leave,” I said. “The sun hasn’t even set.”

  “We have school tomorrow,” Kennedy said. “Are all the Superlatives pictures ready for me?”

  “Not yet.”

  “I need them.”

  “It’s a holiday, and we still have a week and a half until the deadline.”

  “What’s the matter with you?” Kennedy asked. “You’re so crabby. Do you have PMS?”

  I whirled to face him. The movement of my shoulders made a spiral wave like I was a hurricane. The wave sped toward him and hit him in the mouth as I said, “Listen. Never ask a girl that. It’s offensive.”

  “That answers my question,” he said.

  A female could never win this argument. I said anyway, “I don’t see how you can claim to be such a progressive thinker but make that kind of comment to a woman.”

  “Sor-ry!” he exclaimed.

  “You know what?” I asked, my voice rising over the noise of the surf. “You offended me Friday with your meltdown about my friends and my cupcakes, for God’s sake. Now you’ve decided I’ve been punished enough, and you’re not mad at me anymore. Well, maybe I’m mad at you. And I deserve an apology. Not a ‘sor-ry!’ but a real one.”

  He gaped at me. I stared right back at him. A large wave smacked me in the back of the head and threatened to knock me down. I dug my heels into the sand and held my ground.

  Kennedy sighed. “I wasn’t saying anything against gays, just that I’m not one. I hear my dad in my head a lot. You haven’t met my dad.”

  I shook my head.

  “My dad doesn’t approve of my piercing, and he doesn’t like my hair.” He reached back to grip the ponytail at his nape. “Or enjoy indie films. You should hear what he calls me.”

  I nodded. I didn’t have to meet his dad to identify the type. Plenty of men with this attitude had made their beliefs known during breakfast at the B & B, assuming everyone else agreed with them. Little did they know that gay couples had slept in their beds a few days before.

  “At our age,” Kennedy went on, “what your dad says should roll off you, right? But for me, it doesn’t.”

  “Me neither,” I said. I meant my mom.

  “I probably won’t get to go to film school,” he said. “I might not make it to college at all. My dad doesn’t understand why I can’t stay here and take over the plumbing business, since the money’s good.”

  In a matter of minutes, Kennedy had transformed in front of me. Knowing what he was dealing with at home clarified why he acted the way he did, and where his anger came from.

  But understanding him better didn’t help me like him. I should have encouraged him to go to film school no matter what his dad said. At some point, I had stopped caring. I pictured him in ten years, a long-haired plumber claiming he could have gone to film school if he’d wanted, and making bitter comments about blockbuster movies that everyone else loved.

  Instead of comforting him about his home life, I surprised myself by saying this: “You can’t give me the silent treatment anymore.”

  “What?”

  “The silent treatment. You get mad at me and stop speaking to me for days. I can’t stand it, and I’m not going to put up with it. My mom and dad did that to each other when my dad still lived at home.”

  Kennedy stared at me across the water, like he was now having a revelation about me. A wave hit him in the chin, then another. Still he watched me.

  Finally he said, “Me! You give me the silent treatment.”

  “I certainly do not,” I said.

  “You never say anything.”

  “I’m saying something right now. I hear myself speaking.”

  “You’re excruciatingly quiet. Dating you is like being given the silent treatment all the time.”

  Well, maybe he shouldn’t date me, then, if it was such torture. Maybe we should break up. These words were on my lips as I glanced toward shore.

  Damn my contacts, giving me excellent distance vision. Against my will, I focused on the island of our towels and umbrellas. Grace and Brody were sitting up, facing us, her body tucked between his spread legs. He massaged her shoulders.

  Instead of breaking up with Kennedy, I grumbled, “Why don’t we ever make out?” If I was trying to prove to him that I was sane and logical and not on my period, the question wasn’t going to help. At this point, I just wished I could put on a show for Brody akin to the one he was putting on for me.

  “What are you talking about?” Kennedy asked. “We do make out.”

  Something told me the way we’d kissed wouldn’t meet Tia’s standards for “making out,” even a little. I asked, “Do you ever want to get down and dirty?” I sounded like an ad for an Internet porn site. I wasn’t sure how else to phrase it. A guy like Brody wouldn’t have cared how I put it. He would have accepted the invitation without question.

  “That just seems cheap,” Kennedy said. “It doesn’t even sound appealing.”

  “I’m kidding,” I said. “You’re right—the whole day’s had a fraternity mixer vibe. I guess it’s rubbing off on me.”

  “Do you want to leave?” he repeated.

  “I’m not ready to leave,” I repeated.

  “Let’s get out of the water, at least,” he said.

  Sitting next to him on a towel, listening to him make jokes, wouldn’t be any more titillating than standing next to him in the ocean, listening to him make jokes. But there was no way I would refuse his company after what I’d seen Brody do with Grace.

  We sloshed toward land. Grace lay on a towel now, with Cathy and Ellen beside her. Brody was tossing a football with Will—“tossing” in this case meant he was bulleting it fifty yards. He wasn’t touching Grace anymore, but I’d seen what I’d seen.

  As a last-ditch attempt at not resenting Kennedy so much, I gave him an opening to make me feel good about myself. He didn’t even have to make up a compliment. I saved him the trouble. I shouted over the noise of the surf, “Do you like my new bikini?”

  “You look like a lifeguard,” he said. It was like the time I’d worn a cute, structured blazer to a party and he’d said I looked like a man, and the time I’d worn a gauzy black minidress and he’d said I looked like a wiccan.

  After we reached shore, he patted a place for me on his towel—gee, thanks!—and we settled side by side, not touching. Sitting next to each other on a towel was his idea of serious physical involvement. What if he made it to film school after all, and we were still dating in college? Would we sit next to each other on a blanket spread out on the quad? Was this how snarky intellectuals got knocked up?

  “Ladies and gentlemen.” Brody stood at the edge of the towel island, bouncing the football back and forth between his hands without looking at it. The ball was so familiar to him that it might as well have been part of him. “It’s time for football. Touch football, so girls can play too.”

  Grace sat up and raised both hands. “I’m on your team, Brody!” she slurred.

  “Drunks can’t play football,” Brody said. “Seriously, you’ll get hurt. But you can cheer.”

  The drunk cheerleaders high-fived each other in response. Cathy called, “Can we cheer sitting down?”

  Disgusted, I closed my eyes and lay back on my towel.

  “Brody,” I heard Noah call, “if you get hurt, Coach will kill you.”

  “He won’t get hurt,” I said to the air. “Just don’t fall on him, Noah.”

  “Ooooooh,” everyone around me moaned.

  “Ha, good one,” Kennedy commented.

  Hooray, I’d qualified for the Snark Olympics. I hadn’t
meant what I’d said to be that funny. I hoped Noah wasn’t mad. I opened one eye to look for him.

  He was crawling across the towels toward me. When he reached me, he leaned so far over me that I felt a little uncomfortable. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Kennedy leaning back to get out of Noah’s way.

  Noah rubbed the tip of my nose with his, just as he’d done when we dated. And weirdly, though I knew he wasn’t attracted to me, butterflies fluttered in my stomach the way they had before he came out to me. He growled, “You know I’m going to get you during this game, don’t you?”

  I giggled. Kennedy scowled beside me. Noah had taken this flirtation too far, and I had let him. If I didn’t end this, Kennedy would start giving me the silent treatment again, and I Just. Could. Not. Take it. I turned to Kennedy and asked, “Want to play?”

  “Want to drive some bamboo under our fingernails later?” Kennedy asked.

  “I’ll take that as a no.” I told Noah, “I’m not playing.” I hoped Brody heard me.

  After Noah walked off, Kennedy told me, “Sit up. This should be pretty good. Football oafs, the band’s drum major, girls, a dog, the student council president, and a gay Goth in hand-to-hand combat? If only the drunk cheerleaders were allowed in, we’d really have a show.”

  I did think it would be a show. I also thought it would be infinitely more fun to be part of it rather than watching it, but I wasn’t going to play when Brody was the one organizing. Obedient to Kennedy, I sat up and watched the teams gathering and dividing themselves.

  Brody jogged out of the crowd. He reached our towel and held out one hand to me. “I thought you wanted to play football.”

  I stared way up at him. His green eyes sparkled in his tanned face. He beckoned to me like the devil. I wanted so badly to play. But I knew taking his hand would be a slap in the face to Kennedy. And there was no sense in goading Kennedy to give me the silent treatment over a football game at the beach, when there was nothing waiting for me as a consolation prize. Brody was just toying with me again.

  I opened my mouth to say no. Instead, a yelp escaped from my lips as I was grabbed around the waist from behind. Noah had disrespected the towel island by tracking sand right through it. He hoisted me onto his shoulder.

  I told him to put me down, my voice lilting in time with his footsteps across the beach, but I didn’t protest too much. I wanted Brody to know I was mad at him for having his hands all over Grace, but I did also want to play football. This was the kind of Florida fun I was sick of missing out on. Noah was getting me where I wanted to go, in a way that Kennedy would have no reason to complain about later. As Kennedy sat alone on his towel, I felt incredibly lucky to have a gay ex-boyfriend. Noah set me down gently on my bare feet in the middle of the huddle.

  Brody, bent over with one hand on his knee and his other holding the football against his hip, was lecturing the teams. He stopped in midsentence. “Harper. Thanks for joining us finally.” He stared at me and I stared back, acknowledging the heat between us.

  “As I was saying,” he continued, “this is two-hand touch football. No tackling. If somebody gets two hands on you, consider yourself down. How else should we change the rules while ladies are playing?” He paused and squinted into the sun, thinking. “No nudity. If you pull off someone’s bathing suit, that’s a penalty. Like, a one-yard penalty.”

  “I don’t know,” I spoke up. “If you manage to get somebody’s bathing suit off, I think you should gain a yard, because that would be pretty difficult and you should get a reward.”

  “Harper,” Brody said over the laughter, “you are my kind of girl. You’re on my team, by the way.”

  Across the huddle, Kaye raised her brows at me.

  “Wait a minute,” Aidan said. “I missed something. How are we choosing the teams?”

  Everyone in the huddle seemed to move a fraction of an inch backward. Aidan was the student council president, and he liked to govern everything.

  “The teams should be equally weighted in terms of football experience,” Aidan said, “and . . . I don’t know. Height?”

  “Watch it,” Tia said.

  “I wasn’t talking to you,” Aidan said.

  “Parliamentary procedure,” Kaye spoke up, because she was the student council vice president and had twice as much sense as Aidan. “Who thinks we should re-divide the teams considering football experience, height, and whatever else Aidan deems worthy? This will take roughly six hours. All opposed?”

  “Nay,” said everyone.

  “Aye,” Aidan said testily.

  “Ready?” Brody asked quickly, before Aidan could make a more detailed argument.

  “Break!” all the guys said, clapping their hands and moving away, while most of the girls were left wondering what had happened. Kaye grabbed Aidan and used two fingers to curve the corners of his mouth up into a smile. Silently I wished her luck with that, because Aidan didn’t like it when she usurped his authority. I hurried after Brody.

  I’d assumed this would be a pretty boring game: Brody scoring for his team, Noah scoring for his, and the rest of us standing around watching. But the two-hands-and-you’re-out rule made the competition exciting. Girls really could play. Tia got good at sidestepping Will and slapping two hands on Brody, sacking him. Other tackles weren’t so clear cut. Did your hands have to be flat on the person you were tackling? Did one hand plus one pinkie count? After a couple of scores, we’d had so many arguments about the rules that Will asked Kennedy to referee. Of course he said yes to this. The job massaged his ego and met his need to feel superior.

  His first ruling came when Brody tossed me the ball and I ran for the goal line. Noah stopped my run by picking me up with one arm around my gut—oof!—and setting me down facing the opposite direction, making the whole game with girls into a joke. I promptly spun and ran, not stopping again until I crossed the line.

  “Score!” I hollered. “Noah didn’t touch me with two hands.”

  Noah’s side yelled, “Booooo.” My side yelled, “Oooooh.” Brody dashed across the sand, picked me up, and twirled me around in victory. I wasn’t sure how much of this Kennedy saw. Six people already stood in front of him, arguing for their sides. I knew I’d won the point when my team cheered and Noah cried, “Damn it!” with his hands on his head.

  “It has to be a two-hand touch!” Kennedy defended his call.

  “You’re just letting your girlfriend’s team win!” Aidan exclaimed.

  Kennedy shrugged and said slyly, “Privilege of being a referee.” He winked at me.

  Clearly he hadn’t seen Brody twirl me around. I knew my current limbo between boys wasn’t what healthy, wholesome relationships were made of, but at the moment I didn’t care. I was mostly naked and testing my body along with lots of other mostly naked friends on a hot evening. Sand stuck to my skin with sweat. I tingled with exertion and the knowledge that two guys desired me. Whatever happened tomorrow, this was the night of my life.

  “Pretty sunset,” Kaye called.

  We all stopped and looked out over the Gulf. Daylight had faded. The change had been so gradual that I hadn’t noticed. Now the bottom edge of the orange sun balanced on the rippling surface of the ocean, then disappeared.

  As the light grew tawny and soft, Will walked up behind Tia. He wrapped one arm around her. She backed against him until their bodies tucked neatly together as they watched the sunset. He kissed her neck.

  I burned with jealousy—not of Tia, but of the sweet relationship she had with Will. In contrast, I was caught between dating Kennedy in name only—he held his ground on the sidelines of our game and hadn’t bothered to come any closer to me during this time-out—and making out with Brody, who was more attached to Grace.

  At least Brody wasn’t enjoying the sunset with her, either. After the drunk cheerleaders’ boast, I hadn’t heard a single “Get fired up!” out of any of them. They lay on the towels and might have been asleep.

  Once the sun started sinking below the h
orizon, it slipped behind bright pink clouds and into the ocean in a matter of minutes. “That’s it for me,” Brody announced. “It must be almost eight, and I have homework.”

  “Homework?” someone shouted. Another guy said, “Traitor!”

  Brody held up his hands. “What can I say? I’m the school’s scholar-athlete.”

  “You have, like, a three-point-one,” Noah grumbled. “But I have to go too, or my mama will kill me.”

  Everyone else murmured their good-byes. We reluctantly disassembled the towel island. Gathering my towel and bag and two ice chests, I was surprised when Kennedy came up behind me. “See you in class,” he said.

  “Okay,” I said brightly, as if I looked forward to it.

  “And I need more of those Superlatives photos so I can work on the section,” he added.

  “Gotcha.” That meant I would be up past midnight to put together something to show him, after I worked on the race photos. I watched him walk toward the parking lot, laughing with Quinn. I wondered whether the holiday had been worth it.

  I’d hugged Tia and Kaye good-bye and had just realized with dismay that I would have to make two trips to lug the ice chests all the way to my car, when I saw Brody sauntering toward me with his towel around his neck. All the men in fashion magazines would be wearing the bulky terry-cloth scarf as haute couture on the runways next season. Brody made a beach towel look that good.

  Yes, my holiday had definitely been worth it.

  9

  BRODY GRINNED AT ME. “HOW’S your eye?”

  “Perfect,” I lied. It still stung whenever I blinked. Probably I should wear my glasses to school tomorrow. Probably I wouldn’t.

  I wished Brody and I could pick up where we’d left off in the pavilion, but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction after he’d let Grace hang all over him. And I couldn’t help but throw a little barb at him. “You’re not driving Grace home, even though she’s been drinking? Are you trying to get rid of her?” That would be the meanest joke if she lost a battle with a live oak tonight, but I couldn’t imagine he’d really let her get behind the wheel.