Matt moved over beside me and lifted the shirt over my head. Then he stared at my naked torso.
“Why’d you want to hang out with me?” he asked.
“Just thought we were both at home alone. Might as well.”
He nodded.
“Too bad it’s not John home alone instead of me, huh?” he said. Or asked.
I couldn’t figure out a way to respond to that without insulting him or John, so I said nothing.
“I like your room,” he said, picking up my dumbbells and pumping a little.
“Thanks.”
“I guess we can hang out on Wednesdays when everyone’s gone,” he said then. “If you want to.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I want to.”
Matt stopped pumping iron, sat on the bed, and looked around.
“I’ve heard the rumors about you.”
I froze. I wasn’t sure what was coming next.
“They true?”
I didn’t speak.
“I asked John if they were true, but he didn’t answer me. So I figure they are.”
I still kept silent.
“Doesn’t bother me,” he said then. “That’s your business. Unless you make it mine.”
I couldn’t tell if that was a warning or an invitation. The way he said it, it could have been either. He wasn’t the most emotive person, as I’ve said. But I wanted to know.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“We’re both home alone for an hour and twenty minutes every Wednesday night now, just like you said.”
I let that sentence infiltrate my brain, let it fly around the room. We had been talking without looking at each other, but now I wanted to see the expression on his face. His eyes. I turned to look at him, and when he saw what I was doing, he looked up at me too. Our eyes met. I knew what I saw there. Permission. Or a certain hunger. John’s not the only horny teenager around the neighborhood, I thought.
I broke off the eye contact. My room had never been quieter.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” I asked.
“Probably.”
“I don’t mind,” I said. “If you want to.”
“I don’t not want to,” he said.
“So…”
“So.”
Neither of us moved. We were frozen solid, and we stayed that way until the clock ticked off enough minutes that it was impossible for us to have time to do anything. We didn’t talk. We didn’t move. We just sat there. Frozen.
At the door he paused, turned back to me for just a minute, and said, “See you next Wednesday.”
And now I knew exactly what I was doing when I walked down the street and knocked on his door two weeks ago.
I missed Harper more than I could stand.
Chapter 23
All the next week I was feeling both exhilarated and scared. I wished I could talk to John about Matt, but he was absolutely the last person I could talk to about this. Well, except for Matt’s father. I guess he would be the last.
I was looking forward to seeing Matt again, hoping he meant what he said about seeing me on Wednesday, but also feeling like I was betraying John’s trust by not telling him. What would he think?
Not to mention Harper. But Harper had let me down. He should have been with me all summer.
No, that isn’t true. He had not let me down. He had said the military duties were obligatory, and I believed him. It just seemed too unfair to have waited for him since Christmas and then he not be here. I had expected to spend the summer with him, even spend the night with him at his house in Roe a few times. I figured I could arrange that somehow. I had made all these plans.
Wednesday came. For ten minutes, no sign of Matt. Just as I was giving up on him coming up the hill, I saw him. He walked slowly up the street, not looking too anxious but glancing at first one house then another, I suppose to see if any neighbors were looking. I had never seen self-assured Matt looking so self-conscious. It was weird.
“Hey,” he said when I opened the door for him. “I wonder what people will think if they see me walking up here every Wednesday night? It’s not like you and I are friends.”
“No,” I said. “Not like that.”
He smiled. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Are we friends?”
“That might get under John’s skin a little, don’t you think?”
I thought about it. He was right. John wouldn’t like this at all if he knew about it.
“So… what?” I asked, not sure what to do next.
“We can be secret pals,” Matt said, and we both laughed. Secret Pals was something the women at our church did for Christmas, drawing names and purchasing gifts with no one, supposedly, knowing who had drawn their name.
“So, like, am I not supposed to talk to you when I come over?”
“You never have.”
“I never felt like you wanted to talk to me.”
“Then why did you show up at my door?”
“I wanted to talk to you.”
“Just talk?”
“I thought so.”
“And now?”
“You look good,” I said. It was the most daring and most honest thing I could manage.
“I look like John.”
“Yeah. Only taller.”
“So you came and you knocked.”
“Just to talk. And just hoping.”
“You’re getting your wish.”
“Yeah.”
“Or at least you will if we hurry.”
“Yeah.”
“We can talk more next week.”
“Okay.”
We sat on my bed, and for a few seconds we were both frozen again, just like the week before. But Matt broke the invisible barrier, reaching over and putting his hand on my leg. That’s all it took. It was clear enough to both of us that we both wanted something to happen.
Matt got up and turned out the light then returned to the bed.
“Listen,” he said. “We can do this, but let’s get one thing straight first. You’ve got to promise never to tell anyone. Especially not John.”
“Okay,” I said, without hesitating. I was glad he had made me promise.
“Now,” Matt said, “no more talking.”
We didn’t do much, really, but for someone who had never done anything with another person—well, nothing except the kiss and the cuddling with Harper—it was memorable.
I definitely remember it.
When Matt left this time, he didn’t pause to say “see you next Wednesday.” But I knew he would.
Chapter 24
The next summer I was fifteen and Harper was, finally, in town. I told Matt to stop coming over on Wednesdays. With Harper in town, it didn’t seem right. Matt didn’t argue or question me. He just looked at me and said “o-kay” the same way I do when something takes me by surprise and I don’t know what else to say.
Harper and I spent time together throughout the summer, but he was working again, so he wasn’t free as often as I might have hoped.
When we did see each other, a lot of time was spent on the bike. I always loved riding with him. We went on several hikes on West Mountain together as well, and also took in a couple of movies, ate half a dozen pizzas, and watched a dozen or so baseball games on TV. The two most exciting events of the summer were the day he surprised me with tickets to a Major League Baseball game and the night I finally was able to spend the night with him.
Harper had checked with Mom to make sure the baseball plan was okay with her. Going to the game meant a two-hour drive both directions, so we would be getting in late. The game was a blast; one of my favorite players was on the mound, and the home team, our team, won the game. Harper had planned it so that I would likely be seeing my favorite pitcher, but with rainouts and injuries and changes in rotation, something like that is never a sure thing. But yep, I got to see my pitcher, I got to see a victory, and I got to spend three and a half hours in a major league ballpark.
&
nbsp; Harper gave me that.
Midway through the game we hit the concession stand and bought hotdogs and Cokes. Harper loaded up his hotdog with relish, mustard, and onions, so that it was dripping as he was eating it. I thought back to the first time I saw him, when he had been eating a chili dog and I watched him licking the chili from his fingers. This time he not only licked mustard and relish from his fingers, he was licking them off the bun as well so they wouldn’t drip on his clothes. Then I saw him licking them off the hot dog itself.
“You’re sexy when you lick your own weenie,” I told him.
“Pervert,” he responded. But he was grinning.
Harper even bought me a baseball cap at the gift shop.
“You know I always wear the cap that’s on my head now, right?” I said as he carried it to the register.
“I know. And I approve. But some day before you die that cap will need replacing, and then you’ll have this one.”
I made an exception to my rule of always wearing a cap down to its last fiber and began wearing the new cap that very night. The next day John gave me hell about it, teasing me that I must be in love. I had finally told him about Harper that summer. I was seeing him so often that there was no way of keeping him a secret. I hated keeping secrets from John anyway. But I didn’t tell John I was in love with Harper and didn’t tell him any of the details that would make him think I was. When he teased me about being in love with Harper, it seemed to me that he wasn’t taking it seriously, as if he didn’t think I really was, or if I was, that I didn’t stand a chance with a twenty-year-old who planned to be an astronaut.
Arranging to spend the night with Harper was tricky. After coming up with several plans that didn’t pan out, I finally just owned up to Harper that nothing would make me happier than spending a night with him. Harper said he didn’t mind, but also said he didn’t know what excuse we could possibly come up with to explain why that was necessary. Even something like an early morning fishing expedition wouldn’t work because we didn’t live far enough apart that he couldn’t just get up a little early to come get me. We had no reason to be spending the night with each other.
Except, of course, the fact that I was in love with him and he didn’t seem to mind.
Then I came up with the idea of the camping trip. When I was a boy, we used to go camping with relatives, usually at a state park called Long Pool. It was great. When I thought of it, I was not only excited about spending the night with Harper, I was excited about returning to the park.
“Mom,” I said when she got home from work. “Take me camping.”
“Camping!” she exclaimed. “What put that idea in your head?”
“I was thinking about our trips to Long Pool. It’s been a long time. I’d like to go.”
“I’m afraid my camping days are over,” she said. “I wouldn’t mind going for a day trip, though.”
“No, I want to camp out. I like the campfire and sleeping in a tent.”
“We don’t even have a tent anymore,” she said. “We never used it so I gave it to Wes for helping us with the move.”
Wes was one of my older cousins.
“I know. We could buy another one. Or maybe we could borrow it back from Wes just for a weekend.”
“Oh, Nathan. I really don’t think I’m up to it anymore. I wouldn’t sleep. I know it. Maybe you could suggest a camping trip to John? Maybe Mr. Parker would take the two of you and Matt.”
This was going exactly as I had planned.
“What about Harper?” I asked. “Could I go with him? We wouldn’t have to bother a parent with taking us; we could just go.”
“I guess so. If he’s willing to take you.”
He was willing, even liked the idea because he hadn’t been to Long Pool in a while himself, and he had fond memories of it just as I did.
I couldn’t believe this was finally happening. I had been wanting this for as long as I had known him.
Long Pool was a couple of hours away. The park is named after a long swimming hole in the beautiful, clean river that runs along one side. Long Pool also has rock formations to climb around on, trails to hike, a lake for fishing, and camping sites with restrooms and shower.
On the drive to the park, Harper and I just kept looking at each other and grinning. We had the windows down, and the noise from the wind was intense, but it felt good blowing all around us. Conversation was almost impossible unless we screamed, but we didn’t need to talk much.
We picked out a camping spot as isolated as possible, but we still had families in tents on two sides of us. Oh well. They weren’t so close that we would be hearing each other’s conversations, just close enough to hear kids screaming or drunks talking loudly at night. We hoped that wouldn’t be happening. Both families nearest us had kids, but the kids looked old enough to not be throwing fits.
I helped Harper pitch the tent, then he built a fire and cooked our lunch—fresh red snapper he had stopped to buy up the road and added to our ice chest. A man nearby, yelled, “Smells good? You catch it?”
“Just got here,” Harper replied. “This is from a local market.”
The man kept talking to Harper for a while. Then he asked, “You guys brothers?”
“Yeah,” Harper said, flipping the fish on the grill.
“Thought so,” he said. “I see the resemblance.”
Harper and I quickly exchanged a look, careful not to grin. Yeah, right, I thought. We’re both human beings. We resemble each other that way.
Soon there were kids playing around us, creating a racket. We ignored them as best we could, ate our lunch, which was delicious, then prepared to head for the river for a swim. I had seen Harper in muscle shirts a few times during the summer, but this was the first time in two years I had seen him with his shirt off. I was smacked silly by his beauty, greater than ever. At twenty, Harper had reached perfection. Looking at him filled me with such longing and lust, I wanted to cry, to just fall on my knees in tears and tell him, “I’ve got to have you.” But I couldn’t do that.
Harper hadn’t seen me with my shirt off in two years either. Even the summer before, when he ended up being in town for a mere week and we’d seen each other briefly to grab a burger and just look at each other, I’d been wearing a shirt. Once I turned fourteen, I had become self-conscious about walking around shirtless the way I always had in my home town. I was afraid people might think I was full of myself, too proud of my body. Too, Weston was bigger. People stared at you if you walked down the street shirtless, and stores expected you to have a shirt on if you went inside. The signs said, “No shirt, no shoes, no service,” and they weren’t talking about shirtless, shoeless waiters who told you to get it yourself.
We had removed our shirts only when we got to the river. To my surprise, Harper commented first.
“Your body looks great,” he said. “You’ve been doing a good job with your workouts.”
“Thanks.” I said. And what could I say about him? Should I just tell him he looked perfect?
“You look perfect,” I said. “Like a god.”
He laughed.
“Come on. Let’s get in.”
The water was cold, but as the day was hot, we didn’t mind. I loved swimming here more than anywhere I had been. The stretch of river that formed the natural pool, made possible by a wall of limestone boulders at the far end, was so perfect for swimming it was crazy. Limestone and sandstone were the primary rocks of the area. The river bottom was smooth and easy on the feet. Nothing sharp, no weeds, no stickers, just smooth stone.
Harper was impressed by how well I could swim. It was something that came natural to me. I wasn’t showing off, but even with me just playing around in the water, he began to see I was good. When he said, “I’ll race you to the boulders,” I knew he wanted to see just how good I was.
I didn’t want to show him up, though, so I kept pace with him until he said as he swam, “You’re holding back. Go all out. I want to see what you’ve got.”
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So I did, and I beat him to the boulder in about half his time.
“Wow,” he said. “You’re quite a swimmer!”
“Thanks.”
“You had lessons or something?”
“Never. Just good at it.”
“You should be on a swim team.”
“None of the schools around here have swim teams.”
“I know, but you should still be on a team somewhere.”
“Where?”
It was something I had thought of myself, of course. The only problem was I never could come up with an answer to “Where?”
On the far side of Long Pool, away from the camping area and the park, was a spot for the big boys. There was a small beach that wasn’t nearly as good as the one on the park side, but there were also a few small cliffs, only four or five feet high, on one of which sat a huge tree jutting out over the lake with a rope swing. One had to be a good swimmer just to get to the spot since it meant swimming across the river. It was not a particularly dangerous river to swim, but there was a current in the middle that would carry you downstream pretty quickly if you weren’t careful, and the far side of the river was some distance to swim. I had seen a few swimmers get swept downstream as far as the boulders that formed the pool, and had seen many more swimmers end up on the other side quite a distance downstream from where they had intended to land. Harper and I swam across aiming for a point upstream of the rope swing so that the current carried us almost exactly to the right spot. We then began taking our turns on the rope. Fortunately, there were only three other guys on that side of the river, so the wait time wasn’t long.
Generally, what people do is swing way out on the rope for the thrill, then as the rope comes back closer to shore, with less of a drop and in shallower water, they let go and drop into the pool.
Harper and I both did this a few times, but I knew there was a greater thrill to be had, so the next time I got a turn on the rope, I swung all the way out and let go just before the rope reached its farthest point from shore. The momentum of the swing flung me far out over the river, and also upward, so that the drop into the river was pretty incredible. It was like I had been shot from a cannon.
Nathan's Story Page 5
