by Kylie Key
"How drunk is Damon?" Selina asked as we watched him climb onto the back of another boy's shoulders and then do a flip into the pool. My heart dropped as he splashed down, worried that he'd get strangled by the cord on the sombrero, miscalculate his flip, bump his head and drown. I gasped.
"He's crazy," Dominique said with disdain, "they've been drinking all afternoon." My heart sunk again; Damon wouldn't even know I was here. He'd probably pass out soon. "And once they start the tequila shots, he'll go mental." She sounded angry about it.
Damon emerged from the pool, sombrero askew. He tossed it off and then put it on a blonde girl. They stood there adjusting it and laughing.
"I might go and get some cheesecake," I said, "before it all goes." I didn't want to watch him touching another girl. I asked if anyone else wanted a piece, but everyone declined. Dominique still had a half a slice on her plate but the others had finished and Selina recommended the peanut butter one.
I went into the kitchen where a couple were having an intense conversation at the kitchen bar. I recognized them but didn't know their names. I opened the fridge and looked at the different flavors. Mrs Strauss had gone all out - for someone who didn't allow sugary sweets, there was a selection of four different ones. I looked longingly at all of them, wondering if it was appropriate to sample them all.
"You're not taking my cheesecake are you?" Damon said, his damp body standing right behind me, his hand holding the top of the refrigerator door.
"Uh, which one is yours?" I squeaked, his nearness causing me difficulty in breathing.
"C'mon Ella, Ella, Ella," he drawled in a sing-song voice, "you know my favorite." He brought his face down to my level, an adorable smile on his face, a silly, drunken adorable smile. "The white chocolate and raspberry," he whispered as he leaned across me to reach for a slice. "You know what I like Ella," he said, holding it up, indicating I should take a bite and then watching me as I did.
He grinned but I could see he was so drunk that I shouldn't read anything into his behavior. He crammed the rest into his mouth, and seemed to swallow it in one gulp. Then he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, leaving a crumb at the corner of his mouth. I couldn't resist, I pointed, his tongue reached out. I shook my head, still pointing. His eyebrows raised so I touched, my finger gently swiping it away. I wanted to sweep it across his lips, to his chin, to feel the stubble that he'd grown back.
"Gone," I said, with a cheesy smile, realizing I'd just touched his face. In the background the fridge started beeping, protesting that the door was still open. I went into blabbering fool mode. "Did you get that recording I sent you? I didn't hear back from you. I don't know what you thought of it. Was it any good? It probably wasn't any good."
Damon blinked his eyes as if he didn't understand a word I'd said. "Did you say you changed the words?" he asked in a drunken slur, "I think you said you changed the words?"
"Just a couple," I said, "I'll send you the updated version."
"Yeah send me the updated version," he said and then there was a shout and a squeal and a splash happening simultaneously outside. Damon turned and looked. He put his hand on my shoulder and whispered, "Don't eat all my cheesecake Ella, Ella, Ella," and then went back outside.
I shut the fridge door, the beeping now at an annoying level. There were multiple splashes as people bombed into the pool. Damon stood on the edge, looking like he was ready to do a spectacular dive. I tapped into my phone, opened my camera app and discretely took a picture right before he did a front flip. Again I worried that he'd crack his head on the bottom.
Trieste brushed past me, "Hey ya, whatcha doing?" She looked and sounded tipsy.
"Just a snapchat," I said, shielding my screen from her. Luckily she kept walking. I went back to my seat. Domi and Selina were standing by the pool but Ainsley was on her phone. She looked up and smiled but went straight back to scrolling. I decided I'd send Damon the song file now, making it look as if I had something to do. I clicked on files, selected the Songs folder and forwarded it to his email. No doubt he wouldn't remember asking for it, but at least he had it if he ever wanted to sing through it.
I took a few more photos, trying to get Damon in as many shots as I could. It was dawning on me that he would be gone in a few more days and our collaboration was going to be nothing more than a summer memory. It looked like Lauren was out of the picture as gossip indicated she had indeed gone off to Yale. I tried to gain a sense of relief from this, but knowing that our last encounter had been a drunken conversation about cheesecake left me slightly hollow.
I ended up giving Trieste a ride home after she vomited under Mr Strauss' hammock. The girls helped me escort her to my car and in that flurry of locating her sandals and her purse I didn't get a chance to say goodbye to Damon. My last glimpse was of him using a baguette in a mock sword fight with Braeden, the sombrero hanging on his back, his swim shorts low on his hips and his abs crunching as he laughed.
My first summer crush. That's what Damon had been.
And summer crushes always came to an end when fall came.
I sighed and smiled and drove Trieste home.
