Beautiful Graves(9)

“I mostly keep them to myself. You have to consider people’s personalities to make gravestones for them, and thinking about the people you love passing away is . . . well, next-level psychotic. So I design them for late celebrities and stuff like that. A few people have heard about what I do through the grapevine and asked about pricing. I gave them the designs for free. I don’t know if there’s a market for what I do . . . I just know that it feels right to do it.”

Joe tugs at the hem of my dress, just for the physical connection. “People are always in the market for fucking awesome.”

“What if I’m not fucking awesome?”

“You are,” he says, sure as the morning sun. “If you were mediocre, you wouldn’t be running circles in my head.”

I think about the words from his novel.

He should’ve run after her faster.

He should have told her she was perfect.

The dull beat of the music coming from the party makes the earth quake beneath us. My body feels in tune with his, and I can anticipate the next time he’ll move. I feel his breaths in my own lungs.

“So.” His knee brushes against mine.

“So.” My elbow bumps against his.

“Did you ever use that condom?” he asks.

I bury my face in my hands. My skin is hot with mortification. I shake my head, peeking at him from between my fingers.

He tries to catch my gaze, tilting his head down. “Is that a no?”

“Why’s it important?”

“Knowledge is power.”

“It’s a useless piece of information.” I’m drunk on the idea that he cares but also embarrassed that I didn’t go through with Pippa’s dare.

“Don’t limit my fields of interest, missy. I’ll have you know it’s a matter of great interest. Books will be written on the subject. Books, I tell ya.” He shakes his fist in the air.

To this, I full-blown laugh. “This is not normal.”

“What’s not normal?”

“You. Me.” I wave my finger between us. “This.”

There’s nothing much to say, really. Which leads me to my next question to fill in the silence.

“Did you use any condoms while in Spain?”

“Promise not to be disappointed?” He sighs. I nod, but I already am. It shouldn’t feel like he’s cheated on me. It does, anyway.

“No,” he says. “I didn’t use any condoms.”

Punching his arm, I groan, “Then why did you tell me not to be disappointed?”

“To see if you were jealous, of course.”

This time, there’s no point denying that I was.

From the distance, “Boys of Summer” starts. It’s the Ataris’ cover, my favorite. People raise their arms in the air and sing. Dawn breaks above the surface. The waterline shimmers rose gold. Our time is almost up.

“Where were we?” I ask.

“Spain,” Joe provides. “And on the subject of condoms, specifically.”

“It’s not too late to use one.” I lick my lips. “A condom, I mean.”

“Hmm.” He leans back, bracing on his forearms. He is kind of ripped.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” I bite down on my lower lip.

His throat bobs. “Yeah. And there’s plenty of water to fill the condom with.”

Before I have a chance to laugh, he leans forward and kisses me.



At first it’s just a kiss. A sloppy exchange of saliva between two teenagers, greedy with unbridled passion. Our tongues meet and swirl together. Dancing, teasing, testing. He tastes like ocean spray, summer, and cigarettes.

Then his fingers wrap around the back of my neck, and the kiss stops being a kiss and becomes a war. Joe devours my mouth. It’s ruinously raw. With teeth and moans and gasps. We’re ivy, coiling around one another. I touch his hair, his corded arms, the rock-hard ridges of his abs under his shirt. He lowers me under the palm tree, cups the back of my thighs, and presses his erection against my center. It twitches between us. I’m breathless, and my heart is racing, and now I get it. I get it, I get it, I get it. The term boy crazy. Because Joe is a boy. And he drives me crazy.

My back hits the sand, and sweet oblivion, I want him inside me. To fill every inch of me. For us to fuse together. This is how I like to be touched. Sean pawed and squeezed my breasts like he was trying to milk me. Joe flicks my nipple through my bra with his thumb while his hot kisses lower to my neck, then my chest. He unclasps my bra. Sucks one of my nipples into his mouth, grazing it with his teeth teasingly.

“Ever.”

I knot my legs over his waist. We ride each other through our clothes, enjoying the friction and the feeling of our teeth sinking into new skin. Our scents swirl together, creating a unique and heady combination. Then Joe produces a condom from his wallet and holds it between us in question.

“Don’t feel pressured.” His voice is raspy, strained. “This can stop right here, and I’m still going to end the night feeling like the luckiest bastard alive.”

I know he means it. I know he won’t be mad if I decide I don’t want to. Unlike Sean, who booked the Ritz-Carlton with the expectation—the silent agreement—that sex was a part of the package. Probably why I broke it off a week later, citing long distance.