The People We Keep(39)

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It’s after midnight, I’m sure. My voice is hoarse and scratchy. I don’t think I’ve talked so much to anyone ever. I don’t tell him about my dad or the motorhome, but I tell him about stealing Mrs. Varnick’s car, even though I don’t say why. He laughs big and I can see all his tiny teeth. I make it sound like something that happened ages and ages ago. When I was just a kid pulling a prank. I tell him about Ida and her orders and he tells me about how he tended bar to pay for college. We swap stories about weird customers and crazy cooks.

The conversation lulls for a second and I yawn too big to stifle it.

Adam taps my leg. “Alright, up,” he says.

I stand. He pulls the futon away from the wall and I help him lay it flat again. We hold opposite corners and fluff the sheet up in the air like it’s a parachute. We don’t talk, as if the process of making the bed is a solemn occasion. I feel the weight and the strangeness of it low in my belly.

When we’re done, Adam says, “Are those enough pillows?” like an apology, like he’s supposed to know how many pillows I like. “Were they enough?”

“Yeah.” I stare at his lips, at the stubble along his jaw. This time the bed is made and I know where he sleeps and that he’s not expecting anything from me. But no one has ever talked to me the way he does, with all the little details of a life that’s not like mine. Everyone I knew before—they were people who were around my whole life. We lived from the same angle. But Adam is interesting and he thinks I’m interesting too, and he’s seen so much more of everything than I have.

“Well, okay,” he says, and I think he gets what I can’t make myself say. But then he turns off the light and starts to walk into the hallway.

I don’t want this to end. I grab at his hand. Just a quick pull.

And then his lips are on mine and his body is on mine and the sheets on the bed we made are quickly crumpled. He kisses my collarbone, the palm of my hand, smooth skin on the insides of my wrists, places no one’s thought to kiss before, and he’s not in any kind of hurry about it.

He touches me softly, gently. It starts out feeling like that longing I had with Matty that always ended up in a bunch of nothing, but Adam touching me feels so much bigger than what it is and gives way to this flood of warmth, like a dam breaking, that makes me gasp and grab hold of the pillow. I run my hand down his belly. His body jerks when I get close. He breathes through his nose and it tickles my cheek. He’s small and soft under the blankets. He finds my hand with his and pulls it away. We kiss more before he gets up and goes into the bathroom for a while. I’m not sure what’s happened or happening. Is he getting a condom? Is he going to the bathroom? He runs the faucet the whole time. When he comes back he gets in bed behind me and wraps me in his arms. “You’re so warm,” he says in a sleepy voice. Brushes my hair out of my face with his sweaty palm. “Sleep tight.”





— Chapter 17 —


I wake up before Adam does. His arm is draped over my side, sticking to my skin, and he’s breathing stale beer breath into my neck. The sun streams through the windows. We’ve kicked the blankets off and I’m only in my underwear. I want to cover myself, but I don’t want to wake him. His fingers are pressed against my belly and I wonder if they’ll leave pink prints behind. His hand is smooth and his fingernails are clean.

I’ve never spent the night with anyone before. Matty had a curfew. I’m worried Adam might be upset to see me when he wakes up, and it will be like when I thought he wanted to kiss me and he didn’t, but so much worse. Or maybe he’ll be mad that we didn’t have sex. I can’t just grab my boots and run down the stairs if I want to leave. My clothes are lost somewhere in the tangled sheets.

Slowly, carefully, I twist around under the weight of Adam’s arm. His hat is on the pillow next to him. His hair isn’t sparse like I expected. It’s thick and wiry and sticks up in every direction. I try to reach across him to pull the blanket over us to cover myself, but he stirs and opens his eyes. I hold my breath. He smiles when he sees me, a clear, happy smile that stops the scramble in my head.

“Mmmm.” He stiffens his body into a stretch. He rubs his hand up and down my side, kisses my cheek and pulls me close to him. My bare chest against his, our legs warm and sweaty.

“I swear,” he whispers into my ear, “I wasn’t expecting that.” And I know he means it, that if I hadn’t grabbed his hand, he would have gone to bed and left me alone in the living room to wait out the buzz from the four Cokes I drank.

I don’t know what to say, so I kiss his cheek back, but he turns his head to kiss me for real. I feel him through his boxer shorts, getting hard against my thigh, but he pulls away.

“Morning breath,” he says, grabbing his wadded t-shirt from the floor. “I’ll be right back.” He goes into the bathroom and closes the door. The faucet runs again.

I pull a corner of blanket over myself, try to tuck it around me in a way that’s flattering. I don’t want him looking at me too much in the bright morning. With his chest hair and full stubble, he looks so much older than Matty and I worry there are ways that my body could give me away. When I turned twelve, Margo bought me a training bra and gave me warnings about getting my period and growing hair in weird places, but maybe there are other ways I’m supposed to change past what’s already happened and I don’t even know. Adam would, because he lived with a girl who was probably his own age. I look around the room like maybe there are clues about her, but of course there aren’t. She’s been gone for a while, and it’s not like he’d have a naked picture of her hanging on the wall so I could see what a woman is supposed to look like.