Our Little Secret(11)

“Tell me something real,” I said.

HP rubbed his jaw, which glinted golden with stubble. “Want to know my first name?” He paused. “H is for Hamish. My grandfather’s a Scot.”

“Hamish Parker.” I grinned. “I can’t believe it took you so long to tell me.”

“Well, you earned it.” He turned his head, squinting. “Although you could have asked the school secretary. I’m pretty sure it’s in all the records.”

We laughed. After a pause I spoke again.

“What was your brother’s name?”

HP closed his eyes. “Thomson. He was blonder than me and funner.”

It was all he’d say.

We lay still on the steepness of the slope, a couple in a luge event, rigid and straight-armed, hurtling somewhere unknown. He fell asleep almost immediately, snoring quietly with his hands resting on his chest. His long eyelashes fluttered with dreams. Awake alone, I glanced up at the scuffed sky. It’s always been companionable to me—I like its unending stretch, and the notion that wherever you go it’s with you. My brain flexed and in a melt of cheekbones and lips, the clouds morphed into a kind, wizened old man with a face that was benevolent and warm. After that every cloud that rolled by became an exercise in changing clouds into figures—monks, wizards . . . and monsters. I learned, right there in the grass, that what you see each day is entirely your own invention. I found out that night that I could alter what’s in front of me—I could literally write the sky.

When I woke it was warm sunshine. HP was sitting up, bare-chested with his hoodie knotted around his waist. His back muscles tightened and relaxed as he plucked at strands of grass.

“Hey,” I croaked. He turned, the side of his mouth breaking into a grin.

“How d’you feel? A little less than average?” He lay down on his side, his head resting on his hand while he sucked a piece of grass. His pectoral muscle was heavy and grooved.

“I’m too hot.” I lurched and sat up to pull off my white T-shirt. Underneath I wore a small tank top. The morning air felt good on my shoulders. “Where is everyone?” I turned to catch HP staring at me.

He cleared his throat and pointed back down towards the fire pit, where people were starting to wander around. Someone had started a fresh fire, and we could hear it snapping as the flames licked.

“Here, I got you this.”

He passed me a bottle of cold water. I cracked the cap, drinking in the clean coolness like a shipwreck survivor.

“Where did you find these?”

“By Ez’s truck. He left a cooler there all night. I’ve been up for about an hour.”

He ran his grass strand down the skin of my shoulder and I wriggled, batting at him with a limp palm.

“Guess where my girlfriend slept last night. I’ll give you three guesses and the first two don’t count.” He flung the grass strand into the field while I looked at him carefully.

“Does it matter?”

He let out one bark of a laugh. “No; but I might kick the shit out of Ezra on principle.”

I used my hand like a visor and peered down the hill. There was Lacy on Ezra’s lap, wearing his grad jacket. Her hair looked like she’d run it through a hedge.

“Maybe he just wants the things you have. Or maybe she does.”

His brow had a tiny V in the center, his trademark stamp of deep thought. “At least you had the sense to not make out with him.”

“I told you. There’s no point kissing the wrong boy.”

I’m certain there was a beat where we stared at each other, where we wondered if we were thinking the same thing. A second. A half second. Was it his hand or mine that moved first? All I remember clearly is that the world suddenly felt fluid. In one flow of motion, his hand was behind my neck and I rolled onto the skin of his chest. Our heat-seeking mouths felt warm on the inside, our tongues sliding and smooth. My whole body pulsed in ways I hadn’t known before. The more I kissed him, the more I wanted. I tasted his neck; inhaled the smell of him, his beach-smoked oak. The buttons of our jeans snagged as we pressed together.

“We have to go somewhere,” he gasped.

I was struck dumb by an ache to have his mouth back.

“Ezra’s truck,” I suggested. It stood parked just twenty feet away with the tailgate open, the nose facing down the hill so the back end was entirely hidden. We ran there, half crouching as if under fire. HP hauled me up into the truck bed and unrolled his man blanket for us to lie on. He climbed on top of me, although he held back some of his weight because I could feel his triceps muscles tense when my fingers brushed them. We slowed down.

“Do you feel weird?” he asked, so close that I felt the words on my face.

“No. Do I?”

He shook his head, earnest, the fluff at his crown sticking up. I arched up for him, pulling him onto me. As the world blurred around us, dream-like, I couldn’t believe we were really doing this. Confidence beat from me: I know it was me who undid the first pant fly, who slid fingers under his waistband. My hands moved on him as if they’d already lived this scene, already knew what happened next.

He moaned and twisted, whispered, “Are you sure you haven’t been practicing?”

And we smile-kissed, free with the sky looking down on us, surprised by the rightness we’d discovered.