Ricochet (Addicted #1.5)(50)
Just as he said.
*
I float on a yellow inner tube in the crystal blue ocean. The girls, Daisy, and even Ryke rest on their own brightly-colored tubes, each round floating device tied together by a rope so we don’t drift from the boat or each other. I catch Harper swigging from another mini-bottle of liquor she smuggled on the boat.
Dear God, please don’t let one of my little sister’s friends drown to the bottom of the ocean because they’re so fucking intoxicated. Thanks.
The first five minutes were actually fun. I took a nap and listened to music playing from the boat’s speakers, and my feet skimmed the cool water.
However, five minutes later, and the girls become so damn restless that their shouts and high-pitched voices scar my eardrums and wake me up.
“Oh my God! Something touched me. Was that a shark?!” Katy screams in fright. She latches onto Ryke’s tube, and he nearly topples into the water. Her palm plants on his bare abs to catch herself, but clearly, her grabby hands are no accident. She has been eying his chiseled muscles since he strutted off the deck like he built it with his bare freakin’ hands. It’s mildly infuriating…and also scarily accurate.
“Relax,” Daisy tells her. “It was probably just a fish.”
Ryke tries to disengage from her, but she clutches to his bicep now, her panicked eyes darting from him to the water, two seconds away from shrieking, “Save me!”
He carefully pries her fingers off his arm. “I think you’ll survive.”
“Oh…yeah. Right.” She raises her chin and situates back on her pink tube.
Ryke unhooks his green inner tube from the pack and paddles with one hand to my lonely rope on the end. He clicks it in and rests his wayfarers back over his eyes.
“Smooth,” I whisper to him.
“That’s how it’s done,” he agrees.
I roll my eyes and sink back into my tube, my butt skimming the water underneath. Ready for nap number two. Naps are great. When I’m asleep, I barely have the urge to jump from the water, go to my room, and perform some self-love acts.
“Seriously, is that even possible?” I hear a girl ask curiously. Now I’m curious.
I listen closely.
“I swear on my life it was four fingers,” Katy says. “I was really sore afterwards.” Whaaat?
I glance quickly at Ryke, but with his sunglasses on, I can’t tell if he’s hearing what I am. Fingers. Sore. This is sexual. I know it’s not just my perverted mind.
“How could he do that though? I mean, how would they fit?”
“They wouldn’t,” another girl adds. “I definitely don’t believe you.”
Daisy stays quiet in the middle of the pack, kicking the calm ocean with her feet.
“Let’s ask Lily,” Cleo offers. “She’s older and has a boyfriend. I’m sure she’d know. Lily!”
The nearest girl splashes water on my chest, and I hesitate before sitting up to face the string of girls. I really, really don’t want to talk about sex with Daisy’s friends. This whole trip was about me not thinking about sex, and yet, it still surrounds me, even when I don’t bring it on myself.
Harper, the closest to me, explains their debate. “Katy says that her ‘boyfriend.’” She uses air quotes. “Put four fingers inside of her. Is that possible?”
I squirm a little, my float knocking into the unflappable Ryke who gazes up at the sky, sunbathing during this debacle. While I’m here, two seconds from unclipping my tube and floating down the ocean as far away from this boat and conversation as possible.
“Ummm…” My arms turn into a giant red welt. “Everyone has different bodies.”
“Did you just call my vagina loose?” Katy snaps at me. What?!
“No!” I say. “Of course not. His fingers could have been small.” I cringe. That wasn’t better. Ohmygod. If I dive from my tube and go underwater right now—will that be really weird?
“Well how many fingers does Lo usually use?” Cleo asks. I must turn a darker shade of red because Cleo adds, “Don’t be embarrassed, Lily. It’s just sex. How else are we supposed to figure all this stuff out if we don’t talk to each other?”
Daisy straightens up in her tube, dropping her feet in the middle and resting her chin on the teal plastic. “How did you learn about sex? Did Poppy and Rose talk to you about it?” She sounds a little bummed, as though she missed out on some monumental sister-bonding experience by being the youngest.
She’s mistaken. Poppy never talked to me since she was so much older and spent more time with boys on her own than she did teaching us about them. And Rose—I always believed she’d judge me for sleeping around. Not talking to her may just be my biggest regret.
I learned from the internet, porn, and gossip magazines like Cosmo. Wikipedia helped too. I wonder if it would have made a difference if Poppy or Rose talked to me. Maybe I wouldn’t be so ashamed, but then again, maybe nothing would have changed. I’ll never know. As much as I hate to even think it, Cleo’s right. Girls shouldn’t be embarrassed to talk about sex.
“Who cares who she learned it from,” Katy snaps before I can find a suitable reply for Daisy. “I want to know more about Lo. Have you done it doggy style? I heard it feels better.”