Invincible Summer(30)

It’s so hot that our bodies have to stick together. “Here we go,” she says, and she climbs on top of me.

“Ready?”

I want to tell her not to speak, want to say it, but her lips are on mine again and I taste me and I taste her and I don’t taste what we’re saying and I don’t taste Noah. I taste Camus—“I owe to such evenings the idea I have of innocence.” e l e v e n

W ake up, baby Chase.”

Oh God Oh God Oh God Oh God—no it can’t

be her I came back I’m in my room my house my world—

I open my eyes and see the ceiling fan slicing through the air. The same ceiling fan I once stared at when I was eight and had food poisoning and couldn’t move. While I was puking, I imagined those blades cutting off my head, and they seemed like the only real thing in the world.

I’m in my room.

“Up, you, come on.”

Breathe, Chase. It’s Noah.

I sit up and wrap my arms around his neck.

It’s bright and noisy outside, where the day-trippers are unloading their vans and hauling their three-year-olds out to the ocean. I can’t believe I slept this long. Usually I’m up early, helping Dad with breakfast, getting the kids into bathing suits and sunscreen, yelling at Claudia to grab the umbrella as she leads the march out to the beach. Then Noah will wake up, finally, and we’ll build a sand castle, or go for a run, and Mom and Dad will eventually drift out with their paperbacks and magazines.

I don’t have time for that now. I have work in a few hours.

But I don’t feel like going in and smiling at Joanna or watching the surfer boy smile at her. I just want to sit here with my arms around my big brother. I want to build a sand castle with him, I want him to hold me, I want to run away with him and never move from right here.

“Um, hello there.” He gives me a little pat on the back.

“I just wanted to let you know that Dad’s making waffles, so if you want a little sustenance with your antipsychotics . . . ”

I let go and flop back against my pillows.

“You okay?” he says. “Gid was signing . . . something about you.”

Yes. Gideon is tattling on me for being awake after Gid-approved hours. This is so my biggest problem right now.

“I think I’m emotionally traumatized,” I say.

“You’ll fit in well with the rest of us.” He fixes his hair in the mirror.

“I had sex with Melinda.”

His face freezes in the mirror, then it slowly melts into his characteristic smirk. He turns around, leans against the dresser, and crosses his arms over his chest. “Well.”

“I’m sorry. You weren’t around.”

“You’re apologizing to me?”

“Yeah . . .”

He half-cough half-laughs into his fist, then studies me.

“Are you okay?”

I squint. “What?”

“You’re fifteen.”

“Practically sixteen. And how old were you your first time?”

“Uh, eighteen.”

“Jesus, Noah, seriously?”

“Last summer. Melinda was my first. And only.”

I feel suddenly even worse than before, which I hadn’t thought was possible, but Noah’s just scrubbing at his hair and laughing. “Man, at this rate, we better pick up some con-doms for Gideon.” He raises an eyebrow. “You did use a con-dom, yeah?” “Not exactly.”

He throws a pillow at me.

“I, um, really don’t think there was much pregnancy risk, given—”

“You failed to uphold your duties as a time-sensitive male? Aw, a little impatient?”

“Shitdamn, you don’t have to shout it. I—”

He laughs. “Okay, okay, I don’t need details.”

But a second later, while I’m getting dressed, he says, “Did she do that thing with her tongue?”

“Which thing?”

He darts his tongue back and forth like a lizard.

God, I can still practically feel her down there . . . “Oh, my God, yes! I thought there were aliens on me.”

Noah laughs. “Yeah, and sometimes she gets a little too far back—”

“Ugghhhh.” I cover my face with my hands.

“And then you still have to kiss her . . . ” He laughs. “Don’t wear that shirt, man. That shirt is so old. Here.” He tosses me one of his. One of his new ones.

I feel initiated.

“This doesn’t freak you out, though?” I say. “Brothers sharing a girl? This is like the eighteen-hundreds.”

“Uh, yeah, Chase, this is the eighteen-hundreds. Please, we would have married Claudia off and mercy-killed Gideon by now.”

Hmm.

He claps my shoulder. “Bros before hos, little boy.”

I grab my cell phone and hit record. “Can you say that again? I want proof that someone actually just said that.”

He smiles and sticks out his tongue, makes a face for the camera. Then he get serious and moves his hand from my shoulder to the top of my head. “Just be careful, okay? I know that she’s kind of . . . addictive. You have to know when to say no.”

“Yeah.” I stop recording.

“And I don’t want to get in bed with her when you’re in it.” He shivers. “Ew.” He hoists me onto his back and brings me down the stairs. I kick my feet against his hands.