One More Time

by Kat Pace

  Don’t want to jump the gun.

  It hasn’t been all sunshine and boat rides, volleyball at the pier, visiting cabanas after dark. No, it’s rained a few times. In fact, it’s raining right now. We are caught in it, riding bikes along the trail down by Higbee.

  It is cool today, hardly any sun. The promise of summer’s end is literally in the air.

  My hoodie protects me from the wind and from the salt spray that’s carried on the wind. It can’t do much about the raindrops though. They come fast and heavy. My legs push harder, determined to keep up with Brooks’s.

  It’s 4:00 PM but the sky above us is an ominous gray. Clouds rolling in block the parts of the sky that are still light. There’s still some sun in the distance. I look left and see the entire horizon sprawled out like some watercolor painting. The sky and the ocean blur together; their lines are unclear beneath the rain.

  The beach morphs too. The ocean swells as the tide pulls out and I watch as little whitecaps break in the distance. You would think the storm would bring high tide, but no. It’s eerie watching the water draw back from the shoreline –exposing its floor. Something about wet sand I don’t get: Sand in the water feels normal. Your feet sink lower with each wave. But sand outside the water? It should never be wet. Now as it’s pelted with raindrops, it starts to clump, starts to turn.

  “Come on!” Brooks shouts into the wind.

  It is cold now. The hoodie is useless. My bare legs have goose bumps all over them, raindrops hitting them like some weird shower massager. My flip-flops slip from the pedals.

  “I’m right behind you!” I yell back, struggling to push harder. My lungs are on fire. I am seriously out of shape.

  Then it comes. Thunder.

  Rolling through the sky like bowling pins knocked down by angels. At least that’s what I was told once. Hard imagery to shake.

  No lightning yet, and we’ve almost made it. We’re off the trail, out of Higbee. The sand becomes harder, firm, with bits of grass poking through. Brooks disappears off the path in front of me. I turn where he did and find myself on the backside of his house, the screen porch in front of us. Its silhouette dark against the gray sky.

  We drop our bikes against a dune and run to the deck. The screen door slams just as a crack of thunder rips overhead. Strike. It’s followed by a flash of lightning so bright it illuminates the entire porch. Brooks’s face lights up beneath it. I watch it flash in his eyes –changing their color.

  Shit.

  “Just in time,” he says, shaking the rain from his hair.

  “We’re soaked!” I laugh, wringing the hem of my hoodie. Water splashes against the floor.

  “We’ll live,” Brooks laughs, rolling his eyes. He slides open the door and walks in. “Hello? Hellooo?” No response.

  Brooks turns to me with a mischievous grin. “No body’s home.”

  I roll my eyes, still shivering.

  My shorts are hard to get off. Wet denim- not a fan. Brooks watches me with a hungry look on his face. I’m used to this now, but still it makes me tingle.

  Here I am, standing in the doorway on the deck in my underwear and dripping wet hoodie. His shorts are glued to him like wet paper, folding over him, making little creases in the fabric.

  “What should we do?” He asks, smirking. He takes a step toward me.

  “Brooks,” I laugh, warning. “I have to be back like, right now.”

  “You can’t leave,” he says matter-of-factly. “It’s storming out.”

  “It’s just rain,” I say.

  Another strike. More lightning. I can hear the wind too, picking up, howling over the waves. I look sideways off the deck. The sky is darker now –you’d think it were 10 PM. Sand is drifting from the dune and the tall grass is practically parallel with the ground.

  “Ok. So it’s a storm. I’ll be fine.”

  The lights flicker right when I say it. The cracking thunder more ominous by the second. The air is heavy with the smell of rain and drenched ground.

  Love it.

  Brooks is still staring at me, biting his lip. I stare at him too -at the way I can see him through his shorts -see his muscles moving as he walks toward me. No. Saunters. Saunters toward me.

  Thunder. The porch lights flicker again as the lightning flashes across the sky and across his face.

  Have mercy.

  The saunter. The shadow. The hunger. Brooks could be a delicious serial killer and I wouldn’t mind one bit.

  Here we are all alone in his empty childhood house and I’m thinking of serial killers.

  Wtf, Em.

  “Let’s play a game,” Brooks says, still watching me. I’m still in the doorway –can still feel the cool rainy breeze on my legs. My hair still whips against my face.

  “A game?” I ask, almost laughing. “What kind of game?”

  “One where I have to chase you.” He smirks. OK. I can get behind this mood. “Tag!”

  “Tag!” I widen my eyes and look from him to the outside, laughing. “We can’t play tag now!”

  “What? It’s just rain.” Brooks moves toward me. “Ok, not tag. How about hide and seek?”

  “Hide and seek?” I repeat, skeptical. “You want to play hide and seek right now?”

  “Why not? We used to all the time. Or don’t you remember?”

  “Yes, I remember.” I look at him. Ugh, just look at him! “OK then.”

  “You have 30 seconds.” Brooks walks past me onto the deck, flashing a smile.

  I take off, trying my best to remember the layout of this house –the house I spent so many weekends sneaking around in.

  The thunder chases me from room to room, each time the lightning strikes it pours through the window, casting shadows on the living room, the kitchen, the foyer.

  Where to hide?

  His room seems an obvious choice. But he will know that. My heart races with the rain. I turn a corner expecting a powder room. Nope. Renovation.

  Another crack like a whip and a loud signal starts. I smack my shoulder into the side of the wall and my leg knocks into a small decorative chair. Really.

  The power is out. Somewhere the microwave or oven or fridge is beeping. You never can tell how loud all the machines are or how the electricity hums quietly beneath it all. That is until the power goes out. Until you’re no longer surrounded by live digital apparatuses. It’s just silent. Void of noise. Darkness. Suddenly you need nature’s bolts of light to guide your way.

  I hear his footsteps in the dead quiet. Thirty seconds are up. He’s on the hunt for me now. I turn left, away from the sounds of feet falling. Down the hallway I take a right and find myself in a quiet room –a bedroom maybe. I don’t recognize it.

  Thunder. Lightning. Repeat.

  It is pitch fucking black.

  I hear Brooks bang into something. I crack up to myself. At least I’m not the only one who can’t see in the dark.

  “Em-my,” I hear. He says my name like a crazy ax-murderer on the loose in some horror film. “Em-my.”

  I peek into the hallway. Lightning lights up the hallway. I see his shadow in the doorway of the room down the hall. I make a break for it.

  Brooks reaches me and grabs me around the waist.

  “Ahh!” I laugh, trying to get away. He flings me over his shoulder and holds my legs. I have a great view of his cute butt. “Put me down!”

  “No way,” Brooks says. “I’m claiming my prize.”

  We cross the kitchen, back through the door that’s still open to the porch. The rain is coming down sideways, biting at our ankles and legs.

  He stops in front of a second door and kicks the screen open. We cross the threshold and I find myself in his room.

  His. Room.

  It smells the same. Just like my house did. After nine years I still remember it like this. How many high school afternoons we stole when his parents were away. How many nights I snuck in through the porch. We spent minutes, hours, and days just lounging together –waiting for somethi
ng we didn’t know to happen.

  Everything is exactly as I last saw it. His bed, against the side wall. His bookshelf with sports trophies and swimming medals and tattered copies of old books. Our high school sports pennant from senior year taped to the wall above his desk.

  Brooks drops me down on the bed. I fall on it upside down.

  He stands in front of me, peeling off his T-shirt. He scrunches it into a ball and throws it into the corner.

  Another flash of lightning. He’s momentarily white as marble. His chest and abs and OMG I’m dead. I watch him crawl into the bed, slowly prowling toward me.

  Thunder. Anticipation. Brooks.

  He kisses his way up my legs. I have goose bumps again, but for a different reason this time. I pull my hoodie over my head and toss it on the floor. The spot beneath me in the bed is damp and cool. My white tank clings to my torso like wet paper.

  Claps of thunder hurt my ears. Lightning zigzags across the walls –across his face. He props himself up on one arm next to me, sitting on his side. His long hair is still dripping, the droplets falling over his eyelashes and down his nose and onto his neck and OMG pooling in his clavicles. Brooks hovers above, not kissing me, just grazing my lips gently.

  The rain is falling so hard and fuck so am I.

  He puts his free hand on my chest and moves it up to my throat and he squeezes lightly. A light choke. He pushes my hair from my neck. His eyes follow mine the entire time. They’re almost warning of something. The pressure of his hand on my neck is electrifying; my breath is heavy underneath it.

  “Is this the part where you kill me?” I whisper.

  I move my left hand to his face and tuck the hair behind his ear the way I’ve seen him do himself. A deep gray-blue is swirling in his eyes and I am sure the storm outside is jealous. “Cause you know, I’d be okay with that.”

  And then we’re kissing. His lips warm, his mouth moving over mine. All firm and intense and soft and supple and shit. What a combo. He rolls over me, sliding his hand beneath my butt. He loves my butt.

  “What if someone comes back?” I whisper. His lips curve into a smile against mine.

  “It’s dark. No one will see.” He laughs.

  “What! It’s not that dark,” I say quietly. I’m starting to pant.

  Brooks’s full weight is on me and I don’t even care. It’s not enough of him. I breathe him in; I breathe it all in –the rainwater –the salt –the skin. God, the skin. I think I’m actually salivating. I know parts of me are salivating. Brooks puts his hand on my bikini top and glides it down to my bottoms. He pushes them out of the way and his fingers are inside me. I tilt my head back and he kisses along my neck. My hands can’t undo his suit fast enough.

  “Brooks,” I moan against his lips.

  He removes his fingers and watches me, waiting, in near-pain. Then he puts them back and at the same time he kisses along my neck down to my chest. My fingers have undone the laces on his shorts. I push them down over his butt. Brooks laughs against me.

  “I know you’re ready,” he says. He pulls a condom from his nightstand and turns back to me. “You put it on.”

  I take it and open it, tossing the wrapper aside. Why is it incredibly sexy putting it on, having Brooks watch me the entire time? –Me watching him, the way his eyes close softly at my touch?

  “Ems,” he groans as he lowers himself onto me.

  I lift my legs up almost to his shoulders. My breathing is so quick and he’s so heavy I think I might choke. But I can barely do anything but try to stop from screaming.

  “No one’s here. You don’t have to be quiet.” Brooks almost reads my mind.

  At his words I lose it. I can’t help the noises coming out of my mouth. I’m grateful for the thunder. I bite down on his shoulder and squeeze my nails into his butt. Brooks groans above me. He must like it. The mix of pain and pleasure.

  We lay face up on his bed, the plaid sheets wrapped around us in the sticky heat. The thunder is far now. I almost can’t hear it. And there’s no more lightning. It’s just the rain. Just the soft pitter-patter on the roof and the cool breeze coming in through the screen door.

  I notice new things in his room now, things that prove time has passed, things that prove Brooks is in fact a different person than the one I left behind. A UNC sweatshirt is hanging on his closet doorknob. An Edge duffle is in the corner by his door. There are new pictures on his dresser –pictures with teammates and friends whose names I don’t know.

  I lean over him and kiss his bare chest. His perfectly sculpted, magazine-worthy chest. My nails strum against his skin. Brooks smiles at me and tucks my hair behind my ear. What a perfect moment to say nothing. To be nothing. Think nothing.

  Shit, but I feel everything. I feel the word I want to say. The word I’m too smart to say. But looking at him looking at me, post romp in the rain –shit, do I want to say it.

  Maybe it will pass. I wish I could say it did before. Last time. Maybe I’ll blame the moon for all its judging. Maybe it’s moon’s fault. Brooks and I are like the tides. We come and go with highs and lows –move out for a while, but not for good. We always come back in. The cycle is strong. The pull of gravity is strong.

  Fuck the moon.

  Fuck the tides.

  Fuck us.

  “Em,” Brooks says, tracing his thumb over the back of my shoulder.

  Shit. Maybe he’s gonna do it. He’s gonna be the one who ruins it. His voice does sound all weird and unnatural.

  “Brooks,” I answer.

  Longest pause ever.

  “Are you happy out west?” Brooks asks.

  Oh. That’s it? “Yes,” I answer. “Are you happy in North Carolina?”

  “Yea, for the most part.” He nods. “Sometimes it’s hard.”

  “Like when?” I ask.

  “Like when I can tell my mom is struggling. When I come back here and everything sort of feels…”

  “Right.” I finish his sentence. Damn it, Em.

  “Exactly.”

  “I think it’s good to miss it sometimes. Means it’s still home, ya know? If you came back and it didn’t feel this way, then there’d be no reason to come back.” It’s basically how I feel.

  “So, since you’re staying now… for the week, I mean. Will you go to the Labor Day fair with me?” Brooks asks, smirking.

  I laugh and nudge him in the ribs, rolling on top of him. “Why else do you think I stayed?”

  “The truth comes out at last,” he laughs. Brooks pulls the sheets up over my head, concealing us both in a low tent. “But really?”

  I bite my lip to keep from smiling. “I think I could make it work.”

  “It’s a date, then,” Brooks says without looking at me. My insides churn. A celebratory churn. Fuck.

  “Still on that back field by the fire station. Do you remember summer before senior year? Got kicked out because–”

  “Travis and Alex snuck onto the water tower and tried to pour their beers into yours and Nate’s mouths.” I finish, laughing. “Of course I remember. Hard to forget.”

  “There is a lot that’s hard to forget,” Brooks mumbles. He isn’t wrong.