“I wouldn’t go back, either,” Lake said.
It was her way of showing support, but just thinking of Lake in a situation like that got under my skin. “My aunt was all right. She didn’t forgive my dad like Mom did but she kinda checked out. She was torn up about Madison and felt bad she hadn’t done anything sooner knowing my dad’s temper. So we left each other alone. I couldn’t give her anything. I had nothing.”
“Do you still feel that way?”
“Do you?” I asked.
“No. You have something to give, I know it.”
I nodded. “I’m going to help others. That’s how I’m going to give.”
“Because they believed you,” she said, piecing it together. “That’s why it means so much to you to become an officer.”
“One of the cops who’d been there that night, he stopped by my aunt’s to check in on me from time to time. Made sure I stayed on track and graduated high school. I never met anyone like him before that or since. Henry’s a good man. That’s why I want to be a cop. Help people like he does.”
It wasn’t exactly a happy ending, but it was something. It was all I had. Everything else was mistakes and broken relationships and loss.
“I never would’ve . . .” Lake’s voice trembled. “If I’d known, I wouldn’t have run off like that.”
Without thinking, I put my hand on her knee, covering it and then some. She was far away, but I could still reach her. “I know. It just reminded me of everything, you disappearing like that.” Her cheeks were wet. “Please don’t. Don’t cry.”
“But I . . . I love. This. Our . . . you . . .”
I squeezed her leg. I understood Lake and her broken words. She didn’t mean it like she was in love with me. She was trying to say she couldn’t help her tears. Couldn’t stop her heart from breaking for Madison. I loved her for it, too, for a tenderness so altruistic and pure, it overflowed outside her control. She released her legs and extended the one I was holding. I slid my hand down to her ankle, slower than I meant to, appreciating the smoothness of her calf. I wanted to say come here and wipe her tears. Hold her until she understood she was still safe, and I wasn’t mad. My hand encompassed her ankle. I realized the thing clamped in her hand was her bra. She was still the young girl I wanted to protect. No toenail polish. No makeup. Wet hair. Wanting what she wanted, no price too high. But there was more to her tonight, there always had been. The look she gave me, as if she could sense me responding to her small tits and pink mouth. Those gaping shorts.
She was breathing hard again, but not out of fear. Her tears had dried. She dug her foot between the seats, where I’d shoved the cigarettes, and nudged the pack out. “You look like you need one.”
I wondered if my face was as gray as hers had been a minute ago. She seemed warm now, loving, but now my hands shook, even the one holding her ankle. She sat forward without moving her legs and turned up the stereo.
I recognized the beginning chords of a song before the DJ even introduced it. “. . . slow things down with a little Sophie B. Hawkins,” he was saying. “This request goes out from Naomi C. to John M., and I don’t think I have to tell you what Naomi’s trying to say. It’s right there in the title.”
Lake scooted closer, bending her leg between us. She picked up the pack and took out a cigarette, studying it. When she went to put it in her mouth, I caught her wrist.
“I just want to see what it’s like.”
I let go of her. It wasn’t as if she had anything to light it with.
She put it between her lips, rolling them around the butt, then took it out and pretended to blow smoke. “Did I do it right?”
She held it in the “V” of her index and middle fingers like her sister—of course. She probably didn’t know anyone who smoked besides us. She held it up to my mouth, and I was suddenly aware of my breath against her fingers. I took the butt between my lips. It tasted sweet. Sometime between the lake and the car, she’d made herself taste like watermelon candy.
I wanted it. The smoke, the girl. My vices. But here she was, trying to be something she thought I wanted. Something I was trying to protect her from. I took the cigarette, snapped it, tossed it out the window. “I told you. I’m quitting.”
Before I even had the words out, she leaned in, stopping inches from my face. Her sugary breath became mine. It was so easy to forget everything else with her around. Being close to her didn’t feel wrong. I could just sink into it, didn’t have to be cautious like I did with other people, as if I knew on some level she’d protect me. She’d care for me. As a side effect of trying to restrain myself, I squeezed her ankle hard enough to make her gasp. She went for the corner of my mouth, pressing her lips to my skin soft and slow.
“I feel very protective of you, Lake,” I murmured.
“I know.”
“I don’t want to change you.”
“You already have. I want this. I can decide for myself.”
“It’s not that simple.”
She smoothed her cheek against mine. To me, it was like nuzzling a peach but because I hadn’t shaven, it must’ve been rough for her.
“I’ve never even kissed someone,” she said close to my ear. “Never wanted to before.”
It was more than I could handle. It made me happy she’d never been kissed, never wanted it with anyone else. She was maybe too young for that but I also wanted to be her first. I put my other hand on her shoulder, meaning to pull her off. She ducked her head, planting supplicant little pecks behind my ear that might as well have been her saying please, Manning, please, please. My head dropped back against the headrest. “Damn it, Lake.”
With one leg still folded between us, she hooked the other over my knee and moved my hand to her thigh. She hummed along to the song, “Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover.”
My heart pounded. I had to stop this, but she was heavenly. So soft, her lips and downy thigh, so inviting, her leg warming mine. Even her damp hair felt good in my palm. That’s when I realized my fingers had tangled themselves in her hair, spanning the back of her scalp, holding her in place. While I was distracted trying to control my body parts, her kisses traveled up around my mouth. Her hand guided mine up her leg. All at once, I went from pleasantly warm to burning up. My neck, my face. My lap. The base of my cock constricted. She was bold but tentative, bringing us to the edge, but not brave enough to take the leap. Her balmy kisses made blood rush to my crotch, flooded out my guilt.
She took her hand off mine, but I didn’t pull away. I slid it up into the hole of her jean shorts. She reciprocated with a hand on my zipper, right over my dick. Her panties were wet from the lake. From the water. That fucking dangerous, black water. I was no better than it, drowning her, taking what wasn’t mine, turning beautiful things ugly.
“Lake.”
“Please.” Her breath fell on my lips. “One kiss. Then we can stop.”
I wouldn’t be able to stop. No fucking way. My hand got caught in her hair, and I yanked it by accident. She jerked back just long enough for me to take her shoulders and hold her at a distance. “We can’t.”
Her eyes shimmered with unshed tears. “Nobody has to know,” she begged.
Headlights flickered in my side mirror. I immediately spotted the reflective red and blue top of a cop car, even though the lights weren’t flashing.
“Fuck,” I said, switching the song like it was porn I didn’t want to get caught with.
Lake looked out the back window. “The police?”
“Yeah.” He had no reason to pull over, but he might. We looked damn suspicious, sitting on the side of the road in the dark.
“Can we get in trouble?” she asked.
“I can.”
She vaulted herself over the back of the bench, her long limbs nearly knocking me in the face. There was no backseat, just a narrow space behind the front one where I’d found the towels.
“What’re you doing?” I asked.
“Hiding.” She looked up at me, eyes wide wi
th fear. She was still just a kid.
I had about ten seconds to make a decision. I respected law enforcement, but I wasn’t naïve. I knew not all cops were good. But what kind of trouble could I get in just for sitting in the car with her? Would he believe we hadn’t been doing anything?
“I think you should come back up here,” I said.
The cop flashed his lights once, a shock of red and blue. He wasn’t going to pass.
“I can’t.” Her voice broke. “I don’t want you to get in trouble. He’ll tell Gary. Maybe even my—my dad . . .”
If the cop wanted to see her ID and she didn’t have one, he wouldn’t just let that go. She didn’t look eighteen, not yet. I was with a minor who’d taken off her bra. We were both wet from swimming. I really doubted he’d just let us go, which meant taking us back to camp, telling Gary. Gary and I were cool, but he’d never let me get away with this. These kids meant everything to him.
He’d tell Charles Kaplan. Lake’s dad would obliterate me, no doubt, but what about her? He was her world. If he thought she’d snuck off with me in the middle of the night, how would that change their relationship?
“You’re right, he might escort us back, probably will,” I said, checking the rearview mirror. The officer had parked behind us. “But we’ll get in worse trouble if he finds you.”
“He won’t. I can be quiet.”
The black-and-white driver’s side door opened. We were out of time. “I’ll handle it,” I promised her. What else could I do? “Just stay still. Don’t make a sound.” I wiped my upper lip on my sleeve. “I’ll handle it.”
He took his sweet time walking up to the window, checking my plates, looking over the truck. I turned off the heater and stereo. Crickets chirped. I’d been pulled over before. The window was already down, so I put my hands on the wheel where he could see them. My palms sweat around the leather. Thank fuck we’d been interrupted, not that I would’ve taken it any further. Would I have?
Boots shuffled in the dirt. A uniformed man not much older than me appeared at the window. He aimed his flashlight into the truck, barely skimming the back. “Evening,” he said. “Car trouble?”
“Yes, sir. It won’t start.”
“Why’d you turn it off in the first place?” He looked around. “Not going to find much help in the middle of nowhere.”
“I almost hit a coyote, pulled off, and the car just died on me.”
“I see.” He squinted at me. Or past me. I couldn’t tell. If he were to lean in, really get inside the window, I doubted he’d miss Lake’s blonde hair. “License and registration.”
I considered arguing. He had no reason to suspect me of anything. It might’ve made things worse, though, and he was just doing his job. I pulled out my wallet and gave him my ID before leaning over to the glove compartment. “I’m sorry, Officer. It’s a friend’s truck.” Fortunately, the paperwork was right where I needed it to be. “He was drinking, so I offered to do a beer run.”
He read my license. “What about you, Mr. Sutter? Been drinking?”
“No, sir. That’s why they sent me to get alcohol. I’m just on my way back.”
“Oh, yeah? Where you headed?”
“Next exit. Young Cubs camp.”
“You a counselor?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Pretty sure you guys aren’t supposed to be drinking, but . . . I would be if I were in your shoes. All those damn kids.” He nodded at me. “Where’s the alcohol then?”
Fuck. It was in the backseat. I blanched, a deer in cop lights. I had to come up with something. If I didn’t, he’d have reason to doubt me and who knows where I’d end up. Probably at the station, a deer in the spotlight . . . of an interrogation room. I stuck an arm over the back of the seat. My hand brush against something soft. Lake. She pressed a bottle into my hand, and I handed it to him. He stuck his notepad under his arm and tried the top. “It’s sealed, so there’s no problem.”
“Great,” I said, trying not to sound too relieved as he gave it back.
The tension in my chest eased as the officer backed away from the window. “Step out of the vehicle, Mr. Sutter.”
At first, I thought he was dismissing me. I almost answered him with “thanks.” When his words registered, though, I was suddenly frozen to the spot. “Sorry?” I asked.
“Out of the vehicle.”
I pulled sluggishly on the handle. The door stuck, so I had to ram my shoulder into it. The officer moved back as it popped open.
I wanted to ask why. I’d just had a little car trouble—there was no reason to make this into a thing. But I didn’t. I was guilty. Not of what he thought, but I’d done a bad thing tonight. If I argued, he might get suspicious and look for more than what he had, which was nothing.
“What’s this about?” I asked, stepping into the dirt. I sounded guilty even to my own ears.
The officer pointed to a spot in front of me. “Go ahead and walk in a straight line for me.”
21
Lake
Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry.
If I let out even a peep, the officer would find me in the back of the truck, take us back to camp, tell Gary and my dad, maybe even arrest Manning—and it’d all be my fault. I’d made Manning bring me along, go for a ride, get in the water.
My heartbeat filled my ears. I didn’t know what was happening. Couldn’t see anything, contorted in the small, dark space. The last I’d heard, Manning had asked why the cop wanted him out of the car.
Maybe everyone was right, and I was just a kid who didn’t consider consequences. I always did the right thing, but tonight? Tonight, I’d sat on the edge of my bed, playing our night at the pool in my head. The good parts, like Manning opening up about his sister and then telling me the story of Altair and Vega. And then what I should’ve done differently when I’d stupidly tried to kiss him. I hadn’t touched him, hadn’t gotten physical enough. Tiffany did that, and I needed to also.
Tonight had been my last chance with Manning.
My last chance to touch him, to make him see me as something more than a girl.
To make him forget Tiffany.
And now we were here, about to get busted, because of me.
Minutes passed like hours. I strained to hear beyond the murmur of voices. I sat bent and twisted so long, my legs tingled. I recognized the bass of Manning’s voice, the only thing that made my heart calm just a little. He wouldn’t let the man find me. He wouldn’t leave me here.
Finally, they got close enough to the window that I could hear. “Only if it won’t inconvenience you,” Manning said, opening the door.
“It’s no trouble,” the officer said. “If it doesn’t work, I’ve got a pal I can wake up to take a look. Or I’ll drive you back up to camp if you like, and you can handle it in the morning.”
Unbidden tears filled my eyes. He wouldn’t leave me. But what if he had to? What would I do—sleep here in the truck in wet clothes? Already I was doing everything in my power not to shiver.
“Let me just . . .” Manning leaned into the truck, and there was a loud, clunky pop out front. “There we go.”
He glanced at me over the divider. I nodded to let him know I was okay, even though I was holding my sobs at bay. He left for a few more minutes, came back, and turned the key in the ignition. The truck tried to start and after a second, shuddered and came to life.
I’d never been so relieved in my life. My limbs went limp.
“Thank fuck,” Manning said under his breath.
“Well, look at that,” the officer said. “Your lucky night.”
“Yes, sir.”
They were both silent a few seconds. I could only see Manning’s head turned away from me. I wanted to scream just to break the tension or look over the edge to see what was happening.
Finally, Manning pulled the door shut. “Thanks for your help,” he said through the window.
“Hey, good luck with training. You get sick of the beach, consider Big
Bear. We could always use good guys.”
“Will do. Thanks again, sir.” Manning stared into the rearview mirror. I was too afraid to speak, much less move. After a minute, he waved out the window and began to drive. We were a couple minutes up the road before either of us spoke.
With his one hand on the top of the wheel, he turned onto the unpaved road. I knew because I could barely sit still, the way it bumped and wobbled over potholes and rocks. “You all right?” he asked without looking back.
“Yes.” My voice sounded foreign. “Is everything okay?”
He squinted out the windshield. I knew it wasn’t okay, not really. I’d gone too far. Manning had been good to me the last five weeks. Protected me. Taught me. Confided in me. And I’d repaid him by almost getting him arrested.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
I expected him to scold me, but instead he just said, “Me, too.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for.”
“I’m just glad we’re okay.” He stopped the truck, turned out the headlights, and looked back at me. “Nobody can know about tonight. Ever.”
“I know that. I’ve told you a million times, I’m not a little girl. And we didn’t even do anything, even though it was our last chance. I can’t say goodbye to you tomorrow. I won’t.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose and inhaled. “Listen to me, Lake. You have your whole life ahead of you. You’re going to one of the top schools in the country. You’ve worked hard to get where you are.”
“But—”
“And so have your parents and sister.”
I closed my mouth.
“Think of all they’ve done for you. They want nothing more than to see you succeed, and I feel the same.”
“I want that, too, Manning. I can do all that. I can do none of it. It wouldn’t matter. I’d still—”
“You’re a smart girl, and I need you to understand.”
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