“We’re taking it slow,” I sort of lie. We’ve been making out whenever possible. In the pump room at the pool. Outside his apartment. In the car. It’s frantic and sex-starved, but everything has been over the clothes and we seem to be waiting for something, I’m just not sure what.
“He agreed to that?” Josh frowns.
“No, not exactly. I don’t know how long it will last, but like you said, we’ve been waiting a long time. It’s like this strange friend-to-more bridge we’ve got to get across. Also we’ve got this mutual cockblocking thing going on with Tate.”
“It’s going to be delicious when you do,” Tricia says and Josh smiles wickedly in agreement. “What about this weekend?”
The overnight camp weekend.
“Definitely possible, but I guess it depends on what kind of sleeping arrangements we’re given.”
“If you do it in the woods watch out for snakes,” Josh declares and then shudders.
Tricia and I look at one another and burst out laughing. Henry hears us and turns, smiling in my direction. “Go see if he’ll buy us a round of drinks,” Josh prompts.
I side out of the booth. I’m wearing another dress, on purpose, this time with thin straps that falls just above the knees. I’ve just started toward Henry when I see that he notices me and my skin starts to heat.
“Hey,” I say, meeting him at the end of the bar. I smile at Syd and Charlie, his other roommate. They wave back.
“Hi.”
“Josh wants you to buy him a drink,” I laugh over the loud music.
“He’s not really my type.” His hand reaches for my hip and rubs the spot only he and I know holds a secret. “But, I’d be willing to spend the two dollars if they’ll let you leave early with me.”
Henry’s blue eyes bore into mine and I lose all my senses. Like pull off my clothes in the middle of the bar, senses. I lick my bottom lip. “I’m pretty sure you can buy them off.”
“Done.”
I wait at the bar while Henry orders and delivers the drinks. Tricia sends me an encouraging wink while taking her first sip. I guess they forgive me for bailing. I feel a tug on my arm and look over. “So you’re the girl,” Syd says.
“Excuse me?”
“The girl that has our boy Henry all wound up,” Charlie clarifies. “We finally officially meet.”
“I don’t know about that,” I say, feeling awkward with their teasing. “But nice to meet you, too.”
Syd’s cute enough, with a lean face and pointy nose. He’s got on a fedora and a shaggy beard. The hipster thing totally works on him. Charlie’s sort of a hyper mess, bouncing in his seat with a wide grin on his face. No wonder they smoke up all the time, trying to calm him down.
“We call Henry ‘The Saint’ because he’s been pining for you for so long,” Charlie says, his smile growing bigger.
“What?”
Henry slides between me and Charlie, cutting off any answer. “You ready?”
“Yes. Definitely.”
With our fingers linked we leave the bar, ignoring the cat calls from our friends. “This seems like a big deal to our friends,” I say, once we’re outside away from the bar smells and sounds. I rode my bike but we ditch it to walk home.
“They want us to be happy.”
We pass the edge of the business district, cutting through campus on the way back to our apartments. “I guess.”
“Josh gave me one of those, ‘don’t mess with my girl’ talks. It was weird.”
I laugh. “Josh is weird. But loyal to the very end.”
We walk down the street like a cheesy newly-dating couple, tangled limbs and goofy smiles. Henry leans in to kiss me often and I taste the beer on his tongue. Every touch between us sparks the fire running just under our skin. “Your roommates like to tease me,” I say, trying to cut the sexual tension.
“I don’t think that was teasing.”
His jaw tenses but he doesn’t seem angry. Something else boils under the surface and I wonder about his ‘Saint’ status. How much truth there is in that nickname. I’ve been accused of many things but being a saint isn’t one of them.
“They’re nice, though. Part of your post-fraternity thing?” A car speeds past us and Henry shifts our positions, putting himself closer to the street. He never loses contact, though, hands shifting fluidly from my hand to my back to my neck to around my waist. Mouth against mine. A trail of heat follows and my stomach burns and twists.
“Yeah, we all played ultimate Frisbee freshman year and got along well. We got the apartment second year.” We’re passing by a cluster of park benches and picnic tables beneath massive magnolia trees on the upper quad. It’s dark and quiet. Henry pulls me to a stone picnic table. He sits down, kissing me the whole time. I climb onto his lap, straddling his legs.
“I love you in dresses,” he says.
The dress leaves me sensitive and exposed against him, only the thin layer of my panties between me and his cotton shorts. I kiss his mouth, face, jaw and throat, licking and biting every inch. His hands tense in tight balls by his side, resisting. We’re in public and I’ve never been much of an exhibitionist but I’ve lost my sense of appropriateness. I reach for his left hand and search for the tattoo positioned on the inside of his wrist. I kiss the words gently.
“I love your skin.” He kisses me on the chest, down the dip between my breasts. I feel him beneath me hard and ready and I rock my hips against his, seeking friction.
Henry rocks back and pushes my hair over my shoulder. “I love your neck and your ears and this spot, right here,” he says, licking then kissing the inside of my elbow.
“You’re very affectionate,” I say, grinding a little harder. His thumbs graze the underside of my breasts, taunting and teasing.
“I am,” he agreed. “I’m also horny as hell, Zadie Parker and I think you are, too.”
“I can’t have sex with you under a tree on campus.” I’m lying, though. I could and would, but thank god he doesn’t force it. Instead we just keep up the rocking and pace already established. Clothes on.
“We can do this though, right?” he asks.
I kiss him hard, stopping all his talking, and we get busy pressing and pushing into one another. I feel his hands twist in the dress fabric on my back and the slight wave of air on my upper thighs. Back and forth, like two desperate, virgin high-schoolers. It was enough though, and suddenly Henry’s exhaling in my mouth while I’m making the most embarrassing whimpery noises. I clamp my eyes shut and grip his thick hair between my fingers, tugging with each wave. Henry takes advantage of my movements and remains still, steadying himself with his fingers pressed into my hips.
I opened my eyes and find his blue ones staring back at me, tiny wrinkles visible at the edge of his eyes. We both burst out laughing at the shameless act of sexual desperation that just occurred between us.
“That was—,” I search for the right words, between giggles.
“Fucking hot,” Henry finished.
“And awkwardly appropriate?” I say, considering the strange path our relationship had taken over the years. “That’s probably exactly what would have happened to us on prom night three years ago if you hadn’t douched out on me.”
That’s right. In my post-dry-humping glow I’m ready to joke about it.
“Probably,” he laughs, standing up and making a face at his pants. “Damn, that’s all kinds of nasty. Wait here.”
He disappears behind a tree in the dark and comes back tugging his shorts up. “What did you do?” I ask.
“Eh, I ditched my boxers behind that tree. Just a little gift for mother nature.” He wraps his arm around my shoulder and directs me away from the offending tree.
“You’re crazy,” I tell him, pretending to be disgusted, but it’s all fake. The tension between us is already building again. He must feel it, too, because his hands are on me again.
“You’ve barely scratched the surface,” he jokes, leading me past the dorms, finally on
our way home. One thing’s for sure, this weekend trip to camp will be a test of our self-control… or lack thereof.
Chapter Ten
“Shit,” I say, digging in my back pack. “I left my shirt and shorts at the pool yesterday.”
“No problem,” Henry says, turning away from the highway. “Just run in and get them.” It’s only 9:00, so I’m surprised to see Tate’s truck in the parking lot. Henry hands me the key to the front gate. “He may have it locked since it’s early.”
Sure enough the gate’s locked and Tate’s not around, so I use the key to let myself in. I head to the office and push open the door. That’s when all hell breaks loose.
“Oh my God!” I shout, covering my eyes, but it’s too late. I’ve seen too much. Way too much.
“Zadie! Shit!” Tate yells. I turn my back and walk out of the office. He whispers something and then mutters, “Ouch,” under his breath. I’m at the gate, willing to let my shirt and shorts go for the weekend, when he grabs me by the arm. “Wait up.”
“Tate,” I whisper yell. “Are you kidding me? We had a deal. And you’re breaking it big time.”
He has the good sense to look panicked. I rub my hands over my eyes. I need bleach. Stat. “I know,” he says. “I fucked up but you know she’s been driving me crazy and it’s not what you think.”
“How, exactly, is that not what I think?” Lisa. Yes, Lisa, takes that opportunity to come out of the office, tying the strings on her bikini behind her neck. She gives me a blank look and walks into the ladies’ changing room.
“I love her.”
I stare at him, unblinking.
“I do,” he says, when it’s obvious I’m not going to say anything.
We face off until I finally say, “Henry’s waiting for me in the car.”
“Okay, I know you need to go, but I’m serious. I love her and there’s more going on than you know.”
“Of course there is.” I roll my eyes. “I need to go or he’s going to come up here and I don’t think you want that.”
“Can you do me a favor? Can you to keep it quiet until you and I can talk when you get back?”
“You want me to lie to Henry?”
“Just give me a day or two, okay?” he pleads with his stupid green eyes and that pouty mouth. Crap.
“Just a couple of days, but we’re talking when I get back. You can’t keep this up, Tate. She has a family.” I toss my hands in the air and walk back into the office, grabbing my bag that hangs behind the door.
I leave without saying more, uncomfortable with this situation. Seeing Lisa half-naked on the desk didn’t make things any easier. Especially since she had a rocking body for a woman with two kids.
The cool air from the air conditioner blasts against my hot skin when I get back in the SUV. Henry shifts quickly into gear and says, “Everything okay?”
“Yeah, just talking to Tate for a minute.” The lie feels like lead on my tongue. Why am I even lying about this? But I promised, and I don’t really want to spend the weekend talking about Tate and his cougar anyway.
Soon, we’ve merged off the highway and we’re taking back roads to the mountains. It’s amazing to think the last time we took this ride up to the lake, I was trying to decide how to deal with Henry Fletcher. It was then that I decided to manipulate and win him over with my discarded Operation Payback. We’d cleared the air and he’d apologized. I smile at him from the passenger seat, fingers latched with his.
“So what all are we required to do this weekend?” I ask.
“They have this huge annual Greek party up here. The regular counselors and guards get the weekend off if they want, which is why they send us up.”
“No kids?”
“Nope. All adults, or immature, college-aged, drunken adults.” he says. “It’s the Kappa Sigs and Tri-Delts. Total douchefest. I worked it last summer with Tate. Things get a little crazy. Everyone’s drinking and smoking. Tate hooked up with Shelly for the first time up here.”
“I wish he’d stick to co-eds.” I try to appear aloof. “I don’t even want to know the psychological reasoning of why he’s so hung up on Lisa.”
“Nope,” he laughs. “He’s got some kind of cougar fetish. I think it’s the experience thing. I’m sure once summer is over he’ll go back to college girls.”
In light of this information I feel fairly childish about our dry-humping in the park last night and it makes me curious. “What about you? Did you find some lonely sorority girl to hook up with?” He keeps his eyes on the road, swallowing deliberately and I realize I don’t want to know the answer to that question. “Never mind. Seriously.”
We let it drop, which doesn’t exactly feel better, but that’s my own problem. I’m not voluntarily sharing my sexual past with him either. Plus, I’m not thinking about sex with other guys. I can hardly keep my mind and hands off of the guy next to me.
“I worked as a counselor last year at another camp,” I tell Henry. “It was pretty tame, though—a day camp and mostly elementary school-aged kids. We had to get our lifeguard certification, which is why I had it for this job.”
“I knew that—well not that about the certification, but I knew you were a camp counselor.”
I frown. “How?”
“You don’t have the best privacy settings on your Facebook,” he confesses with a sheepish grin.
“You were stalking me?” I ask, feeling a slight thrill in my stomach.
“Not stalking, more like curious.”
His confession equally excites and makes me nervous, wondering how long he kept track of me. Did he see the drama on my wall during the Elton fiasco? Had he trolled photos of me and Tyler? Admittedly, I’d checked his page once or twice but there was never anything damming. I’m lost in my thoughts when we near the camp. The big wooden sign at the entrance is visible and a block or so away, but Henry slows the car and pulls over into a small, empty church parking lot on the side of the road.
“What are you doing?” I ask, as he shifts the car into park. He answers me by leaning over the center console and giving me a kiss. A deep kiss. The kind of kiss you dream about when you’re conjugating verbs in Spanish or taking a shower. The kind I’m pretty sure you aren’t supposed to do in a church parking lot.
“We have, like, five minutes until we’re supposed to be there,” he says. The idea of a five minute makeout session energizes me and I push back into him, halfway climbing into his lap. I push his sunglasses into his hair. Intense, blue eyes stare back at me and l lean in and lick his bottom lip.
“Damn,” he says, moving his mouth down my neck and pressing his thumbs into my hips. My own hands slip up the front of his shirt. His hard stomach muscles tense and I run my fingers through the fine hair beneath his belly button. He hums with pleasure. Excited by his reaction, I lick my lips and push his shirt up.
“Wait,” he gasps. “Don’t do that. Not here.”
I look around. “What? The church parking lot?”
“Well, that and I’m so fired up about you I don’t want to,” he looks down to his crotch, which is noticeably very, very aroused, “you know, here. And it’s going to happen if you touch me again, because you’re so freaking sexy and everything you do feels so good.”
I kiss him again because he just called me sexy, but I move off his lap so he can regain some composure. While he takes care of that with what seems like some advanced yoga-style deep breathing, I flip down the rearview mirror and smooth my hair back into a tidy ponytail. Red rash spots my throat from Henry’s stubbly chin.
“Sorry about that,” he says, rubbing his thumb over the sensitive skin.
“Don’t be,” I say, seeing that he’s calmed down. I’m buzzing with a sort of irrational delight that I was the cause of his excitement. I gave Henry Fletcher a raging boner on the side of a country road. It feels like a milestone.
*
The camp office is located in a small stone building about a half mile away from the main road. Being in the mounta
ins has the awesome effect of being cooler and less humid than at home. We’re met by the same frazzled-looking woman with short, curly hair and glasses perched on her nose. Her name is Stacy and she looks impossibly more frazzled than before.
“Thanks for coming up,” she says. “This weekend is going to be crazy. I hope you’re ready.”
Henry nods. “Where should we put our things? The lodge like last year?”
“Unfortunately, we have so many attendees for the party this year that we’ve put all the staff into the camper cabins near the lake. There’s plenty of room and not that many of you guys. Take your pick.”
“Great, thanks,” he says, taking the master key she offers. It opens all the cabins in the row.
“Also,” she says, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “I had to keep one of the weekday lifeguards for the weekend. You’ve probably met. Shelly?”
We both nod. Henry and I leave the office and get back in his car. We drive down the secluded camp road until we find the cabins. “Think Shelly will be cool? Why isn’t she going to the party?” I ask, removing my bags out of the car.
“I don’t know. I can’t imagine why she would want to be working with us.”
The cabin has a small screened porch and thankfully is air conditioned. The bathroom is connected and there are six sets of bunk beds. Shelly is lying on one, reading a book. She’s got on tiny red shorts and her legs are long and tan. I notice her toes are painted a bright blue.
“Hey guys,” she says, sitting up. Her long blonde hair is in two braids, a look she manages to pull off completely. Her eyes land on me and her disappointment is clear. “Take a bunk.”
Henry and I don’t move right away. We’ve both just had the realization that three people in a cabin has dashed any hopes of us sleeping together. Or anything else. Resigned, I take a step forward and claim one of the lower bunks. When I turn around I see he picked the bed opposite of mine. As if the sexual tension wasn’t high enough already.
“You guys should go ahead and change,” Shelly suggests, her tone sour. She’s pissed about something—maybe about Tate not coming? “We can head down to the pool. I think the first activities start in a couple hours, but Stacy wanted us to go ahead and get ready.”
No Regrets Page 9