Stuck With You (First Kiss Hypothesis)

by Christina Mandelski

  “That’s it?” I say. “That right there is the best waterslide in the state of Texas.”

  Catie coughs from behind me. “I don’t know if I’d go that far.”

  “Oh, come on now,” I say, parking the truck. From as far back as I can remember, our mothers brought us here. We’d slide for hours, and it never got old. The place looks exactly the same—small and crowded, maybe a little sketchy, but that’s part of its charm. There’s a big ramp to climb up to the slides with a fountain at the top. There are a few buildings with locker rooms and an office and an area with some picnic tables, along with a few food trucks parked outside the gate.

  “You and I had some good times here, Dixon.”

  “Yeah, Dixon,” Ainsley says, glancing into the backseat and smiling with far too many teeth.

  Whatever.

  We agree to leave our dry clothes in the car, so when we get out, we all start to strip down. I take off my shirt and throw it onto my seat. Catie gets out of the back and is right next to me. She follows suit, pulling off her top.

  Holy. God.

  Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea. It’s a real hot day, and no one in this parking lot has much on. It still doesn’t prepare me for what’s in front of me. Namely Catie Dixon, mostly naked.

  I want to throw a towel over her, but then. Damn. I might need my towel to wrap around myself. What is wrong with me? It’s Catie. Catie.

  Come on, Gray. Get it together. I turn in a circle and redirect my thoughts. To Mrs. Grable, the piano teacher with the hairy lip wart that I had to watch for a whole year in second grade. She was a nice lady, but that thing moved when she talked like it had a mind of its own. After that, I try to conjure up the rank smell of the locker room after lacrosse practice. Like sour pickles mixed with week-old trash. Then I think of the time Mo puked up dead bird parts in the kitchen. Feathers and beaks and tiny bird feet everywhere.

  This strategy seems to work, some.

  I just need to keep my eyes focused on her neck and above. She’s short, and I’m tall, so it should be easy.

  “You put on sunscreen?” she asks, oblivious to my current mental and physical state.

  I gotta look down on her to answer. The neck-up plan is no good. My eyes scan south and notice things. Like how she’s got curves that she most definitely did not exist when I last saw her in a swimsuit. She’s already pretty tan, even though it’s early in the summer. And her legs, as previously noted, look good. Really good.

  “Caleb?” she says. “Are you okay?”

  “Uh. Yeah. No. I’m good. Mmm-hmm. I’m fine.”

  “Oh no.” She reaches into her bag in the backseat and pulls out a can of sunscreen spray. “You’re not getting crispy on my watch. Your mother will freak out. Turn around.”

  Also as previously noted, you don’t argue with Catie.

  She sprays my entire back and then grabs my bicep to turn me back around. I stand with my arms out, waiting. She purses her lips and crosses her arms, which acts to push up her chest so that even though I am most definitely not looking at her there, my eyes can’t help but wander south for a split second.

  “Hey. Eyes up here.” She smirks and hands over the spray bottle. “You got the rest.”

  I chuckle, trying to appear cool, but I also can’t deny that she caught me red-handed. “Get over yourself,” I say, quietly. She chuckles right back and watches me for a beat longer than I expect, with her eyes squinted, like she’s trying to figure something out.

  My face feels hot, like it must be bright red, but I’m hoping she doesn’t notice. She rolls her eyes and walks away. With her back to me, I let my eyes wander lower.

  Lip warts.

  Locker-room stank.

  Dead-bird vomit.

  I inhale as deep as I can and let it go as best I can, knowing that these unexpected feelings will come to nothing. As I discussed with my canine friend this morning, they have to come to nothing.

  She and I are a nonstarter, both too close and not close enough. Family friends and frenemies.

  Never mind the fact that I’m going back to Florida in a week, and she’ll start her senior year in Texas a thousand miles away. There’s no long-term potential here. The only potential is for humiliation and heartbreak.

  As for the next few days, after her friends go home and we’re waiting for her parents to show (and mine, who just confirmed to me that they’ll be joining us), we’ll be alone. Just the two of us. But let’s just say I’m not the type to have a meaningless fling. No judgment. I’m just not. Not a player. Not at all. Not that she would agree to a fling.

  How awkward would that be, anyway? With our parents’ friendship and the family business, Catie and I are gonna know each other for a long time. I, for one, can’t imagine the annual Dixon-Gray Christmas parties with our respective future partners and kids, looking at each other over our spiked punch remembering that time we hooked up the summer we got stuck together at the beach house.

  Yeah, no.

  That quick reality check is all I need to calm myself—and my shorts—down.

  “Caleb?” she shouts from where she’s waiting at the ticket booth.

  “What?” I try to sound as casual as I can.

  “You said this was your treat.”

  All three of them stare at me, waiting for me to pay, which I do.

  After we get our wristbands, we toss our towels in a locker and proceed to the ramp that leads up to the slide. The line is long, but it moves fast. Most of the folks here don’t care, anyway. The wait is part of the fun. This waterslide is all there is to do, really, in all of Bolivar besides the beach, which is fine, but sometimes you want more. There’s a mini-golf course, yeah, and a handful of festivals in the summer, but not a whole lot else without heading over to Galveston Island, where you can take the ferry and drop a whole lot of money.

  I definitely don’t have the funds to pay for that. Not for four people. The little cash I have I saved from graduation gifts and working for my parents.

  As we wait our turn, I try to ignore the random looks of strangers whose eyes are definitely trailing up and down Catie’s body. They’re doing the same to Sunny and Ainsley, too, and I want to punch their lights out, every one of them, but it’s not against the law to look. I’ll just stay close and make sure they keep their distance.

  When we’re at the top for our first run, Ainsley holds up the mat she grabbed at the bottom. Catie has one, too. The thing about this slide is that there aren’t many rules. I’ve seen a train of at least twenty people go down at one time. No one seems to mind. Mats are optional.

  “Sunny will ride with me,” Ainsley declares. “Caleb, you and Catie go down together.” She points to Catie’s shiny blue mat.

  “That’s okay,” I say. Catie looks back at me, over her shoulder, blue eyes shining. “You don’t have to share—” I continue, until the lifeguard cuts me off.

  “Come on, you’re holding up the line. Put your mat down. Sit!”

  Is he even a lifeguard? He looks like he’s fourteen and obviously hates his life.

  “Go!” he orders.

  Catie positions the mat, water gushing past her and down the slide. “Come on,” she says, patting the small patch she left for me right behind her.

  “Dude, go already!” the lifeguard repeats.

  I have no choice but to sit, with her between my legs. Shit. This could get bad fast.

  Lip wart. Sweaty jock straps. Dog vomit. Bird parts.

  We start down the slide. It is pretty tame by water park standards, but it’s also fast, and we pick up speed quickly. Ainsley and Sunny are just ahead of us as we round the first bend, and I can see Catie wants to grab onto something for stability, namely me, but she won’t. She squeals—an I’m-having-fun squeal, not a terrified squeal—but something in me snaps into action, and I wrap my arms around her. Just to be nice.

  I know I should let go, but the momentum we’ve got going and the fact that I’m heavier than she is makes it difficult. T
hat’s the only reason I’m up against her right now, holding tight to her middle, her wet hair in my face. I don’t want to notice how good it smells. But man, it does. It just does. Her skin is warm and softer than I expected. We get to going faster and oh damn.

  The ride isn’t long, but it’s long enough. She seems to relax while I hold her. I, on the other hand…am anything but relaxed. I try my best to keep my crotch away from her butt as we slip and twist and slide. God, if you can hear me, get us to the bottom.

  Fast.

  Finally, we splash into the pool, and I swim to the side, purposely keeping my bottom half submerged, pulling at the front of my trunks, trying to get myself decent. Sunny and Ainsley are laughing, still trying to get their footing. I wipe the water out of my eyes just in time to witness Catie pull out the wedgie that tiny bikini has given her. Holy God.

  That’s not helping matters.

  I close my eyes and grab the mat, holding it up around my middle region—then make my way out of the pool. The girls are already going back to the ramp for another ride when a little boy tries to take the mat from me.

  “Can I have it?”

  “No. No way,” I say. He snarls at me like I’m a big jerk and runs off.

  “Come on, let’s go again!” Catie turns and yells back at me, smiling.

  “I’m gonna sit this one out!” I wave and nod. I guess it’s possible she didn’t notice what was going on. I mean it’s that not that big of a deal, right? Though it’s not small, either, just to be clear.

  “Caleb! Get over here!” she shouts again, barking orders at me like she’s done her entire life.

  I let out a big sigh. Things seems to be getting back to normal. In my pants anyway.

  “Hang on!” I shout back, and she smiles at me, a sly smile, almost…sexy? What does that smile mean? Does she know what just happened? Does she know how distracting she is?

  The thing is, like an idiot, I smile back. Can’t help myself. I jog up the ramp, still clinging to my mat. This time I’ll insist we travel down separately. I don’t want her to get the wrong idea.

  Or I don’t know. Maybe I do.

  Chapter Ten

  Catie

  We go down the slide about a hundred times, and you know, it’s fun. Like we’re kids again. Like we aren’t all faced with major life decisions that could make or break us, that could wreck our families and change our whole futures.

  For a few glorious hours, I forget. I forget about all of it, what my future is expected to be. I forget about how sick Gramps is and how much they need me at home, and just let myself enjoy being seventeen. Young and free and relatively happy.

  Plus I don’t look bad in a bikini. I’m not bragging, and I don’t even begin to compare parts of my body to Sunny’s awesome butt or Ainsley’s height and boob situation, but I know this much—he noticed.

  He being Caleb, my childhood friend-turned-frenemy-turned what?

  When he got to the bottom of the slide and he stood up too quickly, my eyes were at the right place at the right time—or was it the wrong place at the wrong time—and his excitement was, er, obvious. Honestly, I don’t know how I didn’t know what was up (pun totally intended) on our way down, since I was sitting between his legs and he was holding me around my waist.

  The arms around me were surprising, not exactly affectionate, more like trying to keep me from slipping off the mat and into my best friends just ahead of me. But his skin, on mine, holding me, definitely caused a reaction.

  I was warm. All over, despite the cool water that swallowed me up at the bottom.

  Then I got over it, because nothing good can come from this way of thinking. It’s a waste of time, and while his animal instincts might have taken over on our one slide together (we went on separate mats after that), I know he’s not interested. He could not be interested in me.

  There’s a silver lining, though, to this accidental beach vacation. Hearing the story of the sand crabs and remembering little things about the time we spent here together—going to Swede’s and the waterslide, watching movies out on the deck, playing in the sand and surf all day long, I’m reminded that we were friends once. Before we hit puberty, before I followed him around middle school dances or cheered loudly for him at middle school football games, before he started dating girls in high school who I didn’t think deserved him and I figured it was my job to tell him that, we were, most definitely, friends.

  It feels like we’re on our way to that again, only this time, I’ll stop at friendship and steer clear of a crush. Even if he is so freaking attractive and now I have a good idea of what’s in his pants. Sigh.

  Friends is good. Friends is fine.

  When we’re done sliding, we’re all hungry and settle on eating from the Taco the Town food truck, which has a long line.

  We get our food and sit at one of the canopy-covered tables in the picnic area. Sunny and Ainsley quickly take a seat next to each other so that Caleb and I have to sit together. I know that they’re both trying to make this happen in a not very subtle way. I roll my eyes, and Ains grins, while Sunny’s got that I told you so look that she wears so well.

  “So, when do you start school, Caleb?” Ainsley asks him, taking a long sip of her Coke.

  He’s just taken the first bite of his taco and bobs his head up and down while he chews and swallows. “Um. Soon.” He wipes dripping salsa off his chin. “Just after I get back.”

  “Where are you going, again?” she asks.

  “Florida Central. In Orlando. Pretty close to home.”

  I scoop up a blob of guacamole on a chip and shake my head. “I can’t believe you’re not going to UT. It’s so hard to get in.”

  UT is in our blood, always has been, since both of our parents went there, and I know that he got accepted.

  He nods. “Yeah.” He’s quiet for a while. “I got a full scholarship, though, for lacrosse.” He pauses again. “UT’s out-of-state tuition now, and the business program where I’m going is good.” I notice his lips press together.

  Aha.

  “You used to talk about engineering, and architecture. Building things?” I say.

  His eyes flash on mine. “Nah, that was just…a hobby. Business makes more sense. I took accounting this year, and got like, an award, so…”

  Here’s where the old me would start pushing him—asking him what changed his mind, wondering about all the building projects he used to do. I’ve been to almost every one of his family birthday parties, and when he was younger all he ever wanted were building kits. Models, robots, circuits—he had them all. I have a memory of one birthday—he was maybe twelve, and I wandered up to his room while our parents talked downstairs. He was putting together some machine and told me he was going to build things someday.

  I’m not going to bring that up now, not when I sense his mood shifting. I can almost feel air seeping out of him, like a slowly deflating balloon. He’s having second thoughts, about college.

  A chill runs through me, and goose bumps cover my body.

  He’s going through exactly what I’m going through. I know what he’s thinking. For so long, our futures have been planned out for us. Him, sports, then eventually he’ll work for the business. Me, always the business. It’s no one’s fault. Not our parents, or any specific thing. It’s just the way things have happened, and it must have sounded good to us at some point. Now all of a sudden, here we are, the lives that we passively agreed to about to unfurl in front of us.

  I wonder if knowing this makes him feel as scared and helpless and as lost as I do.

  Judging by the way he’s studying the table a little too intently, I think the answer is yes.

  I stare down into my Salty Dog taco with extra pickle relish and wish I could help him, but how? Just because he gets a boner from sitting on a waterslide mat with me doesn’t mean he wants my help. Just like he couldn’t help me if he tried, as I sit here obsessing about faraway, expensive, hard-to-get-into Northwestern.

  Bottom line
is: I’m not going anywhere. My family needs me. If I went to Chicago, they’d probably have to put Gramps in a nursing home, because I wouldn’t be around to help take care of him. That would be terrible.

  UT is my future. Northwestern and a journalism degree would be completely useless. That’s a fact.

  I just wish it was a fact that didn’t make me feel so incredibly sad.

  “Hey,” Caleb whispers and nudges my side as I contemplate my life in this mess of a taco. I turn to him, next to me on this bench, and I wonder if he can maybe read my mind a little bit, too.

  Across from us, Ainsley and Sunny are arguing about what time to head home tomorrow.

  “You all right?” he asks, his forehead wrinkled with concern.

  I shrug, tired of being strong. “Maybe?”

  “Maybe not?”

  I close my eyes and straighten my back. I’m feeling deflated, too. “It’ll be fine,” I say quietly.

  “It will,” he replies and reaches out to touch my hand under the table. “I promise.”

  Ainsley interrupts the moment and says with authority, “We’re leaving tomorrow morning.”

  I pull my hand out from under his. She couldn’t have seen that, but she waggles her eyebrows at me, like she sees everything. I know there’s a blush climbing up into my cheeks, and I can’t do a thing to stop it. He wasn’t “holding my hand.” He was just trying to comfort me. He can see I’m confused. He can see I don’t know what to do. He’s known me for longer than anyone. He’s part of my family. That’s all this is.

  “Morning?” I gulp down a mouthful of food. “I thought you’d be here all day.”

  “Yeah,” Sunny says. “This has been fun, but I’m ready. You know. The longer I push it, the more likely my parents will find out.”

  “Yes, we know,” Ainsley cuts in, “and you’ll be grounded for all of senior year…”

  Sunny nudges her side. “Do not sass me.”

  Ainsley nudges Sunny back. “When will your parents be here?” she asks me, trying to look casual and failing.

  “They’ll be here on Thursday,” Caleb answers before I can, completely matter-of-factly, like it’s no big deal, which it’s not.