Alongside the beach is an asphalt pathway. It’s nearly as busy as the highway we just crossed under, crowded with people walking their dogs and exercising, running, and Rollerblading. T.J. puts an arm out in front of me, stopping me from nearly walking out in front of cyclists. I give him a grateful nod, glad not to end up roadkill.
Once we’re across, we walk closer to the shore. Every time I see Lake Michigan, I mistake it for the Atlantic Ocean, so vast and azure blue. A hundred feet away, a bunch of boats are clustered offshore. Sunbathers lie on yacht decks, listening to loud rap music. The bass thumps along with my heart.
If I look up and to my right, skyscrapers fill the blue sky. Right here, at high tide, the water rushes over the walkways onto the bike path, slowly erasing a pink chalk drawing of a house.
T.J. points down the shoreline. “Want to sit on the beach?” Some people are sitting on the concrete next to the shore, but I’d prefer the sand. With his hand in mine, I pull him in that direction.
It’s not even noon yet, but the beach is packed with people lounging under umbrellas, pulling cold drinks out of coolers. A plane pulling an advertisement for beer flies overhead.
T.J. and I spread out our towels on the sand a few feet away from other people.
With a deep breath, I pull my halter top off over my head and unbutton my jean shorts, slowly pushing them down to reveal my pink bikini. I worry what he thinks of my body. He’s so strong and fit, and while I’m trim, I still feel flabby in certain places.
I make a midyear resolution to immediately start doing more crunches. Is now a good time to start? Right here on the beach?
Another plane flies overhead. This one’s pulling an ad for Trojan condoms.
My face feels like it’s on fire. I swear. Is the universe out to embarrass me?
Keeping my head tilted down, I sneak a peek at T.J. Even though he’s wearing sunglasses, I can tell he’s checking me out. Our gazes meet, and he swallows hard.
I pull sunscreen out of my bag, sit down, and begin lathering up my arms and legs, making sure not to miss anywhere.
“Do you need help with your back?” he asks.
I hand him my bottle. “Yeah, I burn bad sometimes.”
He gives me a smile as he begins to work the lotion into my shoulder. His strong hands knead my skin, and I say a little prayer that there will be a chance for him to give me a full-body massage, because wow. When he starts on my back, I bite my bottom lip, to stop myself from groaning.
Once he’s given me two solid coats of sunscreen—I bet he’d continue slathering it on all day, if I let him—I lie on my towel. T.J. pulls his T-shirt off over his head, revealing his tanned body. His chest is strong, and a thin strip of hair points down from his belly button to below his swimsuit. My mouth waters at the muscular V-shape of his waist.
I watch him out of the corner of my eye. “I’d ask if you want me to put sunscreen on your back, but you clearly don’t need it.”
He grins and playfully says, “Sure, I do. Everybody needs sunscreen.”
“Are you just saying that so I’ll touch you?”
“Maybe.” He lies down, turning on his side to face me. He reaches out to intertwine our fingers together. With my other hand I touch his forearm, unable to keep my hands to myself.
He looks at where I’m touching him and starts laughing. “Last night, before I found you, I thought my brother was going to go make us get hula girl tattoos on our forearms.”
I laugh. “That sounds awful. I mean, can you get a job if you have a tattoo like that? You’d have to make sure it’s covered all the time. Then what’s the point?”
“Right? If you’re going to get a tattoo, you should show it off. Have it on display like a piece at a museum.”
I’ve never heard anyone describe a tattoo that way.
“Do you want a tattoo?” he asks.
Tattoos are not my thing. “If I were to get one, I guess I’d have to get…a taco.”
He grins. “A taco?”
“I think that’s the only thing I love enough.”
“You’re cute.”
“What would you get?” I ask him.
He tilts his head, then swipes on his phone screen. He taps it a bunch of times and turns the screen around so I can see. “This is the plan. Do you like it?”
I peer at the screen. It’s difficult to see in the sun, but slowly my eyes come into focus.
At first glance, it looks like a bunch of black, red, and green symbols—some appear raised, some sunken, but as my eyes zero in, I discover its chain links that swirl like a tail into the body of a dragon. Instead of blowing orange sparks, the dragon is spitting blue fire. If I let my eyes wander, it becomes a bunch of shapes again. An elaborate optical illusion.
“That’s so cool. I love it.”
He nods, and looks up at me, and smiles.
“You’re really gonna get that?” I ask. “Where?”
T.J. points below his hip and drags his finger up his side. I imagine the chain winding along his hip bone and lateral muscles. I’ve never been into the idea of tattoos, but right now? His plan sounds hot. Very hot.
As we stare at each other, his hand gently sweeps up my wrist along my arm to my elbow, then back down again. This time his hand stops on my waist, his fingertips gently drumming my skin. He plays with the string on my bikini bottoms, boldly twisting it between his fingers. A confident move, but his hand is shaking.
I’m shaking too.
T.J.
My fingers can’t stop touching the smooth skin of her hip.
I want to press my mouth to it.
I want to press my mouth everywhere.
She leans in toward me, closing her eyes, coming halfway. I shut my eyes too.
I can do this. I can kiss her. She’s not going to turn me down.
Is she?
What if we kiss and she pulls away? What if, after kissing me once, she doesn’t want more? That’s what happened with Lacey. What if nothing’s wrong with me, but something’s wrong with my kissing? Shit.
It’s not as if I really know how to kiss anyway. I’m likely bad at it just because I’ve barely done it. Maybe if I had more practice…
Maybe my brother’s right. Tyler said to find a girl who sets me on fire, and then I’d know what to do.
So I do it.
I take off my sunglasses, lean forward, and go the rest of the way.
Her lips are soft. So soft I groan. I hold my breath, expecting her to yank away from me. But she doesn’t. She opens her mouth, inviting me in.
I’m so excited I want to climb to the top of a mountain, raise my fists, and scream to the world, “We’re fucking kissing!”
Her glasses press against my cheek uncomfortably. I break the kiss momentarily, to help her take them off. “These are so cute,” I tell Mari as I set them carefully on top of her bag. “But they’re in our way.”
She gives me a tiny, shy grin.
Once her glasses are gone, I run a hand through her curly hair, pulling Mari closer. Our eyes meet before I gently roll her onto her back and press my mouth to hers. The feel of her chest against mine drives me wild. Makes me kiss her harder.
“Get a room!” some guy calls out.
Suddenly she stops kissing me and pulls to the side, breathing heavily, her eyes shut. “Wait.”
I pull my hand from where my fingers had been tangled in her bikini bottoms string. “You okay?”
Mari bites her lower lip, clearly not okay.
I want to touch her arm, but I don’t want to freak her out either. Instead I pick up some sand and let it sift through my fingers, to do something with my hand so I won’t go back to touching her. “I’m sorry. Did I move too fast?”
“A little. I mean, we’re in public.” She giggles nervously. “Pretty soon we were gonna be in R-rate
d territory.”
“We were?” I blurt out like a high soprano, and I’m so embarrassed I want to throw myself in the lake.
“And I barely know you,” she says. “I don’t normally move so fast.”
I roll over onto my back and peer up at the sky. The bright sun hurts my eyes. I’m glad. Maybe burning the shit out of my retinas will give me something to concentrate on besides how I’m blowing it with another girl.
Her fingers circle my wrist. “But I want to know more about you.”
She does?
Relief spreads through my whole body, reminding me of the time Ethan and I broke into his dad’s liquor stash. Mari wanting to know more about me is a smooth shot of whiskey to my heart.
I stare at her. “What do you want to know?”
“I dunno… Tell me two truths and a lie.”
“Okay, let’s see.” I take a few seconds to think. “I ran cross-country for my high school, I love watching horror movies, and I am terrible at cooking.”
She rolls over onto her elbow to face me. “Is it the cross-country running?”
I shake my head. “Horror movies freak me out. I went to see this one horror movie with Ethan. It was about how if you got a text from this unknown number with this meme of a ghoul, you only had seven days to live. The people who died? Their faces, like, melted off. Like, gooey cheese pizza.”
Mari rolls her eyes.
“Hey! I was scared as shit. I left the movie, went out to the lobby, and played video games. And I was still freaked out, even though it was broad daylight outside. After that movie, I couldn’t check my texts for a whole day.”
We laugh together.
Mari’s phone beeps. She lifts it to check the screen. Her eyes balloon. Her lower lip begins to quiver. “I just got a text. It’s…it’s…a ghoul.”
“Shit, what?” I grab the phone from her hand as she cracks up.
“Just kidding. It was another message from Dad. Not the murderous ghoul.”
I work to catch my breath. “That was not funny.” What if it was like the movie and she died in seven days?
Mari curls her elbow under her head and uses it as a pillow, her hair spilling down her arm. “Do you forgive me?”
I give her a playful evil eye. “We’ll see. First you have to give me two truths and a lie.”
“Okay, hmmm.” She licks her lips and pushes a lock of hair behind her ear. “My favorite TV show is Dancing with the Stars, I’m president of my school’s STEM club, and I love camping.”
I’m glad Sierra gave me the heads-up that Mari’s into science. I know it’s not STEM. I squint at her as I think. “Dancing with the Stars?”
“No! I love that show. It’s the camping.” She shudders. “I hate bugs and snakes and anything with creepy-crawly legs. I hate being dirty.”
“And you came to Lollapalooza?” I say in a deadpan voice, which makes her laugh. “It’s gonna take me ten more showers to get off the grime from last night.”
“I know! My Converse are ruined.” She points over at the silver sneakers she slipped off when we arrived at the beach. They’re all muddy and stained. “I don’t even want to know what I stepped in.”
I smile at her. “So. STEM club? As if you weren’t already intimidating.”
She looks pleased at that. A smile stretches across her face as she intertwines her fingers with mine. Mari rolls a little closer to me, like before, and I want to fire a T-shirt gun into the crowd to celebrate that I didn’t totally screw up with her.
“Let’s play again,” she says. “Tell me two truths and a lie. Serious ones this time.”
She truly does want to get to know me, and I want to know her too. But we live so far apart, it’s hard to imagine anything happening between us beyond this weekend. Do I want to tell Mari secrets about me, to get to know her even better, knowing I’ll have to leave her?
Mari licks her lips, looking expectant, her brown eyes boring into mine. And I’m lost.
“I’m scared I’ll never be as great at anything as my brother—sometimes I feel like I’m an inferior copy of him. My favorite football team is the Chicago Bears…and I’m a virgin.”
She stares at me. A red flush appears on her neck and chest.
“You’re from Wisconsin, so I’m guessing you love the Green Bay Packers. Is the Bears the lie?”
“God, yes, I hate the Bears.”
Mari touches a hand to her throat. “Your truth—the last one. It’s, um, surprising.”
I can’t believe I told her. “I wanted you to know I don’t go fast either. I didn’t mean to freak you out before. I got…carried away.”
She lowers her eyes. “I’m also surprised you told me.”
“I wanted to be up front, I guess. I didn’t know what you’d expect from me…”
“What’d you think I would expect? Breakfast and then immediate sex?”
I laugh nervously.
She tilts her head as if thinking. “I do expect some sort of pastry. Maybe a strawberry-jam-filled donut.”
Sierra was right. I should have snacks handy. “That can be arranged.”
Her eyes fall to my lips. And then she’s kissing me again.
Mari
I’m lying on the beach kissing a boy.
I’m kissing a boy, and I’m loving it. The kiss tastes rich and addictive. T.J. can’t keep his hands off me. He nuzzles his face in my neck, leaving gentle but steamy kisses on my skin.
But as we fall more and more into each other, his interest in me begins to seem more real, beyond the physical, and not fleeting. I’m not entirely sure how I know this. I’m just sure it’s true.
The kissing feels so good I don’t want it to end, but maybe I should have a conversation with T.J. to lay some ground rules for what we’re doing. Maybe that’s unnecessary since I’m leaving tomorrow? Maybe I should just go with how good and right this feels.
Then my brain falls away, and I concentrate on the feel of his warm skin, the taste of his lips.
My phone buzzes on my lap. I pause from kissing T.J. to squint at the screen. It’s difficult to see it out here under the sun. I fumble for my glasses and put them back on. The screen blinks. Mom calling. Mom calling.
Oh no. She’s moved beyond texts.
Now things are serious. If there’s one thing Mom hates, it’s talking on the phone. She must be losing her patience with me.
“I have to take this,” I tell T.J. “It’s Mom.”
He lets out a deep breath—he’s probably as worked up from kissing as I am—and gives me a happy smile as he relaxes back on his towel with an arm tucked behind his head.
Clenching my eyes shut, I swipe on to answer the phone.
“Mari, why haven’t you been answering my messages?”
“Sorry, Mom. I was eating breakfast at a cafe and didn’t want to be rude.”
“Your father called me. Said you ran off with a boy?”
I can tell she’s trying to keep her voice measured, but she’s also annoyed. I’m annoyed with her. She didn’t bother to text me until she found out I’m with T.J. Rude.
“I didn’t run off,” I tell her. “I told Dad where I was going.”
“He didn’t give you permission to go.”
“He was being unreasonable.”
“Running off with a boy you just met is what sounds unreasonable.”
“It’s not. I have good judgment, you know. And so does Sierra. She likes him.”
Mom pauses. She doesn’t like hearing about Sierra. It only reminds her she was unable to have another baby, and now Dad has a stepdaughter.
Mom huffs into the phone. “Who is this boy?”
“T.J. He’s perfectly normal, I promise.”
At my words, T.J. tenses up. He pulls himself up into a seated position and crosses his legs, scratching t
he side of his head. Even though we just met, I know he does that when he’s nervous. He pushes his messy blond hair to the side and peeks up at me.
“I don’t feel good about this,” Mom says.
“I’m fine. We’re on a public beach in the middle of downtown Chicago. Nothing’s going to happen to me here. A hundred people would see if he tried to kidnap me.”
“You never know what might happen.”
“And that’s why you had us take those self-defense lessons. I can defend myself. Anything goes wrong, I’ll knee him in the balls like I did with Asshole Bob.”
T.J. cringes and pulls his knees to his chest with a look of utter horror.
Mom tsks into the phone. “Your dad’s angry and wants you to go back to his place. I need you to go. I don’t like talking to him on the phone, and he’s already called me twice this morning. How could you do this to me?”
Of course she’d make this all about her. Talking to Dad hurts her, so I shouldn’t be able to do what I want. She can’t even take two seconds to ask if I’m enjoying my trip, if I like T.J., or if I’m happy.
Dad didn’t bother to ask if I’m happy either.
I’m nearly an adult. I can make my own decisions, especially when it comes to how I spend my time.
“Don’t worry about me,” I tell her. “I’ll talk to you later.”
“You bet we’ll be talking later,” Mom says in a mean voice. “We’ll be talking about how you’re grounded the beginning of your senior year. You can forget about homecoming and going to any football games. You can forget about the things you’re looking forward to. Lord knows I have nothing to look forward to.”
And then she hangs up on me.
Shit, shit, shit.
I pull my legs to my chest so I can bury my face in my knees. I hate it when she says things like that. I have nothing left to look forward to. She doesn’t even try to get her life back. She just sits around and says things like this, to make everyone else around her feel bad and guilty.
Is Mom serious about grounding me? The best part of school is going to football games, especially now that I’m a senior and will be cheering in the stands with the spirit squad.
The Pick-Up Page 9