Sex & Violence (23 page)

“The hell you can,” I said, pushing her in and then jumping in myself to chase her to the shore.

***

“Sit still,” Baker said.

“This toilet is broken or something.”

“Keir’s in Big Sur on a yoga retreat,” she said. “He’ll fix it when he gets back.”

“I could fix it, you know.”

“Like you fixed your bathroom door? No thanks.” We were in Baker’s cabin, in the bathroom. Which had a lock and an amazingly huge bathtub, but the toilet lid was missing a bolt on the hinge and sliding all over the place. There was also the fact that Baker was standing in front of me with her boobs at eye level. I didn’t know where to look.

“Keir makes this from honeycombs from his farm,” Baker continued. She dabbed the salve on the corner of my mouth. It was the color of honey and felt like drippy, delicious-smelling glue.

“It’s all organic,” Baker added.

“Well, that’s good. Since I’m probably going to end up ingesting most of it.”

“
Ingesting
,” she repeated. “Who even says that word? God, Evan. You’re such a dork sometimes.”

I could barely stand it. Feeling her touch me. Breathing in how she smelled.

“Okay,
there
,” she said softly. “Let that set for a minute.

Before you go and
ingest
it. Put some on every night before you go to bed too. You can keep the whole container.”

I stood up, then, so I was standing like one inch from her.

Way too close. But for some unknown reason, she didn’t step away. She looked at the cut on my mouth, then into my eyes, her own eyes wide. And nervous.

I don’t know what it was. Her nervous eyes or the August heat or that she was so close and smelled like my mother’s cocoa butter lotion, but I just did it. Without thinking. Slipped my hands under those little knots at her hips and pulled her to me and kissed her. I didn’t care if the salve was getting everywhere or that she might think my cut mouth was gross.

She pulled back right away.

“I shouldn’t,” she said.

“Right,” I said. “Non-monogramy. I forgot.”

She rolled her eyes and I thought she’d back off, call me a dick, and then we’d pretend it didn’t happen. Again. We’d finish frosting the cupcakes; maybe she’d go home, go back to Jim, and I could go back to privately feeling like an elf-eared dumb-shit. But we just stood there, staring at each other, my hands still on her hips, her hands still around my shoulders. Then she got this
oh-fuck-it
look on her face and lifted up on her tiptoes and we kissed again under the bright hum of the medicine chest light.

I hadn’t ever imagined actually touching Baker. In my mind, I’d just
looked
at her. Never put myself into the scene, just pictured a naked Baker-shaped object, something to think about while yanking it. So while the real thing was obviously much better, it still felt a little strange. Her skin sun-warmed and sandy, her hair dripping lake water on my bare feet. Her boobs against me, so soft. Her nails scratching through the back of my neck. It all felt so good it made me dizzy. For once I was in a bathroom and my heart was pounding like crazy for a reason.

“You sure Jim’s not back yet?” I said. Wanting to lock the door.

“We’ve got time,” she said.

Then she pushed me down on the wobbly toilet and sat across my thighs, her legs wrapping around me. I was stunned by this—by her. This wasn’t supposed to happen with someone like Baker, even if she was sexually aggressive, because she was someone I liked. To talk to, even. Someone I’d have to see every day. God, she was nothing like Lana.

It was shit manners thinking of Lana while touching Baker’s boobs, but I couldn’t help it. Baker was so different from Lana, and not just physically, either. She was so serious. No giggling. No letting me take charge of everything, like Lana did. Lana practically rolled on her back and waited to be petted, but Baker was very
busy
. Like she had priorities, things she just had to find out. Her hands were everywhere, doing all sorts of random but outstanding shit like tickling my nipples and running over the bumps of my spine.

“Evan, that scar is
so
not from a bike accident,” she whispered into my ear, which was like hearing the ocean roar into my brain. “How did you really get it?”

“Long story,” I whispered back.

“Be economical.”

“I kind of ruptured my spleen,” I said, my face at her ster-num, while I untied her bikini top and chucked it on the floor.

God, she had great boobs. They were just so … cute. Pretty.

Awesome.
Jesus.

“How do you
kind of
rupture your spleen?”

“Do you really need to know right
now
?” I asked. And we didn’t talk anymore for a while. Just touching and breathing.

Then she said, “Where’s your dad?”

“I don’t know.”

“My mom’s in town,” she said. “She could be back anytime.”

“Okay.”

“I don’t have anything here we could use,” she said. “I never … I wasn’t the one who bought them.”

I nodded.
BECAUSE WAS SHE TALKING ABOUT HAVING SEX?

“So?” she asked.

“So what?” I asked back. Not sure if she was shutting this down or ratcheting it up.

“God, don’t be dense!” she said. “Do you have any condoms?”

“Not on me right
now
,” I said. “They’re in my room.”

“So … should we go to your house, then?”

“Do you want to?” I asked, my voice all scratchy.

“Yes.”

She stood up and the sudden shift of weight nearly knocked me off the wobbly toilet seat, and she laughed and tied her bikini top back on. I felt a little sad to see her awesomeness covered up.

“Let’s go,” she said. “Don’t forget this.” She put the container of salve into my palm.

“The door should be open; I’m right behind you,” I said, looking down at my fly, which was completely obscene. “Just give me a second …”

She laughed. “The shower runs ice-cold for the first few minutes, if you think that might help,” she said. “And put some more salve on your mouth. I think I licked most of it off.”

“Okay, yeah.”

“I’ll go first and make sure no one’s around, just in case,”

she said. “You want a glass of water?”

I nodded and she slipped out to the kitchen. I shut the door and gave my dick its usual lecture. Running cold water on it seemed too harsh.

But I was taking forever to calm down. My heart was racing like I’d just finished a mile sprint. And though I should have just followed her to my house, where the condoms were and the sex could happen, I realized it was pretty gross to get down with two different chicks in less than twelve hours. Bad manners, Baker might have said.

Trying not to think about it, I locked the door and turned on the shower. And then, I just took off my shorts and got in.

The warm water felt like a heated massage. I looked at my lake-water-wrinkled feet on the white tile, then slowly closed the shower door on its track and just stood there, not even soap-ing up. Just stood there, thinking about how dumb this fear was. Wishing it would go away. I shut my eyes, breathed in and out. Thought of Baker’s boobs. Of sex. Of anything else besides what I couldn’t stop seeing and hearing. The shit of that night in Connison. The water raining over me, I willed all of it, the faces of Collette and Tate and The Rammer and the orange tile, to fade.

But when I turned the shower off, it was still there. Stronger. Full-color, top-volume panic, thick and heavy on my neck, like that lead vest they lay on your chest at the dentist to take pictures of your teeth. And getting out of the shower, though Baker’s bathroom was nothing like the one at Connison, was even worse. Toweling off especially sucked. Standing there naked, I was full-on crying and surging with adrenaline. My mind was broken, like it couldn’t understand that I wasn’t at Remington Chase, that I was far from Tate Kerrigan and The Rammer and Collette. I couldn’t get my swim trunks on fast enough, even though they were sandy and freezing cold.

There I was, crying, shivering, my fingertips cold and numb, with Baker waiting for me, expecting me to swagger into my house so we could fuck. The towel bunched in my fists, I looked at my feet, at the water dripping onto the bath mat. I was such a loser. Hot girl waiting for me—and not just any girl, a smart one, a nice one, someone I liked to hear speak, someone I wanted to keep knowing and not delete from my life—and there I was, crying in her bathroom. I wanted to scream at Dr.

Penny:
You know why I don’t inhabit the goddamn fear? Because it
feels fucking horrible. Like everything I’ve ever done is wrong.

But I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I wasn’t making Baker cheat on Jim. They were non-monogramous, right? I’d given her an out too—she just hadn’t taken it. So I wasn’t forcing her.

She wasn’t drunk. She’d made this decision, so I couldn’t be guilty of anything. I was safe. Everyone was safe.

I AM SAFE. I AM SAFE. I AM SAFE.

After thinking
I AM SAFE
a million times, I swiped the tears off my face. Got ready to deal with Baker. Maybe I could explain all this shit to her? Girls sometimes liked guys who were all kinds of fucked-up. Felt sorry for them, felt important to hear all their problems. But that was opposite of sexy to me. I didn’t want to be that shitty, whiny guy. I wanted to be the guy who made cupcakes and grilled cheese sandwiches and went to Story Island and didn’t threaten her in any way. The guy Lana thought was so
good
.

I’d be lucky if I could just be Dirtbag Evan, though. Where the fuck was
he
, now that I was so close to getting down again?

I’d already failed out once today, sex-wise, so I’d have to think of every sleazy thing in the universe, because I couldn’t stay in this bathroom forever.

But when I came out of the bathroom, Baker wasn’t there.

There was a glass of water on the counter, which I gulped in two seconds flat. Then I stepped out onto the screen porch and saw Baker walking down the gravel drive, wearing those big brown boots she left by the door to slip on when she was in a hurry somewhere and her cutoffs she wore to mow the lawn.

She was carrying a sack of groceries, and her eyes froze onto mine. And then Jim appeared behind her, carrying two more grocery bags. Then my father and Brenda.

“Hey, Evan,” my dad said, a big smile on his face. “Brenda and I are going to make chicken stir-fry. You guys hungry?”

Dear Collette,

Something has happened to my father.

He does things now like talk. To other people. And cut up vegetables in other women’s kitchens and make chicken stir-fry. I didn’t
know he even knew that stir-fry is cooked, that it doesn’t automatically come ready to eat in a cardboard carton.

He takes me to buy clothes. Plays my video games. Wears red
shirts. Has a favorite jazz station. Which he turned on while cutting
up aforementioned vegetables. I hate jazz. But, still. Our house has
always been quiet. There was no jazz, no music at all. No cutting up
vegetables, no women teasing him about his shaved head or making
him whiskey sours.

And by women I mean, Baker’s mother Brenda. The way he
and Brenda look at each other is so suspicious. Even if I hadn’t just
been the victim of the most epic cock-block of human time (don’t ask,
it’s another punishment I deserve), I would have been uncomfortable
watching my father banter with Brenda.

Speaking of uncomfortable, then I got to watch Baker’s sort-of
kind-of boyfriend Jim Sweet scarf down chicken stir-fry with his arm
noodling around her shoulders as she stared at everyone but me and
put on her best Student Council Vice President act.

Just when I think I might get used to this person my dad’s become, I find out that we’re going to move again. He doesn’t tell me
shit. Not that he ever has.

“What’s so great about Boston, Adrian?” Brenda asked. “How
can we convince you to stay?”

My father didn’t say anything, and it was so awkward that I
couldn’t eat the goddamn cock-blocking chicken stir-fry anymore.

Baker stared at her plate. I felt like there was a rope around my neck,
tightening. It was quiet until Jim started talking about someone’s
birthday party. But I couldn’t even follow the conversation because all
I could think is we won’t be here for anyone’s party. We’ll be gone, on
to the next goddamn place.

Because that’s what we do, my father and I. We’re leaving. To
Boston. To where you are. The girl who I wrecked and hurt, who I
write letters that I never send. Aren’t you lucky?

I was at Layne and Jacinta’s, lying beside Harry in his bed with the Elmo sheets, reading him books about trucks while he sucked his thumb and coiled next to me in his monkey-print pajamas. Which was so damn cute that I could see why people have babies in the first place, even when they’re still in high school like Jacinta was when she had Harry.

While clearing the table from the Chicken Stir-Fry Cock-Block of the Century (avoiding watching Jim with Baker on the sofa—his hands where my hands had been, hours earlier), Layne had called my cell and asked if I could come over and clean. He sounded embarrassed to ask, which made me want to help him even more.

I told everyone I had to run into town, and finally, Baker looked at me.

“Do you need me to come too?” she asked, a little too eagerly.

“Don’t go out, babe,” Jim said.

Babe. He called her
babe
. God. I knew Baker could tell how disgusted I was, but she had this trapped look on her face that might have made me feel sorry for her. If Jim Sweet’s hand hadn’t been all over her leg.

When I got to Layne and Jacinta’s instead of handing me a mop, Jacinta asked me if I’d just get Harry to sleep while she and Layne cleaned. Harry wouldn’t settle down because he was super wound up about his birthday party, but my droning voice must have done the trick, because halfway through the fourth book, Harry fell asleep with his sticky little kid hand clutch-ing my T-shirt. I laid there listening to him breathing, adding