Waking Up to Boys (10 page)

C
helsea checked her watch for the millionth time in the ten minutes she’d been down at the dock. It was just past midnight, and a red half-moon hung low in the sky.

She rubbed her legs, which were beginning to get goose bumps from the cold, and she wished she’d opted for a pair of jeans instead of the baby blue Miss Sixty faux-cashmere shrug and white Forever21 minidress she’d chosen during her covert mall run. A twig snapped loudly on the path to the dock, and Chelsea nearly jumped out of dress, cast, and skin simultaneously. The thin beam of a flashlight played over her feet, and Sebastian’s slight shape emerged from the shadowy woods. She sighed in relief, willing her heart to stop break-dancing in her chest.

“So what’s so important that it requires a secret midnight meeting at the dock?” Sebastian asked, kissing her lightly on the lips.

“Just wanted to spend some quality time with you,” Chelsea said mysteriously. “I have a special surprise planned.”

She grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him toward her, feeling suddenly aggressive. She pressed her lips hard against his, kissing him more passionately than ever. When they broke apart, he finally looked at her outfit and smiled.

“Oh,” he said shyly.

“You like it?” she asked, tugging at the hem nervously.

“It’s very…short,” Sebastian said.

“I know.” Chelsea climbed into the boat. “That’s the point. Are you getting in?”

Sebastian stood on the dock, looking at her with a cute but confused grin on his face. “Shouldn’t you tell me where you’re taking me first?”

“You’ll like it,” Chelsea said. “That’s all you need to know.”

“You’re sure acting different tonight.” Sebastian shrugged and joined her in the boat, smiling as he rubbed her knee.

Chelsea remembered slipping the small handwritten note telling him to meet her at the docks at midnight
into his palm. She had felt reckless, daring, and sexy, like a bombshell spy in an old James Bond movie. When she’d looked up, she must have had a secret smile on her face because Todd gave her a
look
across the table and her smile had faltered and faded.

She wondered what Todd was thinking when he looked at her like that. These days, his unreadable looks were the only communication they had. They both sat at the staff table at meals and participated in the conversation, but they never directly addressed each other. Sometimes when she looked over at Todd, she thought she caught him quickly looking away, but she could never be sure.

Chelsea dragged her thoughts away from Todd by leaning over and giving Sebastian a kiss on the cheek. Then she started the boat and eased them out onto the still, dark waters of Lake Tahoe.

“Are you going to keep me in the dark all night?” Sebastian goaded her as they crossed the lake.

“All will be revealed soon enough,” she replied cryptically.

“The island?” Sebastian asked as she docked. “Funny…nobody mentioned there was a party here. It must be
super
secret.” His tone was light and jokey as he took her hand, but she was almost positive she could feel his pulse racing beneath his skin. What was
Sebastian
so scared of? He’d been to the island late at
night for parties before, and he had
certainly
been alone with girls before. Maybe she was just imagining it? When she turned to look at him at the entrance to the Shag Shack, the smile on his face was as easy and good-natured as ever.

“Surprise!” she said, reaching up to switch on the Coleman lantern that dangled from a hook on the ceiling. The lantern gave off a low, steady glow and caused shadows to dance in the small wooden room as it swung back and forth. As their eyes adjusted to the light, Chelsea noticed that the lantern illuminated a little red cooler, an ancient cabinet that Chelsea knew contained a box of Trojans, some spare batteries for the lantern, and a long-abandoned box of Oreos. And in one corner was the infamous mattress, covered in a faded North Face sleeping bag.

“Wow,” Sebastian said in a low voice, shaking his head and smiling with one side of his mouth. “Chelsea, you are a piece of work. You know that?”

“Um…thanks,” she said, not quite knowing how to take that. “You want a beer?”

“Sure,” Sebastian said, continuing to look around. Chelsea crouched by the cooler and removed a bottle for each of them. They sat side by side on the mattress, sipping slowly with their legs out in front of them. Chelsea’s skin still speckled with goose bumps from the chilly night air.

“So…,” Sebastian began. But he didn’t seem to know where to take that thought.

“I wanted us to have somewhere that we could be alone together,” Chelsea said, feeling like she needed to explain. It had seemed like such a good idea as she’d formulated it in her head over the past few days. She’d imagined exactly how the night would unfurl, Sebastian’s delight and surprise. She thought about the way that their bodies would move in the shadows of the lantern, in the small wooden shack that had seen other couples like them on so many other nights like this. She had thought that in the Shag Shack they would be far enough away from the resort not to have to worry about being caught and they could really let go and just be together. Finally that nagging voice in the back of her head would disappear and it would just feel
right
.

She hadn’t counted on the awkwardness. Or the cold.

“You’re shaking,” Sebastian pointed out.

“It’s chilly.” She wondered if she sounded sexy at all or just inexperienced and dumb.

“Come on.” Sebastian’s voice was protective. “Let’s get under the blanket. I don’t want you to freeze.”

Chelsea gratefully set her still-nearly-full beer on the floor and crawled under the sleeping bag, kicking off her flip-flops as she got in. Sebastian followed and wrapped his body around hers, cradling her head against his chest and pulling one of her legs between his. She huddled
against him, listening to the rustling of noises outside the cabin, the steady rhythm of his breath on her cheek and the regular, comforting beat of his heart.

He kissed the top of her head, and then, when she raised her face to look up at him, he kissed her lips. Chelsea kissed him back, tentatively at first…and then more forcefully. She felt herself drifting far away from the tawdry mustiness of the Shag Shack, the pain and inconvenience of her broken arm, and the confusion that had been poking at her heart all summer. Sebastian’s skin was soft and smooth under his shirt, and his hands exploring her body were strong and sure.

“Are you sure?” Sebastian asked before taking off her shrug and easing her dress off over her head, and she nodded, wanting him, unable to speak. There was a moment of awkwardness when the dress snagged on her cast and they both had to fumble to get it off, but then Sebastian started to laugh and she laughed with him and then their mouths came together again, fiercely covering the laughter and nerves.

Neither of them spoke when Chelsea reached into the small cabinet next to the mattress and handed Sebastian a condom. His eyes asked a question and hers answered and then they were both under the blanket again and she was so nervous and excited she could barely breathe. His body was between her legs, and she was half-delirious and half-shaking, thinking this was
really it: She was really going to do it. She felt him pushing against her and raised her hips to meet him, and suddenly it started to feel really good—like nothing she had ever felt before. Chelsea heard a strange sound escape her lips. Her hands flailed and she heard a loud crack. She felt the dull thud in her bad arm as her cast connected with something in the air.

And then Sebastian was all the way over on the other side of the mattress. It happened so quickly that she didn’t even know how he had gotten there.

“What happened?” Chelsea asked, feeling dizzy and confused. Had they just…done it?

“You just smacked me in the head with your cast,” Sebastian said. “Hard.”

“Oh, man.” It went beyond embarrassment—it seemed like every cell in her body was trying to hide behind the others. She was totally mortified. “Sebastian, I am so sorry. Are you okay? Let me see.”

He gingerly removed his hand, and she winced as she saw the bump on his head, already red and swelling to the size of a golf ball. “Does it hurt?”

“Yeah,” Sebastian admitted. “Although…” A smile started to creep across his face.

“Although
what
?” Chelsea nearly screamed. “Are you okay? Do you have a concussion? How many fingers am I holding up?”

Sebastian’s smile turned to giggles as he pushed
Chelsea’s hand to the side. “You have to admit, that was pretty funny, Chels.”

“Oh, God. That was so
not
funny!” Chelsea insisted, hiding her face in her hands. “That was
so
embarrassing!” But as she thought about it, she couldn’t help starting to giggle, too.

Sebastian cracked up again. “It gives new meaning to ‘Not tonight, dear…I have a headache.’”

Chelsea snorted, collapsing on the mattress in a fit of laughter.

“Oh, man…” Sebastian fell on top of her. “How am I going to explain this? What if your dad asks what happened to my forehead?”

“Tennis accident?” Chelsea suggested.

“We’ll be dubbed the most accident-prone couple ever,” Sebastian mused.

“Probably because we
are,
” Chelsea said. “Or at least I am. Jeez.”

“It’s all right.” He kissed her sweetly. “You’re wonderful.”

“Here,” Chelsea said, scooping ice from the cooler and wrapping it in one of his socks. “Put this on your forehead until we get home.”

“Thanks.”

“Sure.” Chelsea cuddled up next to him under the covers, wondering what had just happened. She felt tired all of a sudden.

After a while of just lying there together, Chelsea started shivering.

“You’re cold,” Sebastian murmured, stroking her good arm. “Let’s get you home.”

Silently they got up, put on their clothes, and slipped back into the boat. The moon was now down toward the edge of the horizon as they pushed back out onto the lake.

S
low down!” Chelsea screamed, hanging on to the towrope for dear life with her one good hand while waving her cast frantically in the air. The plastic bag she’d wrapped around it to keep her cast dry caught in the breeze and crackled. She struggled to retain her balance, sighing to herself as the boat slowed. “Please maintain speed!” she shouted to Sebastian, although she wasn’t sure he could hear her over the roaring wind.

Chelsea leaned too far to one side to compensate for the extra weight of the cast.
I’ll just try for a simple 360,
she thought.
I won’t even try any inverts—that would be nearly impossible with this thing on my arm.

She had just started to edge in when the boat surged
forward with a newfound burst of speed, almost sending her hurtling into the foamy white water of the wake.

“Hey!” she yelled. This was her third practice session with Sebastian: the third time Nina had given her a suspicious smirk when she cut the lesson short and Sebastian met her by the dock, and the third time she had to deal with the fact that Sebastian still couldn’t get the hang of driving the boat. Varying the speed wasn’t just annoying—it was dangerous. She knew he wasn’t doing it on purpose, but it made practicing nearly impossible. Not that it would have been a breeze even with Nina or Todd—the weight of her cast made it difficult to balance, and the fact that her arm ached underneath didn’t exactly help matters.

She shook her cast angrily in the air and saw Sebastian smile sheepishly in the rearview mirror as he brought the speed back down. Chelsea went in for the 360 but lost her balance in the middle and found herself sprawled out in the lake a second later, cold water lapping at her face and seeping in through a gash in the plastic bag wrapped around her cast.

“Damn!” she screamed as she swam clumsily toward the boat, trying to keep her bad arm above the lake’s surface. She climbed into the boat to find Sebastian suppressing a grin.

“What are
you
smirking about?” she asked grumpily.

“Nothing,” Sebastian said, snorting laughter through the hand he’d clapped over his mouth.

“No, what?” she insisted.

“It’s just…” Sebastian’s eyes danced. “We had this cat at home, and one day she jumped into the bathtub not realizing it was full of water, and the expression on her face—well, that’s what you look like right now.”

“Shut up,” Chelsea snapped, playfully smacking him on the arm with her good hand. The water seeping into her cast was making her skin itch so much, she wished she could crawl right out of it. She ripped the plastic bag off her arm and reached across Sebastian to grab a towel. As she leaned over him, he caught her by the shoulder and brought her face down to his for a gentle kiss. “You’re adorable when you’re angry,” he told her.

“Stop,” Chelsea huffed. “I don’t want to be adorable. I want to be
good
.” She shook him off and grabbed the towel, rubbing ferociously at her stringy wet hair.

“You
are
good,” Sebastian tried to assure her.

“Oh, shut up, I am not,” Chelsea said. “And you’re not helping any with your driving skills—or should I say lack thereof.”

“Hey!” Sebastian sounded genuinely angry for the first time since she’d known him. “I’m doing you a huge favor. I’m putting
your
health and
my
job at risk, and the least you could do is thank me. I didn’t think this was a
good idea in the first place, and now I’m starting to think that it just plain sucks.”

“You don’t understand,” Chelsea snapped, knowing she was being obnoxious, but beyond the point of caring. “You don’t know what it’s like to want something this bad. I mean, you
gave up
a competitive career to teach—how could I expect you to know what I’m going through?”

Sebastian’s eyes flashed. “You are being mean and ungrateful,” he said. “And I really don’t appreciate it.”

Chelsea knew that she was being unreasonable, but she couldn’t stop. Everything was wrong, and for once Sebastian wasn’t making anything better.

“Forget it, Sebastian!” she said. “I don’t need your help.” She leapt onto the dock and began running up the gravel path away from the boat. Sebastian and the memory of her whole botched attempt at wakeboarding bobbed in the shallow water and seemed to be mocking her as she ran away.

As Chelsea ran, her breath grew short and ragged and her eyes began to burn. When she ran past a tourist family strolling lazily toward the lake, they turned to look at her, mouths and eyes gaping open in surprise. But Chelsea didn’t stop. She had to get away. To get somewhere she could be alone.

The path curved through the rear buildings of the resort and turned to dirt at the base of the mountains.
The ambient resort noises faded behind her until all she could hear was the twittering of birds, the burbling of a stream, and her own uneven breathing. A canopy of leaves blocked out the sunlight as she veered off the path and toward the stream. Her face felt like it was on fire, and she squatted on a large flat rock by the water, scooping handfuls of it onto her burning cheeks.

It wasn’t until her chest heaved and she let out a loud sob that Chelsea realized she was crying. She
hated
crying! And that just made her cry even harder.

She felt like she couldn’t do anything right anymore, and her life was just falling to pieces. She had lost the ability to do the one thing she was good at, and all the competitive spirit she could muster wasn’t sharpening her ability to perform with an injury one bit. What if her parents did find out? Not only would she be dead meat, but she’d be letting them down once again.

But if she couldn’t wakeboard, what would she do? It was bad enough that her parents, whenever they weren’t yelling at her for doing something wrong, were acting like she barely existed and like Sara was the best thing to ever happen to Glitterlake.

It was bad enough that, ever since the incident with Sebastian in the Shag Shack, she hadn’t been able to decide if she was still a virgin or not…and that either way, thinking about it made her feel kind of slimy. Being around Sebastian had gotten pretty weird, and the
fact that he was always treating her like a gentle, delicate flower was starting to get on her nerves. Ever since they had done it…or not done it…or whatever…he had taken kind of a protective stance toward her and was always telling her she was “adorable.” It was the kind of attention she’d thought she wanted, but now that she had it, she wasn’t so sure.

Chelsea’s body continued to convulse with sobs as the thoughts rolled through her mind in long, confused waves. She couldn’t remember the last time she had cried for so long or so hard. It felt like all the emotion she had bottled up over the past year was pouring out, and there was no way to stop it. And the weird thing was that it actually felt kind of good.

I miss Todd,
Chelsea thought, sniffling loudly. The thought lodged itself in her head, crowding out all the others as she pictured Todd expertly driving a boat as she clung to the towrope, Todd smiling at her in the late afternoon sunlight right after they had docked; Todd’s lean, spare wakeboarding style. She missed more than just boarding and competing with him, though: She missed talking and joking with him, and the way he looked at her, and the way her heart fluttered in her chest every time he did.

I still have it pretty bad,
she realized miserably, launching into a fresh volley of tears. Her whole relationship with Sebastian, even finally maybe-sorta-kinda having
sex with him, hadn’t made her want Todd any less. And now it was too late for there to be anything between them—even friendship.

Chelsea sat on the rock and cried her eyes out until the sun had stopped sending dappled patterns through the trees overhead and the air had grown chilly and dark.

It seemed like she would cry forever, but finally the tears stopped and Chelsea picked herself up and went home.