Lex Thomas - Quaranteen

Lucy touched the bottom of the deep end with her fingers.

She curled into a ball and tumbled forward, drifting slowly like an astronaut in deep space. She lingered there a moment.

In her mind she heard her cousins’ laughter. She could taste the sweet, chilly lemonade her father had dropped off from the motorboat. The noon sun made every little thing so vivid back then. She smiled.

This was the best gift Will could have given her.

Her lungs began to burn. She opened her eyes and kicked off the floor. She loved the drag of the water on her body.

She broke the surface and drew in a full, fresh breath. She scanned the room for Will.

He was hopping on one foot as he yanked the last leg of his jeans off. He wore a wrinkled pair of light blue boxers with some goofy pattern on them. There was a rip in the thigh. They were about as ratty and worn out as Lucy’s bra and panties.

“Um, what’s on your boxers?” Lucy said with a grin.

Will looked down and groaned.

“Uh… Santa hats. They were from my grandma. If I knew I was going to be locked in here for years, I probably would’ve picked something else.”

Lucy laughed. It was cute. Will looked around the room,

“Pretty great, right?”

“Amazing,” she said. “You win the prize.”

He nodded. He held his pants in front of him like he was nervous being nearly naked in front of her. She could tell he was tense by the way he was holding himself.

“Well, get in,” she said. “It feels great.” Will cast his pants aside and cannonballed into the pool.

Will was so sweet to bring her here. It was an endless comfort to know that someone cared for her, wanted to protect her, take her to fun places. That was never her experience when she was around Varsity. They were rude, inconsiderate jerks.

She remembered being in this pool with them, and guys like Brad would give her butt a squeeze under water. She remembered being offended, but at the same time she couldn’t help feeling excited. She never let on, but some of them turned her on, in a purely physical way. She’d seen things as a Pretty One she’d never seen before. She’d stumbled across couples having sex in the showers a few times. Sex had stopped seeming like that thing that adults did. It could be something she could do if she wanted to. And she did want to. There was just no one in Varsity she trusted enough to try it with.

Will still hadn’t surfaced. She wondered if he’d swum past her, all the way to the shallow end. Then hands grabbed her ankles and tugged her down. She got out a yelp just before she went under. Will’s fingers tickled her ribs. Air bubbles rumbled out of her mouth. She kicked and twisted back to the surface. Will’s head was already above water, and he was

smiling. She had not expected that, but she didn’t mind.

“Hey!” she said with an exaggerated scowl, and pushed his shoulder.

“Couldn’t resist.”

“Perv.”

“You’re the perv for stripping in front of me,” Will said with a grin.

“Whatever, I know this was all a big trick to get me in my underwear,” Lucy said.

“No, it wasn’t,” he said with tiniest frown. It was so sweet.

She almost believed him.

“Thank you for bringing me here. I’m so glad I came out tonight,” she said.

Will’s face lightened. “Me too.”

“You really raised the bar though. You said you know all these places I don’t know about. What are you going to show me next that beats this?”

“The outside,” he said without flinching. He said it with such certainty that it made Lucy do a double take.

“Yeah, right.”

“You never know.”

Will was so full of surprises. Who knows? Maybe he could pull it off.

“Yeah, but even so, we can’t go out there,” Lucy said. “We might kill someone. We just have to wait until it’s our turn to get out.”

“I bet we could make it to the mountains without getting near any adults. We could get a bunch of gear, hike in, and camp out in the woods.”

“For two and a half years?”

“It’s doable. It’d be better than this hellhole.” Lucy extended her arms, kicked, and floated on her back.

She stared upward. Undulating blue light reflected off the water’s surface and frolicked across the ceiling. Maybe they could hide out at the lake house. No one was there in the winter. Lucy sighed, more relaxed than she’d been in a long time. She moved her hands gently back and forth in the water.

She slowly realized exactly how much of her body was float-ing above the water, exposed to Will. Even though she’d never eaten so sparingly in her life, her body felt fuller than it did a year ago. She could feel his eyes slide across her exposed skin and linger on the places kept hidden. She blushed, and there was no way to hide it. She could sense his desire. The power her body had over guys excited her.

Lucy glanced over at Will and caught him staring. She smiled at him. He looked away. “I’ll be back.” Lucy lifted her head and sank her body back in the water.

Will was swimming for the side of the pool. He tore through the water with long, hard strokes.

“Where are you going?”

“It’s a surprise.”

“Another surprise?”

How many surprises could he have? Will pulled himself out of the pool. His wet boxers clung to him. Will knelt down by his clothes and reached his hand into the pocket of his jeans.

Lucy did a little kick in the water and glided left to get a better view of what he was getting.

Will stood up, his fist closed around something. They locked eyes across the water. Will smiled. Lucy watched his closed hand as he walked back to the pool. What was he holding? It had to be a condom.

Oh, no. She shouldn’t have gotten down to her underwear so fast. Should she not have smiled at him like that? Did she make him think she wanted him? He eased back into the water.

Lucy’s heart fluttered. She took a deep breath to steady herself. Will waded toward her, the water lapping against his chest. He stared at her with purpose. She shouldn’t have let him tickle her. This was happening too fast. Her mind flashed with the question, If Will did try something right then, would she let him? She wasn’t sure. Will’s hands rose out of the water. Draped between them was a glittering gold necklace with a diamond pendant. She wanted to go back underwater.

“What’s this?”

Will didn’t speak. He leaned close, his cheek touched hers as he fastened the clasp of the necklace behind her neck.

“I just like you so much…,” Will said.

Lucy couldn’t breathe. All she wanted was to have a little fun. This was much more serious to Will. He moved his mouth toward hers, his lips beginning to part.

I’ll only hurt him, she thought. Lucy lowered her head just as Will’s nose touched hers. He tried to reach her lips. She turned away. Oh, God. What had she done?

Will stayed frozen, mouth open, as if he didn’t want the moment to be real. She saw the hope in his eyes die. It was replaced with a naked embarrassment. He shrank away from her. The water felt too cold all of a sudden.

“I’m sorry,” Lucy said. She didn’t know what else to say.

David loved his gang.

If his messy hookup with Hilary had taught him anything, it was that he was lucky to have so many people around him that he trusted. There definitely weren’t any Loners asking him to murder someone. They were his family, and he was proud. It was time to celebrate them.

David walked down to the lounge where people had gathered for breakfast and a morning screening of a National Geographic video on Will’s flat screen. He passed Gonzalo and the twins sitting on the stairs, eating a black bean breakfast. The twins were mashing their beans into a paste and spreading it onto crackers they pulled from their pockets.