He wasn’t keeping it casual. He was smiling like a fiend, watching me, staring at me. Wrapping me in his attention with a soft heat as I set my bag down on the lounger. “I didn’t know if you’d come back.”
“I said I would, didn’t I?” I twitched a smile to show it was my version of teasing and pulled out my cell phone. “You ready? Got the timer all set up.”
“Not really. I liked talking to you yesterday.”
“Me too.” I set the phone down. “Later?”
“Maybe.”
A silence. I needed to stop being a chickenshit and just swim, but taking off my clothes in front of Evan made my stomach twist in nervous knots.
Some school slut I was.
“It’s really hot out,” Evan said. “You want to swim?”
I tucked a lock of hair behind my right ear. “I was thinking about it. I brought my suit.”
Evan beamed. Beamed. “Come on in.”
“It’s not too cold?”
“They keep it heated. It’s perfect.”
“Can’t argue with perfect.” I heaved a breath. “Turn.”
“What?”
“I’m not doing a striptease for you. Turn around.”
He obliged and I stripped off my jeans and t-shirt.
My suit was a black one-piece with a vintage style. The material skimmed my hips. The straps of the heart-shaped bodice were wide instead of stringy. I was a little too thin for it—it was a suit made for a gal with hips and boobs. I thought it was pretty, but I couldn’t let Evan watch me parade around in it, not when he seemed fully-clothed by comparison.
I quickly took the steps in the shallow end and submerged myself to my neck. The cool water did feel perfect against the night’s stifling heat. Keeping my hair anchored over my left cheek, I swam with my head above water toward the deep end. I stopped and stood where the cement under my feet slanted down.
Right on the edge.
“So,” I said into the silence. “Come here often?”
Evan laughed. “Yeah, I do, actually. Pretty much every night.”
“Why? No air conditioning at Chez Salinger?”
He grinned in a way that made me want to keep making stupid jokes all night.
“Yeah, we have it. I just like being here. It’s peaceful. And when I’m under, holding my breath, it’s peaceful and quiet, and I can just…be.”
“Like meditation?” I asked.
“Something like that. It helps to hold my breath for a long time if I’m kind of…detached from my body. If I were sitting under there, counting the seconds, I don’t think I’d get very far.” He waved his hands, making little ripples in the water. “Anyway. I’m sure there are far more normal things we could talk about.”
I smirked. “Normal is overrated.”
“I keep telling myself that,” he said with a dry smile. “Doesn’t take.”
“Yeah, me too.”
We exchanged looks, a commiseration; the girl with the scar and the boy with the freaky rep, and something shifted between us. An unspoken understanding that drew me closer to him without having moved an inch.
“So what normal stuff shall we talk about?” I asked. “Our favorite colors? Favorite food? Political affiliations?”
“How about…What’s your movie?”
“Raising Arizona,” I said automatically.
Evan broke out in a surprised laugh. “Oh man, that’s a classic!” His slightly southern twang morphed into a full-blown drawl. “Son, you got a panty on your head.”
I busted out laughing. “That entire movie is one big quote-fest.”
“Agree,” Evan said. “Favorite band?”
“All-time or current?”
“Both.”
“Current favorite would be Cage the Elephant. All-time fave is Tori Amos.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s honest and poetic, and she makes inhaling a breath to sing so beautiful, like it’s part of the song.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. You should give her a listen sometime.”
Evan smiled. “Maybe I will.”
Another little silence came and went; taking with it more of the awkwardness that exists between two people getting to know each other, until one moment it’s entirely vanished.
“So…you.” I said. “Favorite band?”
“I like old school stuff.”
“Like New Order or…MC Hammer?”
He laughed. Damn, I liked hearing him laugh.
“No, I mean like old, old-school. Like from the 1940’s and ‘50’s. Otis Redding, or Roy Orbison…Ever heard of the Robins?”
“Can’t say that I have.”
“I should play them for you sometime. ‘Smokey Joe’s Café’? A classic.”
“Why do you dig so far back to find music that you like?”
“Old music like that…” He shrugged. “I don’t know. It just seems really honest. And simple. Not simple, like elementary, but simple like…pure. I like simple.”
“Me too.” I skimmed my fingers over the surface of the water, pushing dead leaves that floated on the surface away from me. “I like uncomplicated. Security, stability. I like those things too.” I blink and look around. “Sorry, what was I saying? Don’t mind me and my random word associations.”
“I don’t mind. Security and stability are good. The Salingers are always harping on that. To keep the business strong, and the money coming in to stay secure.”