By late September, the leaves were changing and the water was already too cold for swimming, so we created a new morning routine. It involved me sleeping late until Sam knocked on the back door after his run. He’d make weak lattes while I fixed bagels or cereal and we’d eat at the counter talking about the story I was working on or Finn’s new girlfriend, whom neither Sam nor Jordie could stand, or university applications, which were due in January.
Delilah, Sam, and Jordie all had their hearts set on Queen’s in Kingston—the university had a beautiful, historic campus and was considered one of the top schools in the country. Delilah wanted in for poli-sci, Sam for premed, and Jordie for business (Queen’s was renowned for all three programs). Sam was still gunning for a scholarship; as hard as Sue worked, there wasn’t enough to put a dent in the hefty tuition and residence fees. Unless my grades took a sudden nosedive, I would be heading to the University of Toronto, as per my parents’ dream, fueled partly by their allegiance to the school and partly because half of my tuition would be covered by their faculty discount. I was applying to the English program and wanted to take as many creative writing courses as possible if I got in. U of T was a great school, but needless to say, I would have preferred if Sam and I were planning to go to university together. Toronto was almost three hours away from Kingston by car, two and a half if I drove fast and traffic was good. A small, parasitic worm of worry was burrowing inside my brain—telling me that this wouldn’t last once Sam went away to school.
My parents came up for Thanksgiving, and our families spent the holiday meal together, with the addition of Julien, whom Sue had finally persuaded to join us. With Charlie back for the long weekend, there were seven of us around the Floreks’ dining room table, and between Charlie and Julien, Sam and I were subjected to relentless jokes about our relationship. Not that we minded. We held hands under the table and laughed at my parents’ initial shock over Julien’s sharp tongue and Charlie’s innuendos about teen pregnancy.
We were all together again at Christmas, but my parents returned to the city for New Year’s while I stayed and worked at the Tavern. At midnight, Sam dragged me downstairs to the walk-in refrigerator and kissed me against the boxes of citrus.
“I’m so in love with you,” he said when we pulled apart, his breaths escaping in cold puffs of air.
“Swear on it?” I whispered, and he smiled and kissed the inside of my wrist over the top of my bracelet.
With my parents’ blessing, Sue agreed to let me stay the night at their place, and after we all showered and changed into our pj’s, she popped a bottle of prosecco, poured herself a fishbowl-sized glass, and headed to her room, leaving Sam and me with the rest. We put something in the DVD player, then cuddled up under a blanket on the basement couch.
I waited ten minutes to make sure Sue wasn’t going to check on us and then crawled onto his lap, my knees on either side of his thighs. I was wired from work and my insides fizzed with his I love you and also with prosecco. I pulled his T-shirt over his head and then kissed my way up his chest, his neck, and then to his mouth, where our tongues found each other. He began to unbutton my pink flannel top, his fingers shaking with excitement, and then stopped when he saw there was nothing underneath. He looked up at me, his pupils swallowing the blues into a midnight ocean. With the exception of what had happened in his room in August, we hadn’t gone further than making out with shirts off, bra on. I opened the remaining buttons.
“I’m so in love with you, too,” I whispered and shrugged out of the shirt. His eyes dropped to my chest and he grew harder beneath me.
“You’re perfect,” he rasped when his eyes found mine again, and I smiled brightly then moved against him. His hands grabbed my waist, then roamed over my breasts, and he groaned.
I leaned close to his ear so our skin was pressed together, and said softly, “I want to show you how much I love you.” I moved my hand between us and put my fingers around the shape of him. He bit down on his lip and waited, his chest moving with his deep inhalations.
“Okay,” he breathed, and we both worked his pants off his legs. “I’m not going to last long,” he said, his voice deep and gravelly. He moved his hand across my breast, pinching the stiff pink peak. “I could come like this just looking at your hard nipples.” My eyes flashed to his. I’d never heard him talk like that, and it sent a hot current through me. I pulled at the waistband of his boxers and then shifted so he could slide them all the way off, watching wide-eyed. I put my hand around him, tentative and unsure. I had no idea what I was doing.
“Show me how,” I said, and he wrapped his hand over mine.
* * *
SAM, JORDIE, AND Delilah all got acceptance letters to Queen’s that spring, and I was thrilled for them and especially for Sam, who won one of a handful of academic scholarships that would cover the bulk of his tuition. My acceptance to U of T was met with great fanfare from my parents and Sam, but I couldn’t help feeling like I was standing on the ground while everyone else boarded a rocket ship.
Not that Sam gave me any reason to feel that way. We emailed constantly when we were apart, already making plans for when we could see each other when we both started university. He sent me the schedule for the train that ran between Kingston and Toronto—the trip was under three hours—and the sweetest, nerdiest list of bookstores and hospitals he thought we should visit in both cities.
By April, Toronto was in bloom with tulips and daffodils, and the buds on the magnolia and cherry blossom trees were getting fat. But up north, clumps of icy snow still hung around the edges of Bare Rock Lane and throughout the bush. Sam and I trudged up along the streambed, our boots sinking in where the snow was still surprisingly deep, and slipping on the damp ground where the sun had managed to break through the boughs. It smelled both fresh and fungal, like one of Mom’s expensive mud masks, and there was so much rushing water, we had to raise our voices over the roar.
The stream was quieter by the swirling pool where the old fallen tree lay across its belly. It was a bright day, but chilly in the shade of the pines, and the bark was soggy even through my jeans. I was glad for the quilted jacket Sam convinced me to wear.
“So there’s this big party at the end of the year,” he said once we settled, handing me one of Sue’s oatmeal-raisin cookies from the pocket of his fleece. “It’s right after graduation, and, uh, everyone gets dressed up . . .” He pushed his hair out of his eye—he hadn’t cut it in months and it tumbled over his forehead in a waterfall of swooshes and swoops.
“You mean prom?” I asked, grinning.
“There is a prom, but it’s nothing special. This is like a grad party except it’s in a big field in the middle of the bush.” He raised his eyebrows as if to ask, So what do you think?
“Sounds fun, which you have time for now,” I said, taking a bite of the cookie.
He cleared his throat. “So I was wondering, if it doesn’t conflict with your grad, if you wanted to go with me.” He winced slightly and clarified, “You know, as my date.”
“Will you be wearing a suit?” I smiled, picturing it already.
“Some people wear jackets,” he said slowly. “Is that a yes?”
“If you wear a suit, then I’m in,” I elbowed him in the ribs. “Our first date.”
“The first of many,” he elbowed me back. And my smile fell.
“There’ll be other dates, Percy,” he promised, reading my mind and lowering his face to mine. “I’ll come see you in Toronto, and you’ll come to Kingston—whenever we can.” There was a stinging in my nose, like I had eaten a spoonful of wasabi.
“Four years apart is a long time,” I whispered, playing with my bracelet.
“For you and me? It’ll be nothing,” he said softly, and before I could ask, he hooked his index finger around my bracelet and gave it a gentle tug. “I swear,” he said. “And besides, we’ve got time. We’ve got all summer.”
But he was wrong. We didn’t have all summer at all.
* * *