I toy again with the idea of pulling his T-shirt over his head, getting it out of the way so he can press his heated body down on me like an electric blanket. It creeps up higher and higher as my hands slide up his back, but I’m so new to all this that I can’t even imagine removing my own clothing, much less someone else’s. So I make do with exploring underneath, sliding my fingers over the ridges of his rib cage, letting my knuckles graze hip bones and stomach muscles.
One of Zenn’s hands finds the buttons on my oh-so-sexy flannel shirt and undoes one, two, three of them. I swallow my fear and self-consciousness and let him open my shirt just a bit. He doesn’t unbutton it all the way, just enough to reveal my collarbone, the edge of my pale pink bra.
I’m suddenly a little nervous about what I’ve started. Once hands start exploring under clothes, and then the clothes start coming off, I suppose things can move pretty quickly at our age. I’ve only just started playing ball and already I’m close to rounding second base. Even though I’ve never done anything remotely like this with a guy, for obvious reasons, Zenn is an attractive eighteen-year-old male. I seriously doubt this is his first time unbuttoning a girl’s shirt.
“Zenn,” I whisper, my voice sounding slightly frantic in my own ears.
“Mmmm?” he hums. His lips press lightly against the skin just at the edge of my bra.
“I just ...”
He must hear the panic in my voice because he raises himself up onto his elbow. He must be getting tired of all the interruptions.
“I’m just ...”
He doesn’t let me finish. “It’s okay,” he says quietly. “We’re just ... talking. Right?”
I nod and bite my lip.
“You’ve got, like, eighteen years of touch phobia to make up for.”
“That’s true,” I say. I tentatively run my hands up his sides, climbing the gentle incline up from his hips.
“So, whatever. There’s no rush.” He kisses me once. Twice. “But, you know ... feel free to explore. Consider me, like, therapy.”
I laugh. “Therapy?”
He nods. “Cheap, too.” He kisses my neck. “No co-pay, even.” He kisses my collarbone.
“And you’re a qualified therapist?”
“Not even a little bit. But seeing as I’m the only person you can touch ...”
“You’ll have to do.”
He nods. “That’s what I’m counting on.”
I laugh, and then he kisses me and I don’t feel like laughing anymore. We lose track of time, kissing so that we don’t have to talk about dead parents and felon fathers and all the reasons we probably shouldn’t be together. Eventually Zenn grants my silent wish and grabs his shirt at the back of the neck with one hand and pulls it off in the way that only guys do. Just like that, his bare chest is inches from my body, the ridges of his stomach muscles casting shadows in the dim light. Somehow the fact that his body has been defined by actual work — raking and shoveling and moving heavy boxes — rather than by long hours at the gym makes it that much sexier. I tentatively explore the bridge of his collarbone, the thick rounded muscles of his shoulders, the long lean lines of his arms. I didn’t know skin could feel so soft and hard at the same time.
We kiss and touch and press until I vaguely hear, somewhere in the distance, the garage door open. I sit up in a panic.
“Shit.” I fumble for my glasses with one hand, the buttons of my shirt with the other; somehow two more have come undone. Once I can see again, I toss Zenn his shirt. Wow. He looks even better when I can actually see.
Focus, Eva!
I run my hands over my hair, take a few deep breaths, make sure my pants haven’t somehow become unbuttoned as well, hope you can’t see any evidence of arousal on me or Zenn. He should have left before they got home — that would have been smart.
But I forgot they were coming home. I think I forgot they even existed.
Either way, it’s too late now to do anything but try to look innocent. Luckily I have eighteen years of practice for that.
We make sure there is a good foot between us on the couch. I turn on the TV and search for something — anything — that we might be able to pretend we were watching. I settle on Duck Dynasty. It’s a stretch.
Libby and Ethan bound in, still full of energy even though it’s an hour past their bedtime. Eli is sleeping on my dad’s shoulder, Essie on my mom’s. My mom sees me on the couch. And then Zenn.
I focus my attention on Libby and Ethan.
“Hey, guys! How was the movie?”
“Goodgoodgoodgood!” Libby bounces for each good.
Ethan nods, surprisingly quiet for a change. I suspect he’s infatuated with Zenn.
“C’mon, let’s get your jammies on.” I turn to Zenn. “I’ll be back in a sec.”
He nods, and gives Libby and Ethan a high five. He shakes his hand in pretend pain afterward.
In the girls’ room my mom is carefully removing Essie’s coat, trying not to wake her. I put my finger to my lips to remind Libby to be quiet, hoping my mom will take the hint, too. She doesn’t.
“How long has Zenn been over?” she asks.
“Not too long,” I lie. “He had to work tonight.”
I wonder if she can sense my deception, smell the lingering lust on my skin. It feels like she is weighing saying something else, maybe reprimanding me for having a boy in the house when they aren’t home. She must decide against it, figuring I should be allowed what simple pleasures I can find in a boy’s company. Little does she know that the pleasures I can find with Zenn are more extensive than she imagines.
We get the girls in bed while my dad handles the boys. I’m hoping we’ve given Zenn ample time to catch his breath. When we return to the living room, he stands and says hi to my mom. I realize he has never met my dad.
“Dad, this is Zenn.”
Zenn reaches out and they shake hands.
“Good to meet you, Zenn.”
“You, too, sir.”
The sir is a nice touch.
The moment is made so much more awkward by the knowledge that Zenn and I have and my parents don’t. I feel like we are deceiving them, not just by pretending that we were watching Duck Dynasty, but by not telling them what we now know about each other.
“I should get going,” Zenn says. “I have to work pretty early.”
My parents tell him goodbye and I walk him out to the car, careful to maintain a safe distance between us.
At his truck, when I’m pretty sure my parents couldn’t see us even if they tried, I lean in to feel his body against mine one more time. He wraps his arms around me.
“We can’t do this forever,” he says quietly. “Can we?”
“I don’t see why not.”
He smiles, but I can tell he’s serious. Maybe I am, too. I think I’d be willing to do just about anything to keep this feeling, this closeness that I’ve never had before. Lying to my parents seems a small trade-off for what feels like love. “They might never find out,” I argue.
“You did.”
“That’s because I’m freakishly persistent and love research. I tried to find out.”
“Why? Because my mom said my dad was in jail?”
I nod, feeling a little guilty. “And I saw my stone in your kitchen.”
He shakes his head, “I can’t believe that was you.”
“Who did you think it was?”
“I had no idea. The gardener? Some random relative of theirs? Not you.” He looks back down at me. “Who did you think it was?”