“Ew.” That was the gawker. She leaned over Val’s shoulder. “Henry Miller. Remind me not to read any of his books.”
“How come?” I asked.
She looked stunned I’d spoken to her. In her stupor, she fumbled her words. “Because he—well, prostitution? That’s gross. His life was so obscene that the book was banned?” she asked. “Why would I, you know, support that kind of man?”
That kind of man. Being around Lake always made me feel like that kind of man, like I might lose control and corrupt her at any turn.
“You have a point, Mona,” Val said, “but what do you think, Lake?” Val suddenly looked interested in my reaction. I didn’t quite understand their dynamic, Lake and Val. It felt a little too familiar, or, familial.
“I . . . I think I disagree,” Lake said.
“Why?” Val asked.
I watched the two of them like a tennis game. Lake furrowed her brows at the gawker. “What does his personal life have to do with his work? A good book is a good book.”
“But are you then condoning his bad behavior by supporting his work?” Val asked. “If he’s demeaning to women, like Manning said, how does that make you feel as a woman?”
“It doesn’t bother me,” Lake said. “I don’t think it lessens his contribution to the literary world.”
Val seemed to have come to that conclusion on her own, but she was pushing Lake to have an opinion. Maybe she wasn’t so bad.
Lake looked to me, as if for approval. “I feel the same,” I said. “An author’s morals, or the morality of the characters for that matter, isn’t a reason not to appreciate a well-told story.”
Lake’s shoulders pulled back. “Yeah. That’s what I was trying to say.”
“You said it,” Val told her with a smile. “Anyway, we should get going.”
“Already?” Lake asked, a little breathlessly, turning to me as if I were the one breaking up the party. “Can’t you . . . we . . .”
“Go on,” I said. “Have fun.”
Val kicked up her skateboard, and the other girls got their bikes. “We still have lots of birthday festivities to partake in,” Val called, rolling away.
I stepped down from the truck, took Lake’s bike in my hand by the frame, and carried it back to the sidewalk. I flipped out the kickstand and squatted to reset the chain.
Lake came and stood on the opposite side, putting me face to face with the frayed ends of her denim shorts, her bony knees.
I lowered my eyes back to the chain. It was a quick fix, but it took me longer than it should, her proximity distracting me. “Try that,” I said when it was secure.
She put one leg over the seat and rolled the pedals as far as they’d go with the kickstand up. “I think it’s good.”
I stared at some dried blood on the inside of her ankle. She must’ve scraped it when her foot slipped. I wet my thumb and rubbed it away, leaving a faint grease smudge on her skin in the likeness of a bruise. Goose bumps rose on her calves. It was all I could do not to slide my hand up and pull the soft-looking inside of her knee to my mouth.
I kept her ankle in my hand but didn’t look at her. If half the ache I felt in my chest showed on my face, I couldn’t trust that she wouldn’t notice. And she couldn’t notice. She needed to go on with her day, with her life, and not worry about leaving me behind.
My eyes caught on an anklet on her other leg—a brown, orange, and green wax band. The bracelet she’d made at camp, then given me to help me quit smoking. The one the guards had taken away with all my other personal effects. My bracelet.
“I’m keeping it for you,” she said. “For when you’re ready to quit again.”
She didn’t know I was in too deep to quit. Maybe there’d been a time when I could have, but smoking was a part of me now, an organ that growled when it wasn’t fed on schedule. As I stood, she followed me with her eyes, tilting back her head when I hit my full height. Her lips were dry and parted as if she’d forgotten to do anything but watch me. I forgot everything, too, except what was right in front of me. The elegant slope of her freckled nose that ended in a cute but sharp button. The hidden dimple that would appear with even a hint of a smile. That cobalt blue that ate her pupils in the direct sun. She bit her lip, and I imagined reaching up and taking that pout for myself. Between my fingers, in my mouth, my tongue tracing the lines of her lips to each corner and back. My cock throbbing as I opened her up with my fingers until she was gaping and gasping and waiting for the one thing I’d always wanted to give her.