“I, uhh. I was driving around and saw someone swinging dangerously high. And then realized it was you,” he said.
I raised my right eyebrow. “Driving around?”
He sat down on the grass next to me, and I began to panic—although I couldn’t tell if I was freaking out over the fact that he was looking for me, or that I was still shirtless in front of him. It also didn’t help that his presence aroused me, causing me to hunch over awkwardly, trying to hide.
You can’t put your shirt on now, Étienne. That’d be too obvious.
I handed him a headphone since I no longer felt like talking. I wanted him there. I had forgiven him. Talking it out felt more like a task. And I think he understood.
Thad inserted one of the earpieces and lay flat on the ground while I was still awkwardly sitting up, waiting for my excitement to go away.
“Hey, could I use your shirt to cover my face? Didn’t realize how sunny it got.”
Thank god,I thought to myself. I wasn’t a religious person, but someone was watching over me.
I handed him my polo, which he used to cover his face, then folded his arms up and tucked them on his chest under my shirt. This gave me the opportunity to adjust myself and lie back down without him seeing anything.
We settled next to each other, though a few inches apart, letting the music take over as the sun warmed my skin. It’s funny how something that feels so good could be so damaging.
We’d passed through three songs before I realized that my favorite song on the album was about to start—“High on Life”—which was exactly how I felt with him, someone I really began to like, and even started to care about.This is weird though. Should I change the song?I opened my eyes and looked over to see if he had any reaction.If I had chosen that song first, my feelings would have been obvious to him. Thankfully it was only one in a lineup of seventeen.
We listened to a few more songs and then I remembered something; he was the really pale one. I should have been more attentive to that. I opened my eyes and turned my head to see what he was doing. He could have been sleeping for all I knew since my shirt was still covering him. His left elbow was peeking out from under the shirt, so I lightly poked it.
He jumped. “Yeah.” He looked at me from under the shirt.
“Sorry.” I chuckled. “Let’s get out of here. Don’t want your legs to burn up.” I pointed to his blushing shins.
“Yeah, cool. Wow. How’s that possible?” He pointed to my stomach, brows furrowed.
“What?” I looked down thinking a bug was stuck to my abdomen like that time during a cross country meet when a bee latched itself onto my leg in the middle of the forest and I couldn’t stop. But it wasn’t that. My shorts had slid down a little, exposing my tan line.
“We haven’t been out here for that long. How’d you get so dark?” he asked, eyes glued to my stomach as if I’d spray painted my skin.
“My dad was from Lebanon. We tan easily,” I said.He was and so am I. Well, partially.
“Lucky you. Do you ever burn?”
“Not really. Only if I’ve been out without sunscreen for several hours. But even then, it only hurts my shoulders a little.”
It was strange. Up until that moment with him, I’d never had a conversation with another guy while shirtless. Even in front of my dad and my brothers I’d throw on a shirt before resuming a conversation. It was fine during swim practices and at my meets, as it was kind of an obligation. But standing there with him didn’t feel as frightening as it would have been with someone else. I didn’t feel the urge to cross my arms and cover my chest the way I did at Dana’s house walking through the kitchen to get to the jacuzzi. Even after swim meets when I’d get out of the pool, I’d pretend like I was cold and cross my arms to cover myself.
He returned my shirt. And as I carefully placed it over my head, so not to mess with my hair, I noticed a little wrinkle in it. Normally a wrinkle in my clothes would have thrown me off, but with him in front of me, I didn’t care.
“Where to, then?” he asked.
“Swimming?” I suggested, tilting my head.
“I don’t have a suit. I mean I do at home, but…” He stopped, but I understood where he was going.
His suit was at home, where he didn’t want to take me yet. And the public pool in our town would have ended up becoming an unplanned school reunion, something I wouldn’t have wanted to look forward to either. But I had an idea.
“It’s okay. I’ve got an extra suit. And we’re not going to the city pool,” I said.
“What other pool is there?”
“The school pool. I know how to get in without anyone knowing. And I never returned the lock I checked out, so my stuff should still be in the locker.”
He grinned while raising his right brow. “How?”