Chapter Sixteen
Cole
“So, any luck in the getting laid department?” Ben had stopped by on his way home from work. Declan was in bed, and we were sitting out on the deck with beers. “Or are things still high and dry for you? You still wanting to call this bet off?”
“I’m taking my time with it,” I said. “Why? Are you getting nervous? Are you starting to realize that you are most definitely going to lose, and if you want to get your ass to any playoff games this year, you’re going to have to pay for it yourself?”
He laughed. “I never knew Cole Becker to be a man who took his time with this sort of thing.”
“Well, then, maybe you don’t know me as well as you think you do, after all.”
“It sure as shit threw me for a loop when you originally tried to call this whole thing off because you were all concerned about her virginity,” Ben said. “That definitely isn’t the Cole Becker I know. The good doctor by day, the raving hedonist by night.”
I waved him off. “I stopped with all of that stuff a long time ago.”
“I know, I know. You’ve got a kid now; you’re all responsible and shit. But don’t you think that means you deserve this sort of thing more than ever?”
“I don’t even know what you’re talking about,” I said.
“Some fun is what I’m talking about.”
“I’m having fun.”
“Are you?”
“Yeah. We’ve got plans to go to Moose Lake tomorrow, in fact. I’d invite you along, but I know you’re working.”
The thing was, the better I got to know Allie, the more I liked her. In fact, I couldn’t remember ever liking a girl so much. Was it because we hadn’t slept together yet? In the past, if I liked a girl even half this much, we would’ve definitely hooked up by now. And I knew I wasn’t just imagining this simmering tension between us that seemed to grow more and more intense with each passing day. It was hard to focus at work, it was hard to sleep at night, and I found myself wondering all the time when I was going to see her again.
I was sort of driving myself a little crazy, actually.
The good thing was, though, that when we finally did sleep together—I knew it was going to happen, it was just a matter of when—that it wouldn’t just be to win this stupid bet. I didn’t even care about the bet anymore, but I’d let Ben think I did. If I’d been feeling bad about her losing her virginity in this manner, there was no need for it now because I truly did have feelings for her. More than just physical attraction feelings, too. Not that I was going to get into all of that with Ben. There were some things that he didn’t need to know about.
The next day, Allie came over in the late morning, we all piled into the car and went to the public side of Moose Lake, and the beach was already pretty crowded with people lying out on towels parked on beach chairs under umbrellas and kids digging by the water’s edge with plastic shovels and buckets.
“This looks like a good spot,” I said, and we set up the beach quilt and the chairs. Declan wanted to go in the water immediately. Allie said she was going to suntan for a little bit, so we went down and waded in. Declan dunked himself, then worked on dog paddling and frog-kicking. After he got tired of that, he asked if I would give him a ride, so I dove in, then swam up behind him and he climbed on my back, arms wrapped around my neck.
We swam out to the buoys and then made our way back to shore. He let go of my neck and slipped off my back once we got shallow enough that he could touch. I dove back under once more. When I resurfaced, I looked toward the beach, where Allie was. She was sitting up on her towel, talking to a couple guys that I didn’t recognize. They looked young, probably her age, a couple of fresh-faced kids that just graduated from college.
“... sick lake house,” one of the kids was saying as Declan and I made our way over. “You should check it out.”
“The house sounds great,” Allie said, “but I don’t really go to house parties.”
The two kids glanced at me as I reached for a towel. They were both smooth, practically hairless. Boys, really. Backward baseball caps, a tribal tattoo on the taller one’s upper arm. They eyed me, then Declan.
“Hey,” I said, wrapping the towel around my waist.
They looked from Allie to me, then back again.
“This is Cole,” Allie said. “Cole, this is Devon and Asher. They’re from New York.”
“My parents have a lake house here,” the one named Devon said. He looked at Allie again. “He your boyfriend?”
I was curious to hear what she’d say, all the while vaguely aware that Declan was watching this interaction with great interest.
“We’re neighbors,” Allie said. She had those sunglasses on so I couldn’t see her eyes. I felt a pang of disappointment circulate through me, though I knew that was stupid.
“Well, if you want to come too, you can,” Devon said.
“What is it I’m being invited to?” I asked.
“Apparently there’s a big party on Tuesday,” Allie said. “Who has a party on Tuesday, though? I’ve got to work the next day.”
They both shrugged. “Why not have a party on Tuesday?”
She sighed. “Neither of you are probably working this summer, huh?”
They looked at her as if she was speaking some foreign language. No, of course they weren’t working. These were rich summer kids who were going to spend the next two months partying their asses off at their parents’ second homes.
“Nah,” they said at the same time.
She gave them a wry smile. “Must be nice.”
“Well, hey, if you want to come by, you should,” Devon said. He gave Allie the once-over, and then they sauntered off. I felt old, and at the same time, very territorial. That feeling ebbed a bit when I saw them start talking to another group of girls. Clearly, they were just looking to populate this party of theirs with as many pretty people as they could.
We pulled the sandwiches I had made earlier out of the cooler and ate them, along with some fruit salad and a few pieces of dark chocolate.
“Think I need to work on the tan,” I said when we were finished eating. I stretched out on the towel on my back. I adjusted my sunglasses and let my eyes close. Most of the sunscreen I’d applied had probably washed off, but I just didn’t have the energy to get up and get the bottle from the beach bag. It felt too good lying here, my feet dug into the warm sand.
“Are you taking a nap?” Declan asked.
“No,” I said. “Just closing the eyes.”
“You can take a nap if you want,” he said, “and then maybe when you get up, me and Allie will be finished with our sandcastle city and you’ll be so surprised with how good it is!”
I turned my head and looked at Allie. “That okay with you?” I asked.
“Of course!” she said. “I think you’re going to be very impressed when you wake up.”
I smiled. I doubted I’d be able to actually go to sleep, but being able to lay there and not have to worry about what Declan was getting into was a luxury all on its own.
And I think I did actually start to doze a little; maybe not quite full-on sleep, but I was definitely straddling that gray area between awake and asleep. Everything sounded a little further away, and it didn’t quite seem like I was totally there in my body.
“How come those guys wanted to know if Dad was your boyfriend?” I heard Declan ask.
“They were just wondering,” Allie replied. “A lot of the time, people assume that if you’re together like this, that you’re boyfriend and girlfriend or married.”
“Are you guys going to get married?”
She laughed. “Me and your dad?”
“Yeah. Most kids at school have two parents, you know.”
“A lot of them do. But not all of them. Some people come from a home with two parents; some only have one. I didn’t really know my dad when I was growing up.”
“You didn’t?”
“No. And that’s okay—that’s just how it works out sometimes. Everybody has a different life experience.”
“I wish I knew my mom.”
There was a pause, and even with my eyes closed, I could tell that Allie was trying to figure out what to say.
“Maybe you could ask your dad about her sometime,” she said.
“I don’t know. I don’t think he wants me to. I tried asking my grandma about her once, but she almost started crying.”
“Sometimes it’s hard for people to talk about things.”
“Why would it be hard for her to talk about that?”
Another pause. “I’m not sure.”
I continued to lay there underneath the hot sun, feeling my skin starting to crisp, despite the sunscreen. I didn’t want them to think that I was awake, that I had been able to overhear every word that had been said. There was a part of me that wanted to just tell Declan everything, and tell him all about it, but he was too young, of course. It wouldn’t make sense to him, and it would leave him with far more questions than answers. It might feel good to talk about it, but I wouldn’t let myself do it, even though a part of me longed to tell Allie; I didn’t want to keep anything from her.
We stayed at the lake for a while, only packing our stuff up when the sun was low in the sky and the mosquitos started coming out. Declan was sound asleep in his car seat before I’d even made it out of the parking lot.
“It’s amazing what a day at the beach will do to a kid,” I said. “I definitely remember being a kid and coming off the beach and just being so tired I didn’t think I’d be able to walk back up to the house. And then just falling asleep in bed, no covers, and waking up the next morning with the sheets full of sand.” As kids, my sister and I would often sleep on the screened-in front porch because it’d be cooler out there than up in our bedrooms.
“I didn’t go to the water much,” Allie said. “My mother, as I’m sure you could tell, isn’t really the outdoors-y type. We did belong to a country club and go to the pool sometimes, but it was so chlorinated it made my eyes burn. And she would never go swimming anyway.” She shook her head. “Sometimes, it feels like I was raised by the completely wrong person. Like I would’ve been much happier with the sort of mom who went barefoot and spent her days outside in the garden. But I guess we can’t choose who raises us.”
“Do you think Declan is happy?” I asked.
She looked at me. “Where’s that coming from?”
“I just...wonder sometimes. And you’re his teacher, and you’re also around other kids a lot, too, so you’ve got something to compare... Do you think he seems happy? Or do you think he feels like he’s being raised by the wrong person, too?”
I had never admitted this before, but sometimes it felt like I was failing. Despite that everyone around me was telling me what a good job I was doing, I sometimes wondered if it was just because they saw me as a guy trying to raise a kid by himself. The bar was pretty low when it came to that—I often felt that people thought I deserved a medal just because I hadn’t abandoned him.
“You’re doing a great job,” Allie said. “Raising a kid isn’t easy, and it’s especially not easy when you’re doing it by yourself. Declan is a well-adjusted, happy boy. He’s creative, thoughtful, and just such a great friend to all the kids in class.” She paused, a look of understanding crossing her face. “Did you hear us talking earlier? When he was asking me about his mother?”
“I might have overheard something.”
“Don’t think that just because he was asking about his mom means that he isn’t happy with you,” she said. “It’s natural for kids to have questions like that, especially when they start to realize that there are other kids who come from different family situations than they do. And there’s nothing wrong with that.”
I think that deep down, I knew that I was doing the best I could for Declan, and that compared to some other situations, things were actually pretty good, but there was still that part of me that wondered if he felt like something was missing, if he wasn’t entirely happy. My own childhood had been so free of stress and carefree, and I hated to think that maybe Declan wasn’t having a similar experience.
“Thanks,” I said. “It helps to hear you say that.”