It’s been a slow night at Boucher’s. January always crawls by, and we’re only two weeks in. Ruth and I start our closing duties early in the hope that Tommy will send us home before our shifts are up, and as we’re refilling ketchup and hot sauce, Freddie texts me.
FREDDIE: let’s play house tomorrow.
ME: what does that entail?
FREDDIE: do you work tomorrow?
ME: It’s my Saturday off.
FREDDIE: my gram and Bart are going to the swap meet tomorrow morning.
It’s the first time Freddie and I will have a chance to truly be alone for an extended amount of time without sneaking around in empty classrooms or stolen moments when we can duck away from our respective obligations.
ME: I just have my route.
FREDDIE: Which ends at my house.
ME: True.
FREDDIE: All roads lead to me.
I fidget with the evil-eye bracelet tied around my wrist before responding. Ruth hums “Silent Night” to herself, even though Christmas is long gone. While she moves on to her next table, I slide into a booth and study my phone.
ME: So just me and you?
FREDDIE: Me. You. No pressure.
I suck a deep breath in through my teeth.
ME: I’ll see you in the morning.
Freddie sits on the steps of his porch in joggers and a tank top. Agnes’s car is parked in the driveway, but Bart’s truck is gone. Like Freddie promised, they’ve gone to Biloxi for the biannual Southern Mississippi Swap Meet. I went a few times with my grandparents when I was younger. No cash is exchanged—only junk. It’s the only time of year when all the crap littering people’s front yards and garages is given actual value.
I park my bike against the porch railing, careful to avoid Agnes’s flower bed. I pull Freddie up with both my hands from where he sits on the stoop, and he kisses my nose.
“Good morning,” he says. The chill in the air covers his bare arms with goose bumps, but my body is still warm from the bike ride here.
Last night I stayed up for hours, playing out different scenarios of what might happen today in my head. But every time, I made the same decision.
As Freddie leads me inside, a huge yawn escapes me. “You wanna have breakfast?” he asks. “Or maybe lie down? Watch some TV?” I can see he’s nervous too, and that somehow eases my own nerves.
I’ve only seen Freddie’s bedroom in glimpses, which seems like a silly thing to get anxious about. But I am. “Let’s go to your room,” I tell him.
He swallows. “Is this you coming on to me?”
I grin. “Oh yeah.”
The dinosaur wallpaper border trimming the ceiling of Freddie’s room is definitely a leftover from the previous owners, but it’s easy to imagine little Freddie growing up in this room, too. He has a few rap posters up and an old calendar still set to September of last year, like he’d decided to stop keeping track of time.
His queen-size bed is a four-poster with green plaid sheets and beat-up Spider-Man pillowcases, which have undoubtedly known Freddie at least as long as I have.
The bed is rumpled but made, and it reminds me of the night we shared a bed in that disgusting hotel room. It feels like so long ago. The heartbreak I felt that night is a memory so distant I can hardly remember it being real.
I wait for him to close the door behind us, but then I realize: he doesn’t have to.
I take a quick step toward him, and then another. Him with bare feet and me with my boots on makes me even taller than usual. I dip my forehead down and let it rest against his shoulder. His fingers knead against my waist, like a cat’s paws.
My lungs shudder as I sling my arms around his neck. I respond with an openmouthed kiss and slide my tongue past his lips.
I want this. I’ve wanted it since that day we kissed in the locker room, but that doesn’t make this moment any less nerve-racking for me. Freddie’s . . . equipment is different from what I’m used to working with. What if I’m terrible at it?
He groans, deeply. “This isn’t why I invited you over. I mean, it is, but it’s not. It doesn’t have to be.”
He wraps his arms around me and presses me so hard against him that I can feel our ribs crash together.
“This is why I came over,” I say between rasping breaths.
I pull back and sit down on the edge of the bed, crossing my foot over my knee. I am suddenly dizzy. This is the moment when Freddie and I change our relationship forever. When we are more than childhood friends or Peter Pan and Wendy Darling. My fingers shake as I pull at the tight knots on my combat boots.
Freddie kneels down in front of me and places his hand on top of mine, stilling my nerves. He takes over the action of untying my shoes, and does so gently. Once he yanks off my first boot, he takes my other foot and places it on his thigh like how Hattie would before I knew how to tie my own shoes. After removing my boots, he removes my socks one at a time, and I swallow a giggle because I know my feet reek after the bike ride here.
But he doesn’t seem to care. He sucks the air right out of my chest when he kisses my knees through the holes in my jeans one at a time.
I take off my T-shirt and unhook my bra with one hand, and something about undressing myself evaporates a sliver of my anxiety and reminds me that maybe having sex with Freddie won’t be so different from my past experiences. As sweet as it was for him to help me with my boots, there’s something powerful about taking off my own clothing and choosing to reveal myself to someone as dear to me as he is.
Freddie, still on his knees in front of me, looks up. “If you’re not ready,” he says, “we don’t—”
I pull him up by his biceps and he’s on top of me. “I’m ready,” I tell him.
And so is he. Or at least his body tells me that he is.
I slip my hands under the elastic waist of his sweatpants and run my fingers down along his thighs. He sits up a little and takes off his tank top, revealing the acne scars on his shoulders. We both look down to the point where our bodies meet, and I place his hands on the button of my jeans and nod. Carefully, he undresses my lower half. I slide backward toward the head of the bed to help him pull my jeans off, and soon we’re both sitting there on his bed, completely naked.
Freddie stands, and I watch his hazy silhouette move in the early morning shadows. He opens his closet door and reaches for a shoe box on the top shelf. When he returns, he sits on the edge of the bed right next to me. I watch as he puts on a condom in front of me with expert precision, and I guess if I had one of those things, I’d want to make sure I knew how to properly protect it, too.
“They don’t really show that part in the movies,” I tell him. I guess it’s a moment that should be awkward, but it’s not.
He turns to me. “You’re sure? You can change your mind whenever you want.”
“I know I can.” My heart doesn’t pound with nerves. My fingers have stopped shaking. I am sure.
Freddie lies back with his head toward the foot of the bed, and I curl my body against his. He kisses me gently, and even here with the two of us completely naked, his kisses make my stomach feel like it’s full of feathers.
When he braces himself above me and asks me to say yes once more, it’s not a nod or a grin, but a firm confirmation. “Yes,” I tell him. “I’m sure.”
Afterward I slip on my underwear and borrow a T-shirt from Freddie. He yanks his sweatpants back on, and the two of us stand in front of his window overlooking the backyard with January sunlight streaming in. He kisses my forehead. My cheeks. My nose. My earlobes. My eyelids. My legs feel weak, but not in the same way they do after a morning of swimming laps.
We are the same people who chased each other across my sandy Mississippi beaches summer after summer and that we’re the same people who were so heartbroken just months ago.
I was so scared that by having sex with Freddie, I would lose part of myself—part of my identity. Instead, I’ve embraced another facet of myself. Life isn’t always written in the stars. Fate is mine to pen. I choose guys. I choose girls. I choose people. But most of all: I choose.
After a moment, we pull the curtains shut tight and crawl into his bed with the sheets wrapped around our shoulders.
Freddie falls asleep with his arms coiled around my waist and his forehead buried in the crook of my neck.