Sam

“Sam? Girl, we need to get a move on. There are hot, half-drunk, frat boys looking for a girl like me and it would be rude to keep them waiting.”

What else should I expect from Lexi? She’s a great friend in many ways, but patience and understanding are not her strengths. “Yeah Lex I’d just feel better if I could finish packing for the trip home tomorrow. Unless you can come up with a reason for me to stay here over summer.” Even with almost no one left on campus, there’s more to do around here than at home.

“Oh my God. That can wait—the Phi Sig party waits for no one! It’s going to be one for the record books. Now, get off your butt,” she says, grabbing my arm and dragging me from the half-packed bag I’m huddling over out the front door.

As we walk to the party, Lexi turns to me with a puzzled face. “How do you not look forward to home? I mean, you live like, five seconds from the ocean. You practically have your own fucking beach. You can literally spend every day out in the sunshine, staring out at the waves, building up a wicked tan. People spend, like, thousands of dollars for a vacation to basically pretend they have your life.”

The rhythmic thump of house music grows in the distance as we walk. I look back at her and motion with my arms at our surroundings. “Lex, there is nothing even close to this at home. Sure, there’s the beach, but what else? Mini golf? Helicopter rides? Alligator tours? A bunch of tourists leaving in a week? There’s a reason people spend thousands of dollars to come and only stay a week. At the end of the day, there just isn’t a lot to keep you entertained longer.”

At first sight of the frat house, I am taken aback by the size of this party. “Holy shit, and it’s only nine thirty,” I mutter in disbelief. Overflow from the house has spilled into both the front and back yards and I think I glimpse a DJ table back by the pool through the mass of partygoers. “When you’ve had three years to get used to the ‘there’s something to do every night of the week’ life, three months at home doesn’t seem all that appealing. What am I supposed to do all summer, sit around binging on Netflix?” I ask, in a half-yell over the music.

While I have never admitted it to Lexi, or anyone else for that matter, I know what I’d like to do this summer—or rather who I’d like to do. It’s an old fantasy, incomplete in the details, but a happy one nonetheless. There I am, with the one and only Ian Black, my good to the last drop, one and only, first love, Dreamy McDreamboat. I’ve been in top-secret love with him since puberty. At this point, the possibility of spending time with him is the only thing about going home that interests me. It’s completely improbable seeing as he’s our neighbor and my dad’s best friend. But oh, he is so fine. So many of my teenage years were spent fantasizing about and masturbating to him.

So.

Many.

Everything about him is a cut above the rest. As a broke college student, he built a successful landscaping company out of nothing but a truck and a lawnmower. When things took off, instead of sitting behind a desk in the office, he always opted to spend his time working at a job site like any other grunt laborer. Not that I’m complaining, all that time in the sun left him with the most amazing golden-brown tanned skin. Oh, and that beautiful skin, covering all those beautiful muscles. His beefy chest, with just the right amount of black hair, sprinkled across it. I’ve never been big on chest hair, but I’ve imagined running my fingers through his more than once. Oh, and his arms, with biceps like boulders, they look like they belong to a bodybuilder posing on a magazine cover. And then there’s his scent. It’s a one of a kind, A-M-A-Z-I-N-G blend of, I don’t even know. It’s like some magical combination of sweat, mixed with wood and earth, mixed with cologne, or deodorant I guess. Whatever the recipe, the end result is a musk that makes my pussy ache anytime my nose catches a whiff of something even close to it.

The line for the party is backed up to the sidewalk, but Lexi just waves at the two frat bros taking ‘donations’ at the door, grabs my arm, and leads us past the line toward the backyard. Being intimately familiar with fraternity boys is one of her strengths.

No sooner have we entered the chaos, then Lexi releases my arm and shouts “I’ll be back” as she wanders off into the crowd, leaving me to fend for myself. I am now a single woman standing alone at a frat party. I need to find some shelter before frat boys amped up on liquid courage begin swarming with their shitty pickup lines. As I look around for a familiar face, I can’t help but feel lost in a sea of strangers.

“Looks like you could use a drink. Here, see if this helps take your mind off whatever is going on up there.” Dread rises as I turn to toward the voice and spot an arm extending towards me with a red Solo cup. Fearful the other end of this arm is attached to some douche in a sleeveless bro-shirt, I breathe a sigh of relief when I recognize the face. “Oh! Zack, thank God! I was afraid you were going to be some random dude hitting on me.”

Zack takes a half step backward, sheepishly smiling. “Well, I’m not random, but would it be so bad if I was hitting on you?” Yikes, I take a sip from my newly acquired drink to buy time while I search for a response. We are both business majors so we know each other from a couple of classes over the years, and running in similar circles have put us on the periphery of the others’ sphere of friends, but I’ve never even put him on my maybe list. On paper, he should be a solid match.

Intelligent? Check.

Tall? Check.

Athletic? Check.

In the right light, he even reminds me a bit of my Ian, with his solid jawline peppered by dark perma-stubble.

“Well… Your timing could be better! I’m, leaving for home tomorrow, how about you?” I ask.

Zack retakes the step he lost and leans in toward my ear so as not to yell, but basically does anyway. “My flight home isn’t for a couple more days. Either way, that still leaves tonight, right?”

A random hookup the night before I leave for the summer? That shit may be fine for Lexi, but I’m ready for more than just a drinking buddy who I maybe don’t mind fucking at the end of the night. Besides, the only thing college boys seem to be capable of is jumping on, humping like a bunny, and falling off. I guess they assume that because it was good for them, it had to be great for me. No thank you. I’m ready to find a man who can please me at least as well as the vibrator in the drawer of my nightstand.

As the stench of whiskey on his breath hits me, I start to think he might be one of the d-bags I was on the lookout for after all.

Fuck Lexi, where are you? I could use a little help! I think to myself.

“Uh … Shame I’ve got an early start. I just came with Lexi to… Hey, where did she wander off to anyway? I better go see what she’s gotten herself into,” I say, moving past him. “Thanks for the drink,” I yell, without bothering to look back.

As I search for my lost wing girl, everywhere I turn people are paired up, grinding against each other on the dance floor, sprawled out on blankets and lawn furniture. In this madness, surrounded by people, I feel completely alone. Strike that. Lonely.

Finally, I spot her across the yard, cozied up with some guy whose name, I’m half-sure, she hasn’t bothered to ask. I storm up to her, contempt on my face. “Seriously Lex, what the hell?” This time my words are heated and loud, but she barely looks up from her new beau to attempt an excuse.

“Whatever. I am so over this. I’m heading back to finish packing. I guess I’ll see you – whenever.” I turn to leave. I don’t know if it is the tone of my voice, or the words themselves but something catches her attention and she leaves Mr. Right-Now to chase after me. Too late, I give exactly zero fucks at the moment, and just want to be left alone.

“Go back to your date. It’s fine. We’ll talk later,” I tell her as I reach the sidewalk.

My attitude has gone to shit and I can’t get away from the crowd fast enough. W-T-F Samantha, where did this emotional shit come from? You are better than this, I think to myself. Was it Zack? So he acted like a tool, that officially makes him like all the other boys you’ve been with.

As I walk, every thought seems to wind back to home. My dad would be beside himself if he knew I walked through the student ghetto, alone, after dark. That thought trickles over to the drive home in the morning, which slips back to the recognition of my loneliness, and the unanswered question of what I’m going to do with myself over this long summer away from all my friends. In no real hurry to get back to packing where I will be alone, I take the longest possible route, lost in my thoughts and enjoying the cool of the evening air.

Old memories of times spent with Ian take over. Friday night barbecues with our families. Adults playing Euker and drinking cocktails while I am shuffled off with Ian’s son, Will. He’s always been a great kid, but with six years between us, there’s not much a fifteen-year-old girl and a nine-year-old boy have in common. While he went off and played, I would invent ways to be around the adults, offering to make snacks, refill drinks, or whatever covert thing I could come up with.

Next, my mind wanders to Gail, Ian’s bitch of a wife. She has always reminded me of Cinderella’s evil stepmother. That is to say, she was shitty to him at all times, about all things, and equally rude to everyone else for good measure. If there was ever a moment when she wasn’t being a condescending cunt it could only be because she was sleeping.

Thoughts of her remind me of an otherwise happy memory of a weekend getaway we had with them at their cabin. Gail seemed compelled to bitch and complain about any activity the rest of the group wanted to do outside. I don’t know why she bothered to come along if not to for the sole purpose of undermining everyone else’s good time.

Ian took us hiking and kayaking on the lake. He let me saddle up behind him on his four-wheeler for, what felt like, death defying treks across the wilderness. I like to think he was purposely trying to give me a fright, but either way, it totally worked, and I was more than happy to squeeze my arms tight around his rock-hard abs and push my young tits into his back. That memory brings a half smile to my face as I round the last corner of my walk.

Ugh. As I think now about how hard I crushed on him, and how completely obvious it must have been, my cheeks flush and my face feels hot. To think of that tiny, red excuse for a bikini I took to swim in the lake, makes me want to slap some sense into teenage me. Dad was none too pleased with the choice either, but at the time I was certain no one would ever think I was flaunting my goods to some married man twenty years older than me, Ian least of all.

As the door closes behind me, my anger with Lexi is gone, replaced by the recognition I am going to miss the hell out of that girl over the summer. She’s always there for me when it counts, and if it wasn’t for her dragging me out into the world, I would have spent the last three years sitting home alone, studying, and wondering about all the things outside I was missing out on. What are you going to do with yourself? You need a plan for the summer— when you come back it will be senior year for Christ’s sake!

Maybe I need to take a page out of my girl Lexi’s book and kick this loneliness to the curb with a summer fling before the real world comes calling.