Lindsay

He can’t know he’s been kissing me in my head for months, or that the reality was so much better than my imagination. He takes my hands, still cold from the water, and warms them in his. And just that simple touch, his closeness makes me want to kiss him all over again. He looks down at my hands in his, as if chewing something over in his head, and then he looks up and I want to lose myself in his eyes. “Look, today is not the day. We’ll have to keep our distance at the party. But I’ll talk to Kate and see if I can make this okay.”

“You really think you can do that?” He knows her as well as I do, but…

“She’s a big girl. And she loves us both. Maybe she’ll cope better than we think.”

“I’m not sure about that.”

He pulls a face. I can tell he’s not sure either. “Anyway, that’s for another day. We had better go back out.”

It’s time to wind the fairy lights around the trees, and distribute the candles and flowers around the little cloth-covered tables that Kate rented for her party.

I’m acutely aware of every movement Gavin makes and of everything I do that he can see. His words keep coming back to me—and that kiss. But there’s nothing I can do about any of it now.

I have to be careful not to make my attraction to him too obvious, and I make myself busy until the other guests start arriving. Once the party is in full swing, it’s easier to focus on what’s going on so I don’t spend the whole time watching him or thinking about what happened. Even so, my eyes sometimes follow him. I can’t seem to help that.

There’s dancing, but I don’t dance with him. I wouldn’t dare and he doesn’t ask me.

I drink more of Kate’s lethal concoction. And she makes a slightly weaker version. Too late, as pretty much everyone is already feeling the effects of the first batch.

Mom comes up to me around ten o’clock. “Everything seems to be under control, so we’re going to shoot off.” I think she’s at a different party from me. It seems anything but controlled to me in all kinds of ways. “Do you want to come home, too? People will start drifting off soon.”

“No, I’ll stay until the end. It’s Kate’s birthday.”

“Okay then, we’ll catch you in the morning. Just be careful. You’ve had a lot to drink.”

She gives me a hug, and I wave bye to Dad.

I’m hoping without my parents there, Gavin will find a place where we won’t be disturbed. And he can kiss me again.

But he keeps his distance. He told me not tonight, and it seems he means it.

And then the games begin.

Kate, hater of swimming pools, suggests we all jump in. Paul and another guy, I think his name is Ryan, peel off their Hawaiian shirts, grab her hands and go for it. It’s not deep. No one is going to drown, but I watch Gavin keeping an eye on everything. Most of the girls, fearful for their hair and makeup, don’t follow Kate’s lead.

“What about your Dad?” Paul says to Kate. “Come in, Mr. Day. The water’s lovely.”

“Just keeping an eye on you guys,” Gavin says.

“Come in, Lindsay,” Kate calls over to me. “You never swim in the pool.”

I don’t want to say, “Neither do you.”

When Kate and everyone else turn their attention elsewhere, Gavin comes up behind me and whispers, “Go ahead, jump in, I’d like to see you in the pool.” His breath on my neck and the heat of his body behind me send a shiver of desire right through me, and my nipples tighten.

I pull off my garland and untie my grass skirt, sucking in my stomach. I get a low whistle from behind me where I know Gavin is still standing as I step over to the side and slip into the pool with as much dignity as I can. The water is cold in contrast to the heat of the evening, and I gasp.

One by one, Kate persuades everyone to get into the water, Gavin telling them just to jump or slide in from the side, not to dive.

And in the end, when everyone is in and no one has had any kind of mishap with diving in and hitting their head on the bottom of the pool, Gavin peels off his shirt and jumps in, too, carrying a ball, and we start to throw it around, girls versus boys, in a kind of water polo game without rules or nets, the boys jumping on any girl who gets the ball and vice versa.

Gavin stays close to me, not so close anyone would notice, but he’s not letting me out of his sight. When Kate passes me the ball, he grabs me from behind and wrestles me for it before anyone else can tackle me, and throws it to Ryan. As the play moves on, Gavin checks to make sure I’m okay, that he wasn’t too rough. I’m more than okay. That’s the most he’s touched me since the garage.

“You look fucking sexy with your bikini top all wet,” he says in my ear, and I feel all warm inside, despite the cold water. I can’t wait for what comes next.

In the end, there’s no opportunity for any kind of “next” after the game. Once we’re out of the water, Kate has piles of towels to give out, but we’re all chilled and after hot chocolate in the kitchen, it’s time to go home. I hug Kate and thank her for a great party and then I go home to replay the best parts of the day in my head. He wants me! I hardly believe it, but he does.

 *

After the party, I don’t see Gavin for five long weeks.

Is he avoiding me? I’m not sure. Is he waiting for the right time to speak to Kate? I don’t think there’ll ever be a good time to do that. Maybe in the cold light of day, he thought better of it.

He doesn’t seem to be around whenever I’m at Kate’s house, though I don’t see as much of her as I used to. She’s out with Paul a lot of the time. She’s in love again, and when I see her, she wants to talk about him and not her dad, funnily enough.

I envy her. She can be open and honest about what she’s up to and how she feels. She can meet up with her guy any time she likes.

All I can do is listen to Gavin on his radio show. I catch the odd song where I think, did he play that for me? He plays “I’ve Had the Time of my Life” today, but I have to tell myself I’m being ridiculous. Why would he do that and not speak to me at all? And now that I’ve experienced the real thing, a voice and a song, even if he plays all his songs for me, are not enough.