Page 46 of How to Hide in Plain Sight
“Eliot?”
The sound of his voice shook me out of my spiral of self-loathing. I came to only to realize that I was standing in the open sauna door while every member of my family was already seated inside staring at me, waiting.
“You coming in?” Karma asked. “Or are you just going to stand there in your own world and keep letting all the hot air out?”
“I—” I shook my head, shutting the door behind me. I hurried forward and took the only open seat left, muttering, “Sorry.”
As soon as I was seated, Clarence stood up from his place on the upper wooden bench. “Right.” He clapped once. “The Sauna-Off. You all know the rules: the longer you make it, the more points you get. No breaks. No splashing water onto your body.” He pointed at the buckets of water on the floor, all of which had wooden ladles sticking up from their insides. “Tossing water on the rocks and steaming the place up is fair game. Understood? Good. May the best man win.” With that, he sat.
And we were off.
—
HELENE LEFT FIRST. TAZ LEFTapproximately fifteen seconds later, even though he wasn’t even sweating yet. Ten minutes passed. Fifteen. Caleb left. Shelly left. Karma yelled after her wife, calling her a “disgrace upon the gay community.” Shelly mooned her through the glass door.
“And then there were four,” said Clarence, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand.
He, Karma, Manuel, and I glanced around at each other inside the tiny, sweltering wooden box. Sunlight streamed in the window that looked out over the back porch and the lake. On the porch, the family was gathered, chatting with each other or watching us with keen interest. Mom waved when she caught my eye.
“How bad do you think Wendy wants to join right now?” Clarence asked.
“Given that she has worse FOMO than anyone I know,” Karma said, “I would say pretty bad.”
Clarence grinned. “Unless it would mess up her clothing.”
“Oh my God.” Karma leaned her head back, and her short hair, matted with sweat, dangled back, too. “Wendy loves to pretend she’s low-key, but she’s really the highest maintenance of us all. Remember on that one Trek of Chaos, when she ripped her favorite Loro Piana shirt?”
Clarence groaned. “I’ll never forget it. Speedy was trying to calm her down by telling her that we could mend it, and she said, ‘No, it’s over—’ ”
“ ‘—just like my life,’ ” they finished in unison.
Manuel burst out laughing.
I tried to listen, to laugh along, but the task proved difficult. My mind was drifting. Away from the conversation. Away from sound and toward sensation. Specifically—the sensation of Manuel’s sweating body sitting not five inches away from mine.
All morning, I’d done my best not to notice the hard lines of his chest muscles, the tanned, freckled skin of his arms and shoulders. I pretended not to see the water dripping from his matted curls or the tan lines around his thighs or the little V of muscle sloping down into his swimming trunks. But here, inside a sweltering cedar hut, that same tanned skin dripping with salty-sweet beads of sweat…
I was trying not to breathe.
Because when I did—when I let the smell of him seep even a tiny bit into my nostrils—it sent my entire body into a spiral. A heated, sweaty spiral of sparks in the stomach and a tight, aching pelvis. Breath that barely made it in before I had to push it back out again.
When the others had dropped out, he could have moved. Could have scooted away, giving me even one or two extra inches of space to breathe. But he didn’t.
And I think he did it on purpose.
Help.
Thankfully, Karma chose that moment to stand. “Well,” she said, jumping off the bench, “I’m officially out.”
“You’releaving?” Clarence looked aghast. “So much for all that big talk.”
“Talk is fine, but it’s hot as the devil’s left tit in here. I’m gonna go hang out with my hot wife instead.”
“Loser,” Clarence called.
“Asshole,” Karma yelled over her shoulder as the door swung shut.
And then there were three.
