Page 67 of Fun at Parties
We’re going to have sex.
Holy shit, we’re going to have sex.
I live a thousand years in the five minutes that follow. First there are the centuries of panic, when I remind myself to play it cool.Chill,I order my body, but adrenaline pinballs through my system, leaving no part of me unaffected. My head goes syrupy, my heart pounds, my legs wobble.
Then there are the decades of awkward bumbling, when I tiptoe out of the bathroom in a towel with my cheeks on fire, thinking at him loudlyYou want to have sex with me! In the near future! Not in the abstract! Maybe even now!and rummage through my suitcase. He lounges, oblivious, on the bed, his legs crossed on top of the comforter, looking at his phone. If he’s doing his fucking Wordle, I’ll scream. But then he glances up, and I clock his eyes roving over my damp shoulders.
I grab my pajamas—not theDUMP HIMshirt I’ve been sleeping in since Vegas, good lord, but the pink-and-purple-striped shorts set I wear normally—and squeak out a noise like a mouse with a stomachache when I realize I need to give careful thought to my underwear.
Probably. Or not. Maybe I’m wrong. He could’ve bought new toiletries because we’re stuck together with no end in sight, and he wants to be considerate. Not because he’s hoping to get me under him, arching up with my face buried in his neck as I inhale his body heat—
I shut myself in the bathroom again and lean against the door. My heart is pounding as fast as the rain on the windshield last night, and I am absolutely aching.Get. It. Together.The feelings I’m having are, I don’t know, neon orange? What’s the lewdest color? I breathe in throughmy nose and out through my mouth and picture all the inner turmoil leaving my body.
I need Nate to make the first move. Not because the TikTok nanny version of me would be rolling her eyes and pursing her lips, saying, “If he wanted to, he would,” but because I need to know he wants me as badly as I want him. I need that more, I think, than I need to actually have him.
When I leave the bathroom to learn my fate, Nate is still on the bed, frowning as he messes with the shade on the small window above the headboard. I shut the pocket door separating the bedroom from the rest of the RV, which plummets us into…not exactly darkness.
“There’s a lot of light outside,” Nate says. “This doesn’t do a great job of blocking it out.”
I climb under the covers, lying on my back. Now that the shower is off and we’ve stopped moving around, the faint sound of music playing around us—techno on the left, throwback country on the right—becomes more apparent. “People who come prepared probably bring sleep masks,” I say. “And earplugs.”
He gives up on the shade and lies back down. “I haven’t felt prepared for a single event we’ve attended this whole time. God, what I would give to know what we’re doing three days in advance.”
“That sounds amazing,” I say. “I don’t mind the noise, though. It reminds me of Seapoint.” Where the bars crank the music until 11:59p.m., per the local noise ordinance, and the wind coming off the inlet carries the sound all the way to Bailey’s house. When I’m lying in bed and I hear that sound, or the noise of a party down the street,or people hanging out late in Bailey’s backyard, I feel cozy. Knowing that so much is happening out there, but I’m tucked away in here.
With another person next to me, it feels intimate.
Nate shifts a little. His knee presses against my calf, but since I’m the only one under the blankets, we’re not actually touching.
“Tonight was fun,” I hazard.
A beat passes. “Yeah. I always have fun with you.”
“Pretty sure I can list a thousand counterexamples from the last week alone.” My bun is digging into the back of my head, so I take it out and comb my fingers through my hair, letting it fan out and sighing at how good it feels to release my scalp from the tension.
When I look to my left, he’s running the back of his fingers along a wayward lock of my hair. Up and down, up and down. I feel a gentle ghost of sensation at the root on the downward strokes. Our eyes meet in the dark, and his next breath is unsteady. I want to feel that shakiness against my mouth. A wave of hunger crushes me, and all I can do is hope it drags him down too.
He rubs his mouth and sits up. “I need some water.”
The ceiling turns from blue-gray to yellow when he opens the door to the kitchen, and back again when he returns. He sits on the edge of the mattress and keeps his eyes on me as he gulps the water down. He offers me a sip, and I sit up and take the glass, watching him over the rim. The gap in the window shade sends a slice of pale light straight across the planes of his chest. Tension pulls at me like kite strings from somewhere deep in my belly.
When I’m done, he sets the glass on the tiny nightstand. “I’m afraid this is going to change everything.” His voice is all gravel. “Like when we screwed things up before.”
“Everything is already changing,” I counter, “whether this happens or not.”
“I hated living in a world where we couldn’t talk to each other.” He shakes his head. “I want to live in a world where…”
The silence hangs there. “Where Wheat Jesus brings world peace?” I joke.Shut up shut up shut up.
He drags his thumb across his bottom lip. “I want to live in a world where I get to touch you. Just once.”
“You already did.” My voice is hushed.
He shakes his head. “Rushed and half-assed doesn’t count. I want time. I want to fully appreciate it.”
The look he’s giving me is serious and desperate, concealing nothing. In a corner of my mind, I’m vaguely aware that the song playing outside as he expresses a sentiment I’ve wanted to hear my entire adult life is “She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy” by Kenny Chesney.
“I want that too,” I say, and he crawls over me. My brain glitches, but my body knows what to do, sinking back on the pillow and welcoming his heat on top of me. His arms bracket my shoulders and there it is: his shaky breath against my lips. I want to keep it forever. I want to turn it into lipstick and wear it every day. He grazes my bottom lip with his and pulls away.
