lavatory facilities, and a spacious rear deck for ? shing or recreational activities.
“Do you sleep out on her much?”
“Now and then.” Natalie grinned. “It comes in handy for impromptu getaways.”
“I’ll bet.” Dev spread her arms out along the back of the built-in bench and tilted
her face up to the sky. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d actually
relaxed.
“You’re going to roast in jeans and a T-shirt out here. I can probably ? nd a suit
for you in the locker,” Natalie said as she pulled two St. Pauli Girls from the
cooler. “Beer?”
Dev turned her head and smiled lazily. “Sure. Do you have any objection to
underwear?”
Natalie froze with her arm extended, the beer in her hand. “I guess it depends.
Are we talking on or off? And just what kind of underwear?”
“The utilitarian kind, I’m afraid.” Dev stood, unzipped her jeans, and pushed
them down. She wore navy stretch boxers underneath that
• 114 •
WHEN DREAMS TREMBLE
reached to mid-thigh. She unlaced her boots, shucked her pants, and stripped
off her T-shirt to reveal a black sports bra.
“I guess you meant on,” Natalie said, swallowing hard. Dev’s body looked
exactly as she’d anticipated from the glimpse she’d had in Dev’s cabin a few
days before. Her shoulders and chest were nicely muscled, her breasts neither
small nor large, her abdomen smooth and strong looking. The scars on her leg
were more prominent in the sunlight. She handed Dev her beer and sat down
next to her, their thighs separated by a few inches of air that seemed to undulate
with heat. “Good thing you’re keeping your assets covered.”
Dev raised a brow.
“Too much water traf? c to risk going au naturel.”
“It’s great out here,” Dev said as she took the beer. “Thanks.”
“Believe me, it’s my pleasure.”
Dev grinned. When she noticed Natalie glance at her leg for the second time,
she said, “Motorcycle accident. Youthful misadventure.”
Natalie regarded her seriously. “It must have been a hell of an accident. I’m
sorry if it’s a sensitive topic.”
“That’s okay.” Dev rested the beer bottle on her hip and regarded the scars
pensively. Sunlight ? ltered through the green glass and created slashes of color
across her thigh. Until the last week, she’d rarely thought about those times.
Now she seemed to be practically immersed in the memories. “I learned several
very important lessons and fortunately lived to appreciate them.”
“How old were you?”
“Seventeen.”
Natalie caught her breath. “God, that’s tough when you’re that age.”
“I was lucky. I shattered my femur and had a pretty serious concussion, but I
didn’t break my neck or my back. I didn’t lose my leg.” Dev shrugged and
pulled on her beer. “Christ, it could’ve been a mess. I got off easy.”
Somehow, Natalie didn’t think so, but she wasn’t sure how deeply to probe.
She stroked Dev’s forearm, feeling as if her comfort was woefully inadequate.
“You make it sound like you were being punished.”
“Do I? I guess so. I guess I was—being punished in a way. I was drinking.”
• 115 •
RADCLY fFE
“Ah, God. That’s hard.”
“I was a hothead and a bit of a fuck-off,” Dev said, smiling ruefully.
“Fortunately, I wasn’t so thickheaded not to appreciate the fact that I didn’t
wake up in a wheelchair. Or worse.”
“Sometimes I wonder how any of us survived adolescence.”
“You too?” Dev asked.
Natalie shrugged. “I went through a period where I tried really hard to ? t in,
even though I knew I didn’t. I slept my way through my senior year in high
school and part of my ? rst year in college with any guy that came along. Then I
got pregnant. And I had an abortion. Then I decided it was time to stop lying to
myself about how I felt about girls.”
“Did that solve your problems?”
“Most of them.” Natalie laughed. “Of course, then I had to deal with getting my
heart broken by the ? rst few girls I fell for.”
Dev turned her palm up and Natalie slipped hers into it. “I wonder if it would
have been any easier if someone had told us it was okay to be gay? It’s always
hard to be different.”
“Well,” Natalie said, sliding closer to Dev until she was nestled against her side,
“I think if you’d been around in high school I might have risked it.”
“Don’t be so sure. I was so far outside the popular circle, just being seen with
me invited talk.”
Natalie rested her cheek against Dev’s arm and drew her legs up onto the seat.
“No friends?”
“Just Leslie,” Dev said quietly, wondering now what it had cost Leslie to
befriend her.
“Leslie Harris?” Natalie said, stiffening slightly.
Dev looked down into Natalie’s eyes. “Yes.”
“Were you an item?”
“Christ, no,” Dev said, laughing with a tinge of bitterness. “Leslie was so
different than me. Probably a lot like you—pretty, popular, the girl every other
girl wanted to be best friends with, and the one every boy wanted to date.”
“But not you.” Natalie spoke gently, understanding.
“Not me what?”
“You didn’t want to be best friends with her.”
“No,” Dev said roughly. “That’s not what I wanted.”
• 116 •
WHEN DREAMS TREMBLE
“Is it hard, seeing her now?”
“Not really.” Dev sighed. “Not when I remind myself that we’re adults now.
Different people.”
“I wonder how much any of us really changes,” Natalie mused.
“I’m not the crazy, mixed-up kid I was ten years ago, but I don’t know how
different I really am either.”
“If you’d asked me a few weeks ago, I would’ve said I’d changed a lot.” Dev
drained her beer. “Now, I’m not so sure.”
Natalie shifted until she straddled Dev’s lap, her hands on Dev’s shoulders and
their foreheads nearly touching. “Oh yeah? You don’t look like such a bad girl
now,” she whispered. “But I bet you could be, under the right circumstances.
