“How many days a week you work?” he asks as it gets harder and harder to see each other, the trees and their shadows surrounding us.
I sigh. Just thinking about work makes me wanna curl up and hide somewhere. “Five usually. Sometimes six.”
“Damn. That’s a lotta time to be around that brat.”
I laugh. “How you know she’s a brat?”
“If she was an angel, I’m sure your boss lady would wanna spend more time with her herself,” he says. And that is a real good point. I’d never thought of it like that before.
“You’re right. She’s a terror.”
“It’s too bad.”
“Who you tellin’?”
“No,” he says, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me to him, “I mean about your schedule. I was hopin’ to see a whole lot more a you this summer.”
I stay calm and try not to tremble. But this is it, right? It has to be. All the time I’ve spent wonderin’ if I’ve been imagining things, wishful thinking and all that, he has never been this overt. I don’t think I have to wonder anymore. Clay likes me. He likes me. I look down so he can’t see the size of my grin. But I can’t get too carried away. Nothing’s official yet.
“I don’t see why you can’t,” I say.
“When?”
“You work too. We’ll just have to be… creative.”
“Oh, is that all?” he asks, eyes sparkling with mischief. “I can be creative.”
“Really?”
“Evvie girl, you ain’t seen creative yet,” he jokes, and I laugh, moving in even closer. He leans down so our foreheads touch. I look into his eyes. I love those big eyes of his. If I had to stare at ’em all day long, it wouldn’t be long enough for me.
But now… He ain’t lookin’ in my eyes now. He’s lookin’ down at my lips.
“You have no idea, do you?”
“Idea of what?” I ask him.
He chuckles and blinks, and his eyelashes brush against my skin. He swallows.
“You’re like nobody else,” he whispers.
It’s slow, but he leans down the rest of the way, following what his eyes desire, and kisses me, and I think my body is finna melt into a pool a heat and feelin’ and taste. I kiss back, and we kiss so hard and for so long, my lips start to get tingly, and I don’t mind a bit. His mouth finds my earlobes, my neck, my collarbone.
“Oh, Evvie,” he breathes.
And the unwelcome thought of Mama pops into my head outta nowhere. She would be livid if she knew what her baby girl was doin’ right this very minute. I have a feelin’ if anyone’s gonna put on the brakes, it’ll have to be me. I know that we shouldn’t be doin’ this so soon, but I can’t stop us. So Clay does.
“What’s wrong?” I ask him.
He still has his arms around me, his hands delicately caressing my back, but he’s pulled back. He’s put air between us, and I don’t want air between us.
“Evvie,” he starts, but he doesn’t say anything else.
“What is it? Is it me?” With horror, I wonder if my roll-on has worn off. I told Mama not to get the cheap one!
“No! God no. I just…” He hesitates again. “I just don’t want to do… anything until you’re ready. Ya know?”
I take a breath. “Uh-huh.”
Though we can’t see each other too clearly in the dark, we keep on starin’ in each other’s eyes, waitin’. I know what we’re waitin’ for, and I kinda can’t believe we’re here already, but here we are. Kissin’ just ain’t enough. When I woke up this morning, I did not expect to be here. With him holding me tight and close like I’m a diamond. He’s probably right. Why rush? It’s risky, we could get caught, and I can’t even think about how mortifying that would be. Worse yet… would he resent me later? If he thinks I’m easy?
“What are you thinkin’?” he asks.
Of all the reasons I should turn around and run home before I miss curfew.
“Clay?”
“Yes, Evvie girl,” he whispers.
“I’m ready.”
Under the cover of trees and night and cricket songs, Clay’s gentle fingers slowly lift the bottom of my dress, as though he’s waitin’ for me to stop him at any second. I don’t stop him. He removes my panties, and I’m glad he can’t see ’em. They’re covered in childish pink flowers. He parts my thighs. I’m a little scared, I admit, but so excited by his touch, by everything about him, I can’t see straight. I can hardly breathe or think. And he’s here and he moves into me and it hurts for a second and then it doesn’t and I don’t know where he ends and I begin and his breathing’s coming hard now and we rock against the tree and he groans into my ear, a low deep sound from the far reaches of his throat and I exhale slowly… and then I see two eyes watching us.
I scream.
“What? What’s wrong?” He can barely get the words out. Though the intense, hot beauty of the moment is now dead and gone for me, somehow it’s not for Clay (bless his heart), and he finishes with a tiny cry.
Then there’s stillness.
I’m frozen still, lookin’ all around us, tryna find those eyes again.
And then I hear a twig break several yards away.
“Come on,” I whisper, urgently. I scramble to fix my clothes, and he does the same.
“What’s happening?” he asks.
“Somebody’s out there,” I say, and I scan the trees for any sign of life. I find none. The twig coulda been a critter, but not the eyes. They were at least five feet off the ground, maybe six, but the strangest thing was I could make out the eyes clear as day, but the rest of the face looked… blank.
“You sure it wasn’t your imagination?”
“No!” I snap. “I know what I saw.”
We leave the woods and walk back toward the park. I
