I knew she just wanted the best for me, and maybe there really was something legit about Caleb that she didn’t like but couldn’t put her finger on. But I still felt like she was being really rude to him and condescending to me, and I couldn’t help feeling offended. It wasn’t the first time she’d made me feel like her little pet project, the poor girl she had taken under her wing—not just because she liked me, but because she felt I needed help. Her help, as a rich white girl from the heart of Belle Meade. I almost told her that my dad hadn’t sent me to Windsor to change up my dating pool. I was there for an education. Period. But I figured it wasn’t worth dissecting all of that. I was grateful to have Grace, and I didn’t want to jeopardize our friendship by playing the race card or making a big deal out of something so little. Nobody was perfect, after all.
Still, when Caleb and I started hanging out that summer, I didn’t really fill Grace in on many specifics, just played it off as us being friends. (I might not have told her anything at all, but I wanted the satisfaction of informing her that the pendant Caleb wore on a chain around his neck had belonged to his grandmother before she died.) Incidentally, I also kept Caleb a secret from my dad, knowing he’d freak out about any guy, especially an older one, and figuring there was no point in worrying him. So I’d wait until he left for work, or pretend to have a babysitting gig, then ride my bike the two miles over to Caleb’s house. (His mother worked, too, but unlike with my dad, there was never a possibility of her returning home during the day since she had a nine-to-five receptionist job.)
Anyway, Caleb and I had fun hanging out together, and he turned out to be more nerdy (in a quirky, good way) than ghetto (which he wasn’t at all). We spent a lot of time watching funny YouTube videos and playing board games. And of course we hooked up a lot, too, sex seeming more inevitable with every passing day until I finally told him I wanted to do it.
It certainly wasn’t the most romantic thing I’d ever pictured, as there was never any mention of love or even dating. But it still felt right enough, all the important boxes being checked. For one, I trusted Caleb in terms of STDs and stuff (he’d been with two girls before me, but both had been virgins). Second, I trusted him not to blab my business (although our friends didn’t overlap, anyway). And third, I’d just turned sixteen—which felt like the right age to lose my virginity (fifteen had seemed too young). My final concern was the biggest: getting pregnant. Caleb said he could use condoms, although he didn’t like them because he couldn’t feel as much. I wasn’t too concerned about maximizing his pleasure, but I’d heard plenty of stories about condoms tearing—so I decided to get on the pill. I then called the only person I could think of who would be able to help me but who also wouldn’t judge: my mother.
A few days later, she surprised me by sailing into town on a twenty-four-hour birth control mission, taking me to an appointment she’d scheduled herself at Planned Parenthood. I was very grateful, as I knew how expensive her airline ticket from L.A. was (she mentioned it at least three times). At the same time, it was a little bit strange that she chose this, over all the other things in my life, to be proactive about. She was downright giddy about what she called my “rite of passage,” yet oddly never once asked anything about Caleb. It was as if he was totally beside the point. Maybe she was just that sexually liberated. Or maybe she was simply trying to make up for a lot of lost years and missed benchmarks. Or maybe she liked the idea of getting one over on Dad (that thought made me feel guilty).
Regardless, I told myself it wasn’t about my mother or my father. It was about my decision to have sex—and what mattered was that I was handling that decision responsibly. So after my being on the pill for the requisite seven days, Caleb and I had sex on his twin bed in the middle of the day. It hurt—a lot—and the whole bleeding thing was totally embarrassing and disgusting. But Caleb was really cool and nice about everything. He was very patient and went really slow and kept reassuring me that there was nothing gross about blood, adding that his mother wouldn’t see the sheets because he did his own laundry. So even though I wound up thinking the whole sex thing was pretty overhyped, I still considered my first time a success in that I felt no regret and was glad I’d picked Caleb.
Over the next month, we ended up having sex eleven more times—and toward the end, I actually thought I might be falling for him. But then we went back to school, and we both got really busy, and we talked less and less until Caleb started straight ghosting me. I was a little hurt, but it was more my pride than my heart, especially when I discovered through standard social-media stalking that he had gotten a legit girlfriend. I got over it pretty fast, though, my crush on Finch kicking into high gear.
And now, as I got in Finch’s car the morning after the concert, my feelings were becoming really intense. Like way more than I’d ever felt for Caleb, even after we’d had sex a dozen times. If anything, I think our fight last night had made me feel more for Finch.
“Hi,” I said, a little out of breath from frantically trying to get ready and out the door before my dad came back from wherever he’d gone. “We meet again.”
It was a lame thing to say, but Finch smiled and said, “Yep. We meet again.”
I glanced up the street, then behind us in the opposite direction.
“You okay?” Finch said.
“Yeah. Just go,” I said with a nervous laugh, motioning for him to drive. “I told my dad I was studying with Grace.”
“Got it,” Finch said, pulling away from the curb. I did a quick scan of his outfit—a pair of gray Windsor sweats, a T-shirt with a sailboat logo of some sort, and Adidas slides. As sharp as he’d looked last night, I decided he looked sexier dressed down like this.
He caught me looking at him and shot me the cutest smile. “What are you thinking?” he said.
“Nothing,” I said, smiling back at him. Because I really wasn’t thinking much of anything. I was too busy feeling things. All of them good.
As we drove toward his side of town, he turned on the radio, then shuffled through his playlist, asking what I wanted to listen to.
“Luke,” I said—because it felt like our music. Our songs.
He nodded and then played “Drunk on You,” singing along here and there. His voice kind of sucked, but for some reason, it only made me like him more.
There was never much traffic in Nashville on Sundays, especially during church hours, so within a few more songs, we were pulling into Finch’s driveway. His house was amazing, even bigger and more beautiful than Grace’s or Beau’s—which was saying a lot. I wasn’t really surprised, as I already knew he was loaded, but I was still sort of blown away—and a little intimidated, too.
We got out of his car and walked up to his front porch, where Finch unlocked the door and motioned for me to go in first. The alarm started to go off, and he turned and quickly punched a keypad, silencing it.
“So,” he said, closing the door. “What do you want to do?”
I shrugged, looking around his extremely fancy foyer. “Whatever you want…Where are your parents again?” I asked, even though he hadn’t told me.
“My mom’s in Bristol,” Finch said. “Her hometown.”
“She’s from Bristol?” I said, having imagined that she was from somewhere more chic, like New York or California.
“Yeah. She grew up poor,” he said super-matter-of-factly.
“Oh,” I said, wondering what constituted “poor” in his mind and whether I qualified. I told myself it didn’t matter—and that I should stop overthinking things. “And your dad? Where’s he?”
“He’s coming back from Texas today…but his flight doesn’t land for a few hours.”
“Oh. Cool,” I said, as Finch turned and led me down a hallway and into a gorgeous white kitchen. “Can I get you a drink?”
At first I thought he meant alcohol, but then he clarified and said, “Tea? Juice? I think we hav
e orange and grapefruit….Water?”
I said water would be good.
“Sparkling or still?” he said, a question I’d only ever heard posed at a really nice restaurant Nonna had taken me to once.
“Um. Either. Still, I guess,” I said, as I noticed the gigantic slab of marble on the kitchen island, veins running through it like the lines in one of my dad’s oversize paper road atlases.
Finch opened the door of an enormous stainless-steel refrigerator and grabbed two bottles of SmartWater. He handed me one, then paused to unscrew his and take a sip. I did the same, and we swallowed in unison, then smiled at each other.
“Let’s go to the basement,” Finch said.
I said okay, suddenly picturing Caleb’s unfinished basement, with its concrete floors and cinder-block walls, and odor of cat litter, mildew, and Clorox. I knew Finch’s would be nothing like that, but as we went downstairs and he turned on the lights, I almost laughed out loud at the contrast. It was like a freaking hotel casino—with a fully stocked bar, a pool table, several old-school videogames and pinball machines, and a huge leather sectional along with a bunch of stand-alone recliners all positioned around a mammoth TV that looked more like a movie screen.
“Welcome to my man cave,” he said.
“Wow,” I said, too impressed to play it cool. “This is incredible.”
He said thanks, flashing me a modest smile, then walked over to the sofa and sat down, patting the cushion next to him. I followed him and took a seat, leaving only a few inches between our legs.
“You have a favorite movie?” he asked, grabbing one of three remotes from the coffee table in front of us. He flipped on the TV, then pulled up a menu of movies.
“Not really,” I said, my mind going blank because I wasn’t thinking about movies.
“Just pick something. Anything,” he said, scrolling too quickly for me to read the titles.
I threw out Mean Girls—because it was the first thing that popped into my head—and within a few seconds, we were watching the opening credits of a movie I’d virtually memorized, I’d seen it so many times.
Finch put his feet up on the table, then grabbed another remote, hitting a button that turned off all the lights at once, transforming the room into a private theater. A beat later, he slid down a few inches, closing the gap between our legs. Then he took my hand, his entire forearm resting in my lap. It was so comfortable and natural, yet my heart still pounded in my chest, racing even harder as he caressed my thumb with his.
For a long time, we stayed like that, my hand in his, watching and laughing. It felt intimate and amazing, but not sexual, and I began to wonder if maybe he wasn’t going to kiss me after all. Then, in the middle of the four-way-call scene—one of my favorites—he hit the pause button and said, “These bitches remind me of Polly and her friends.”
I started to laugh but then glanced at his face and saw that his expression was stone serious, maybe even a little pissed.
“Yeah,” I said. “Me, too.”
I waited for him to unpause the movie but was glad when he didn’t. Instead, he let go of my hand, then reached down for his bottle of water. As he took a sip, I knew what was coming, so I took a sip of mine, too, preparing myself for his next move. It came smoothly, in the form of a quarter turn of his body toward mine, his arm extending behind me, draping along the back of the sofa.
“Hi,” he whispered, as I angled myself toward him, too.
“Hi,” I said back, feeling completely light-headed.
He held my gaze for another few seconds, then closed his eyes, our faces coming together until it was finally happening. Finch was kissing me. And I was kissing him back. It sounds so cheesy to call it a dream come true, but that’s what it was—something I had imagined so many times alone as I was falling asleep in my bed.
Only this was better. Because he kept kissing me, more and more passionately, until we were lying down beside each other, our faces illuminated only by the light of the frozen screen. I glanced over at it, and he took that as a hint to reach for the remote and turn it off altogether.
He kissed me again, now in complete darkness, then rolled onto his back and pulled me on top of him, running his hands under my shirt from my shoulders down my back. They were big and strong, soft and warm. At first, I was too overwhelmed to react, but then I moved my hips in motion with his, sliding one hand down the back of his sweatpants, touching the top of his ass, as far as I could reach. He had such a good body.
We stayed in the PG-13 zone for several minutes, before things escalated again and he reached up under my bra, unfastening the front closure after a couple tries. He cupped my breasts with his palms and told me how perfect they were.
The compliment made me feel bold, and I sat up and took my shirt all the way off, then rolled back on top of him, straddling him as he worked on the button fly of my jeans. It was taking too long, so I finished the job while he took off his own shirt, then sweats. Only his boxers and my red Victoria’s Secret thong were between us. I was glad I’d worn it, just in case.
Now on top of me, he reached down and touched me through the silk, whispering how good I felt, how wet I was. Then he slid his middle finger around the edges of my thong, dipping it inside me, just a little bit.
I arched my back, raising my hips up to his hand, both because it felt good and because it seemed like the sexy thing to do, and I desperately wanted to be sexy for him. I fleetingly thought of Polly, how much hotter she was than me, but I reminded myself that he wasn’t this hard for her or moaning her name right now.
“I want you, Lyla,” he added. “I want you so bad.”
“I want you, too,” I said.
“Have you…before?” Finch whispered, kissing my ear, his breath giving me goosebumps everywhere.
I hesitated, then tried to answer by reaching down and taking hold of him with my hand. My strategy seemed to work for a second, as he made a little groaning sound. But a second later, he seemed to remember his question. “So you’re not a virgin?” he pressed.
“No,” I finally said, because I didn’t want to lie—and because I thought he might stop if he thought I was a virgin. And I didn’t want him to stop.
Ileft Julie’s and drove the three miles to my parents’ house around suppertime (I only called it “supper” when I was back in Bristol; otherwise it was “dinner,” no matter how casual or early). As I pulled into our cul-de-sac, then parked behind my dad’s white Cadillac in the carport, I vowed to keep things light, both because I was too drained for more deep conversation and because I didn’t want to prematurely worry them. But the second I walked into the house from the garage, my mom started firing questions at me.
“Is everything okay?” she said before the door was even closed.
“Everything’s fine,” I said.
“Why the last-minute visit?” she asked, standing in the direct path of the kitchen.
I took a deep breath and said, “Because I wanted to see you. And Julie. I had a lovely afternoon with her.” It probably wasn’t the most accurate characterization of our day, but it wasn’t a lie either.
Clearly Mom wasn’t buying it, though, because she literally started wringing her hands—something I’d never seen anyone actually do. “What are Finch and Kirk doing today?” she asked, frowning.
“Kirk’s coming back from a business trip. He was in Dallas,” I said, hearing that woman saying honey again.
“And Finch?” Mom said.
“He had to study…exams coming up.”
I set my purse down on the small wooden pew that had been in the back hallway adjoining the laundry room, powder room, and kitchen for as long as I could remember. It was where my brother and I used to stow our book bags and rain boots and sporting equipment. I felt a pang of nostalgia, a feeling I associated with my mother—one of her defining traits. She was generall
y a happy person but had a tendency to live in the past, making frequent references to “when you kids were little.”
I played on that theme and said, “Can’t a girl visit her parents without an inquisition?”
“A girl can,” Mom said as I navigated my way around her. “But this one usually doesn’t.”
It was a fair point—my trips back to Bristol had become few and far between in recent years, usually only for my parents’ birthdays or a major holiday. And sometimes not even then. Occasionally, I’d squeeze a guilt-induced weekday into the mix, but our weekends were just too crammed with social plans. “Well. Times are a-changing,” I said, thinking aloud.
“Oh?” Mom said, raising her eyebrows, her radar really going off now. “And why’s that?”
“Well, you know. With Finch going off to college,” I said, wondering if it would still be Princeton, “I’ll have more time.”
It was what I always said to my parents. What I always told myself as the months and years had flown by. As soon as we get out of this stage or that stage. Out of middle school, once Finch can drive, once he gets into college. And yet somehow, life had only gotten busier, more complicated.
“Hey, whatever works for you,” Mom said. “We’re just glad to see you.”
“Yes. We’re thrilled to see you, sweetie,” Dad said, walking into the kitchen from the front hallway, giving me a big hug. He was wearing one of his fishing shirts, even though he didn’t fish, using all the assorted loops and pockets for reading glasses or writing instruments. Tonight, he was showcasing not one but two mechanical pencils.
“You, too, Dad,” I said, as I inhaled his famous Sloppy Joes simmering on the stove. I spotted a fresh pack of Wonder hamburger buns, the primary-color dots on its package conjuring childhood, and next to it, a tinfoil-lined baking sheet covered with thawing frozen French fries. I noticed they were sweet potato, my mom’s idea of gourmet.