The Boy Next Door

  “But why?” Tears fill my eyes. My heart aches and my soul screams in a primal tantrum. “I’ll never tell, I swear. I love you so much, Dash, I always have. You know I have!”

  Dash’s body folds around me, his arms around my shoulders, his mouth near my ear. “I know you wouldn’t, Am. I know.” His finger wipes a stray tear off my cheek. Then he has my hands and he is pulling me up. “Come here.” His big arm goes around my waist. “Walk with me. Let’s walk down the beach, and we can talk.”

  “I don’t want to walk,” I sniffle.

  “Yes you do.” He pulls me closer. “You missed me. You told me so.” He gives me a slow, sweet smile and I am helpless. Just as helpless as I’ve ever been near him.

  We walk along the shore, moving farther from the lake house. My stomach flip-flops as he moves his arm from around my waist and takes my hand. He looks into my eyes. “I’m sorry for this, Ammy. Please believe me when I say I didn’t tell you all that shit to make you sad.”

  “Will you talk to me?” My voice is thick with tears. “I want to hear more about…” I swallow. “How long are you in town?”

  “Just tonight.” The words are pointed.

  My heart aches. “So you really have to stay and talk. I want to catch up.”

  Tears are rolling down my cheeks as Dash leads me to the water. We sit side by side. He nudges his flip-flops off and I kick off my sandals. How strange that the cool, damp sand between my toes should feel so normal.

  I watch as Dash rolls his jeans up his calves.

  “Hang on,” he murmurs. Then he’s pulling off his shirt, and I am dying at the sight of his bare chest. He hands the shirt to me. “For you to sit on.”

  The sand is damp, so I do as he says. When I’m settled again, he tilts his head toward me and shifts his eyes to mine. “You’re older,” he says softly.

  “Yep. That happens.” I can’t help a small smile.

  He reaches for me, pausing only for a moment before two of his fingers rub a strand of my hair. “You look good, Am. You had a good summer?”

  “Yeah, I guess. I was worried about you.”

  His mouth twitches on one side, a would-be smile that never blossoms. “I’m okay.”

  “What have you been doing?”

  “Just hanging around.”

  “Where did you go?” I sense his reticence, so I make it easier. “Name one place you went this summer.”

  His mouth softens. “Maine.”

  “What was your favorite part of Maine?”

  He runs his fingertip along the strand of my hair, then releases it and clasps his hands atop his knees. “I saw some whales.”

  “What kind?”

  “Humpbacks.”

  I try to picture Dash in Maine. My mind’s eye evokes him with binoculars around his neck and straight-front khaki shorts. A pair of Sperrys. “Were you on a boat?”

  “I was.”

  “Well…did you like them?”

  He smiles slightly. “Hated them.”

  “Oh really.”

  He licks his lips, then bites down on the inside of his cheek for just a moment—nervous habits—before continuing, seeming at ease. “They were majestic. The kind of thing you think you’d never really see.”

  “Is it rare, to see one?”

  “No. But it seems like it should be, you know? Kind of feels like they’re there just for you.”

  “So are you really leaving school?” I ask him.

  “Maybe.” He runs a hand back through his hair, looking away from me, out at the streak of moonlight on the water.

  “Why?”

  He shrugs. “I don’t know. It’s just…” He shakes his head. “I’m not sure how much I like to study art.”

  “Yeah?” Does that mean he’s not sure he wants to be an artist? I’ve stalked him online, so I know he’s got a web site where he sells his paintings.

  “Tell me more about you, Ammy. What’s the best part of your summer been?”

  “Tonight.”

  He looks pained. “Don’t say that.”

  “It’s true.”

  “I’ll feel like shit for leaving.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Out to Montana.”

  “What are you going to do there?”

  He shrugs. “Paint. Work.”

  “I thought you liked Providence.”

  He gives me a gentle smile. “I said I thought you would.”

  “Will you call me? Please?”

  “I might not have a phone.”

  “Everybody has a phone. Don’t leave me and never call, like you did this year. Please. It…messed me up. It was like you disappeared.” I hold my breath, then let it out. “It was…like my Mom.”

  He wraps an arm around me, pulls me close enough so I can feel my hair catch in his chin scruff. “Damnit, Am. I’m so damn sorry.”

  “You should be.” I wrap my arms around him. “Will you kiss me?”

  “No.” His arms tighten around me. “But I’ll hug you.”

  We lie on our sides there on the shore, Dash’s arms around me, my face against his t-shirt, lips brushing the skin-warmed cotton.

  I wrap my legs around his. “For how long?” I whisper.

  Dash’s hand plays in my hair. He waits so long to answer, I think he’s not going go.

  “Remember when I got strep throat? In seventh grade? It was during the summer. I think Mom and Dad were on that long safari—and we had that asshole nanny. Netta?”

  “The Norwegian Marry Poppins,” I whisper with a smile, because I do remember. “She thought you were faking sick because she’d taken away your video games. I think you hid her purse or something really innocent and dumb. But it made her really mad.”

  “You came over with that smoothie.”

  “I knew you were sick, because you hadn’t touched that book you were really into in like two days. The one about the rabbits. Watership Down.”

  He nods. “You climbed into my bed and held me. You remember that?”

  “Of course.” I’d been too young to understand the concept of a crush, but being near Dash made my heart beat harder.

  I shift my gaze upward, so I can see his face, and when I notice tears in his eyes, my stomach clenches.

  “Dash…”

  And then his mouth is overtaking mine.

  Five

  Amelia

  His hands are on my breasts and hips, his mouth is worshipping my mouth. I can do nothing but cling onto his elbows, then his hips, and Dash is groaning.

  Dash is kissing down my chest, teasing my breasts through fabric.

  I’m on top of him again and I can feel him where I want to feel him most. Dash’s hand is clasping my neck as our tongues stroke and his hips buck and I bare down against him, moving my own hips out of sheer instinct.

  “Jesus Ammy—” between kisses. “You’re…so perfect. Everywhere. Perfect.”

  I can’t keep from gasping as he tongues my nipples.

  “Sorry. Slower,” he promises, and pulls away, kissing my throat as I go limp atop him. Limp except my legs, which can’t stop moving. I can’t keep from rocking atop him.

  “God…”

  “Tell me to stop,” he grits.

  “Don’t stop!”

  His mouth is back on mine, so hard it almost hurts, but then our tongues are stroking, and I’m lost—so awfully lost—in what we’re doing, everything feels good and blissful. I feel Dash’s erection against me and I sit up on him, repositioning myself so I’m rubbing with the throbbing part of me.

  “Shit,” he moans.

  I grind against him.

  “If you…keep doing that…” He squeezes my knees. “I’m gonna…”

  “I know.”

  “Ammy…”

  He tries to move away from me, but that’s not easy with me on top. I run my hands over his chest. His face looks beautiful and rapt, his eyes shut, his lips pressed tight.

  Feeling brave, I reach between us, sifting through th
e folds of my dress until my fingers find their mark through his pants.

  Even through the fabric, I can tell he’s long and hard and thicker than I thought he would be. When I rub him, Dash comes off the ground. I find the head of him and stroke there with my fingertips, dizzy with the rush of hearing Dash moan.

  I rub my cupped palm up and down him.

  “Ammy, please. It hurts…”

  At first, I believe him, so I let him go. Then I see his glazed eyes peek open, and I read what they are saying: more.

  I touch him once more, tentative, then start riding him again. Here I feel more comfortable, spurred by the pressure I feel building in myself. The way it feels when I rub up against him there…it makes me crazy.

  Pretty soon we’re both gasping. Dash’s hands are clasped around my hips, he’s pushing me and pulling, dragging me over him. I can feel the hard, firm pressure of him where I crave it most.

  More!

  I need something more.

  Looking down at him, there is a moment where I make a choice. Then I’m pulling down my bathing suit bottoms. I rise off him and do it fast, then sink back on him.

  “Am…?”

  I arrange my dress around us. Then I unbutton his pants, looking into Dash’s eyes as my shaking fingers work his button, then his zipper.

  “Ohhhhhhh.”

  “I want to touch you,” I whisper.

  His hands are on my thighs, his fingers gentle as they move toward where I want them. When his finger covers me, I cry out.

  I’m dizzy, blind with need. I rock my hips so I’m pushing against his fingers.

  Inside. I want them inside!

  “Please…” It’s whimpered.

  “You want me to touch you?”

  “Yes!”

  Dash’s finger slides inside, and my world sizzles like a bolt of lightning.

  I don’t know… His fingers moving… I’m touching him, too, and…God, the way he moves. The jerky motion of his hips, the little gasps from both of us and deeper groans from him.

  When he moves his fingers off me, I reach down myself and align him with me, so as I rock, I’m gliding over him. I know it’s naughty. Dangerous. But I can’t stop. I just can’t stop.

  I want Dash’s heart and soul, but in this moment, what I need is Dash’s body. The humid air pulses and crackles in my ears. I hear the water lap the shore and feel the cotton of his boxers and the hot silk of his skin over that long, stiff rod.

  I don’t dare to touch him too much with my fingers—I’m too shy, too tentative—but when I rub myself against that part of him, it lights me up so bright I just can’t stop. And so we’re thrusting, both of us bucking, craving something deeper, craving, and I know, I know what I can do…

  I reach down, parting myself, making room, and then I guide his tip into the heat of me.

  I see Dash blink once, his eyes going wide, and then he’s got me by the thighs. He murmurs, “love you,” soft and slow. I feel his fingers shaking. “Do it,” I beg. He blinks, shutting his eyes for just a moment. Then he thrusts—and all at once, I’ve entered heaven.

  They say that it’s supposed to hurt. That there is blood, and women cry, but that’s not how it is for me.

  All at once I’m filled. I’m whole.

  Dash touches my deepest ache and makes it good. He makes my body sweat and scream and flinch and buck and rub against his. He makes my head spin so fast I don’t know what I’m doing, what I’m saying. I’m saying “I love you.” He echoes it back and while it’s fast, it’s hard, it’s rough, I love it so much. There is nothing better in this world than Dash inside me, moving, grunting, sweating. I allow it. I allow him anything he wants, and so he takes and I give.

  Then he’s finished. I’m still aching, so he claims me with his mouth, and I come apart into a million pieces. I am dancing in the moonlight.

  Afterward, I’m wrapped in Dash’s shirt. He holds me in his lap, lamb-style, kissing my cheeks and chin and hair and eyes.

  When we’re more steady, Dash uses his shirt and lake water to clean my hands.

  “They’re not dirty,” I giggle.

  “I want to take care of you,” he whispers. “We should go. Somewhere that has a bath.”

  “I don’t want to let go of you.”

  And so I don’t.

  We lie there wrapped in moonlight, talking until the sky begins to lighten.

  “I shouldn’t have done it,” he says near the end.

  “Shut up, Dash. I wanted it. I wanted that to be with you.”

  “I’m still leaving.” He hangs his head.

  “It’s okay.” It hurts me to say so, but I love him. I just want him to be happy. “All you have to do is call—and come see me.”

  Sometime around six o’clock, Dash’s phone rings and he steps away to take a call.

  “Alexia,” he sighs, kissing my cheek. “She got fucked up and someone took her home. I need to check on her. I won’t leave so soon anymore, though. I’ll hang around a few more days; I want to be with you a little longer.”

  “Good.”

  “Just let me run to my house? Take care of some things? Did you say you’re going to your friend Lucy’s house?”

  I nod. “She texted. I could still go now, but I would need a ride.”

  “I’ll drive you.”

  He carries me to his truck, sets me on the seat, and buckles me. We stop at a small but clean motel, where Dash leads me inside, and he bathes me, rubbing me so that I come apart again.

  I look down at him, hard and strained, but Dash just shakes his head. “Just you.” He kisses my hair, and we hold hands in the cool and dewy air as we walk back out to his truck.

  At nine o’clock, he drops me off at Lucy’s family’s farm, half an hour south of Sandy Hill.

  “I’ll call you in a few hours,” he says, giving me a long kiss, open-mouthed and drugging.

  “Promise?”

  “Promise.”

  “If you don’t, you’ll wreck my world,” I tell him, trying to sound teasing. “Remember what I told you—about Mom.”

  “I would never wreck you, Ammy. I’ll sneak over to see you or we’ll meet somewhere tonight. You have my word.”

  By that night, his truck is gone. His word is worthless. And my heart is broken.

  Six

  Amelia

  Summer 2016

  It can’t be. It can’t be him!

  My body feels electric; at the same time, numb. I can feel my fingertips trembling, feel my pulse gallop so fast my head feels like a balloon that might float off. When I try to breathe, my lungs don’t seem to expand fully.

  I feel frozen like Lot’s wife—a pillar of cold, bloodless salt—as I behold his older face. His gorgeous face. With his dark hair long and straight, pushed off his forehead and falling around the collar of his shirt; his hazel eyes framed by stylish hipster glasses; and a coat of scruff over the hard lines of his face, Dash looks every bit the gorgeous artist.

  My eyes meet his for just a fraction of a second before I jerk my burning gaze down: over his shirt—slightly tight, a charcoal Batman tee—and then his knee-ripped, old and busted jeans. Where someone fashion conscious might wear Chucks or Velcro-strapped designer sneakers, Dash is sporting black flip-flops.

  I note a pencil tucked behind his ear and how damn wide his shoulders are before I have no choice but look him in the eye.

  I know my face is flawless and impossible to read.

  That knowledge is the only way I’m able to stay standing as I peer into his equally impassive eyes.

  We look at each other past one blink, then two. Dash’s face is carefully neutral: lips and chin set still, his big body immobile in his office chair. It’s his stillness that melts the block of ice inside my chest, that lets me know he’s affected by my presence in at least some way.

  I get the sudden feeling that he’s waiting for me to make the first move. Waiting for me to speak or react. Even as my neck and face flush, I refuse to give it to him.
When our mutual stillness becomes too much for my poor, twitchy nerves, I square my shoulders, and Dash stands smoothly, his face tightening almost imperceptibly.

  “You must be the writing intern I’ve heard so much about.” He holds out his hand as his mouth tugs into a frown, and, unbelievably, I shake it.

  “Yeah,” I manage.

  Damn, he’s big. His hand is warm. His face is close. Too close to me. And still, I stand in my façade. I release his hand at the appropriate millisecond. I step back and give that formal sort-of smile, a brightening of the eyes and shifting of the mouth that signifies polite intentions. “Amelia,” I say in a lilting tone.

  Dash turns, grasping another high-backed office chair by the spine and pushing it toward me.

  “Sit. Please.”

  His voice is low—and almost angry. So I pretend it doesn’t tickle my insides, it doesn’t make me want to grab him by his jaw and kiss him bruised and dig my fingertips into those thick muscles.

  I want to ravage him, abandon him. I desire to make him bleed. Do to Dash what he did to me.

  Eviscerate.

  And so I pride myself on my demeanor. Like a character from Pearl S. Buck, I tell myself as I sit coquettishly in my chair, beside his, and listen to him introduce me to the others in our studio.

  Dash sits, too—and I can smell him. Same warm skin, perhaps some product: deodorant or aftershave, shampoo.

  I smile for the others—animators Adam and Ashley, writers Meredith and Bryan, a props person named Amber, an assistant named Mallorie, and of course, the other writer, Carrie. There is a friendly chorus of hellos before they turn back to their work, with Carrie settling in a cubby beside Meredith and Bryan.

  I straighten my posture. Glee trills through me as Dash’s gaze dips to some papers on the desk in front of us, then lifts to mine.

  For a heartbeat, I perceive uncertainty. Or maybe not. It’s gone so fast, there’s no way to be sure.

  Dash blinks, frowning like he just remembered some annoyance. “Are you ready to get started?”

  “Sure.”

  My voice is a corporeal thing, a crisp veil in the too-warm air between us. Evidencing my travels and a fair amount of intention, I’ve shed the worst of my Southern drawl. My tone is still soft—that’s just my voice—but I know how to put a point on it when needed.