“I’m trying to impress you. And I was hoping we could make out on the beach later. I guess we’ll have to scratch that one.”
I pull him close, and kiss him. “We can make out in the car.”
Necking in a steamy car, with the windows fogged up and rain slamming down, gives us an air of privacy. Were it not for the console between us I would be in his lap. And were it not for the presence of children at the oyster bar, my mouth might be there instead.
But keeping things PG-13 has its own erotic appeal. By the time the storm stops I am dying, actuallydying,to have sex.
“Let’s go to a seedy motel,” I pant. “There’s that place that charges by the hour off the highway. I’m slutty enough to find it hot.”
“Hold that thought,” Seth says.
His phone has been lighting up with notifications. He checks his messages and turns to me, looking sly.
“My family is going out to Heron Key for dinner. They’ll be gone for a few hours. Do you know what that means?”
I shake my head.
“My childhood home has no parents.”
His childhood home was the locale of many of our horniest nights.
“You really want to bone me in a twin bed?”
He nods gravely. “Ireallywant to bone you in a twin bed.”
I can’t deny that this holds a certain nostalgic appeal. Plus, as much as I fancy myself charmed by roadside motels, Barb Rubenstein’s sheets are far less likely to have bed bugs.
I laugh and shake my head. “Okay, Rubenstein. Let’s go.”
His parents’ house is exactly as I remembered it. A large, pleasant split-level in a gated community built on a golf course.
It still smells the same way it did in high school—like clean counters and Seth’s mom’s beloved peppermint tea.
“Feels like home,” I say.
“I’m sure my parents would be happy to have you move in.”
“Great, I’ll consider that.”
“Want anything?” Seth asks. “Water? Wine? One of my mom’s three zillion diet sodas?”
“Just you.”
“As you wish, my lady.”
He takes my hand and escorts me to his bedroom. His parents, remarkably, have not redecorated it in the two decades since he left home. It still has his twin bed with its madras print bedspread. His bookshelf brimming with sci-fi paperbacks. Even his old desk, with the bulbous turquoise iMac he used in high school.
And his bulletin board, tacked with the same snapshots that were there the last time I was in this room. Seth with his friends from space camp. Seth with Jon and Kevin, grinning and sweaty in their soccer uniforms. Seth and Dave, wearing Minnie Mouse ears at Disney World.
And then there are the ones of Seth and me. Our official portrait from homecoming. (I look distinctly uncomfortable, and he looks like he’s having the night of his life.) The two of us sitting side by side on towels at the beach, tangle-haired and laughing. And the one I always loved the most: the two of us standing in his backyard, his arm casually thrown around my shoulders asI lean into him. We’re both smiling, squinting a bit against the sun. We look so happy to be near each other. So in love.
I untack the picture and take a closer look. “I can’t believe you’ve had these in your room all these years,” I say. “Weren’t your girlfriends hopelessly jealous of me?”
“Yes, my girlfriends were all kept awake by the torment of my eternal love for my sophomore year homecoming date.”
“As they should have been. Look at us now.” I pull him toward the mirrored closet door so we can admire our reflection.
“They look pretty good together,” he says.
