“So, what’s with your cranky face?” Button John’s voice came back to me distorted by an echo.
“I’m not cranky.”
“You so are. Is it Will again? Ooooh! Wait!” He laughed. “Is it your secret boyfriend, the copper?”
I didn’t laugh, which was a tactical error.
“Oof.” I walked into Button John’s chest because I didn’t realise he’d stopped and turned.
“Holy shit,” he said. “It is!”
I was glad he couldn’t see my face burning in the dark. “Shut up.”
“You shut up,” he said and jabbed me in the chest. “Actually, don’t shut up. Tell me everything. Have you seen his dick? What’s it like?”
“I haven’t seen it!” I didn’t mention that he’d seen mine. More than once. “I just kissed him, that’s all!”
That wasn’t all.
“This is not all!” Button John exclaimed, because even in the pitch dark he could see into my lying soul. He jabbed me again. “Tell me!”
“Okay! He kissed me, and I kind of rubbed against him and came in my pants.”
Dead silence.
I screwed up my face, while I waited for Button John to laugh.
“Holy shit,” he whispered instead. “That’s awesome! Natty, you had sex with another person!”
“I didn’t!”
“Okay, but you came, and there was another person there, and you were doing stuff together, and that’s pretty much sex, right? I mean, it’s a whole other league than what me and my hand get up to! What was it like?”
“It was really good,” I said. “But also? It was really fast.”
“Oh, yeah,” Button John said, and hummed. “I’d probably come in five seconds if someone else was there too. So, what are you gonna do next?”
“I—” I snorted. “I have no idea. Can we just get these packages hidden, please? It’s cold in here.”
“Right,” Button John said. He moved away from me, and I heard his feet crunching in the sand. “But we’re talking about this on the way home. It’s going to be all we talk about for a long time, Natty. I’m so jealous. I’m older than you, and you’re having almost-sex with someone! I want to have almost-sex with someone!”
“Well, maybe you shouldn’t have said he wasn’t hot,” I said as I followed him up the steep path to the chamber at the top of the cave. “Which he is, by the way. You’re just picky.”
“I’m not picky!” Button John exclaimed. “I just have defective gaydar. I would totally do the copper if he asked!”
I felt a hot surge of something that might have been jealousy. “Well, you can’t. He’s off limits.”
Now he laughed. “Calm down, Romeo. I’m just saying that, in general, I would like some dick. Obviously I’m not going to steal your secret boyfriend. I probably could though, if I wanted. I’m pretty hot.”
I pictured him striking a pose—I was almost certain he was—and laughed. “Okay. Sure. Now, hurry up, please!”
I followed the sound of his laughter the rest of the way up the steep path.
It must have been midnight by the time we headed home from Mayfair Bay. The clouds had vanished, and our way was lit by stars so close and bright it felt as though I could reach up and drag my fingers through the stream of the Milky Way and watch the ripples fan out across the universe. We walked in silence for a while, soaking in the starlight, our bare feet crunching against the dirt track that would lead up eventually to the village. The lighthouse came into view as we crested the slope near the farms; the beam cut a path of light out into the dark water.
“So, what did you and your copper actually do?” Button John asked loudly.
“Shh!”
