Huge (29 page)

Jesus, she had detective skills, too. “What do you do in those notebooks anyway?” I asked, because I really had to change the subject.

“My notebooks?” Stacy lifted her head, her smile half-hidden by uneven bangs. “From school?”

“Yeah.”

“I draw clothes in them.”

“Clothes?”

“Yeah, I design clothes—skirts, dresses, blouses, shorts—like
sketch them in my notebook, draw patterns for them at home, then cut those out and make them, with like material and sewing and stuff. It’s way fun, and that’s what I want to do when I grow up, so, yeah.” She stood up, and while I was saddened by the fact, it was a relief. “What do you think?” She spread her arms and spun around. “I made this outfit myself.”

That explained why she’d been practically naked since about April—she’d been making her own clothes. But that seemed like a different thing to be into, and the outfit she had on was pretty sweet—the colors matched, the fabrics flowed, the style was in; okay, everything was too short, too tight, too revealing, and
maybe
a bit trashy, but I wasn’t complaining.

“You look
awesome”
I blurted, blushed instantly, and felt like ripping my tongue out for betraying me.

Stacy dropped her head, and if I didn’t know any better, which I didn’t, I would’ve said she was blushing, too. Then, out of nowhere, she flexed her knees, reared back, and dove—literally dove—at me, into my lap, kissed me, and sat beside me again, with her arms around my waist.
Un-fucking-believable!
And rule number three of my classified detective manual would be: always compliment the girl of your dreams, because she just might kiss you—
again
. Yeah, my rules stomped all ass; they were everything you ever needed to know. My plan, on the other hand, was garbage, yesterday’s trash, and I knew it. But for some reason, that didn’t really bother me.

Stacy was rubbing my shoulder blades with her palm. Her skirt had hitched a little higher up because she’d thrown her far knee over mine while fastening her lips to my neck. Meanwhile, I pondered the reservoir’s flickering surface, struggling not to let on how much it tickled, or to leap up and break into song. I tried to think nautical thoughts—endless waved horizons; infinite oceans in all directions; tranquil seas; water, water everywhere, and I couldn’t remember the rest—but the Lookout was certain he’d spied land in the distance and was standing tall, craning his neck to see it. Where the
hell
had that wine cooler
gone? Ah, there it was, so I swigged it, and it tasted awful—again—but I had to do something,
anything
, to get my mind off what was going on. Then Stacy kissed me again, long, slow, sticky, moist, and completely on purpose. Her skin was soft and smooth and smelled like hot tea with milk and sugar, and I realized that I had no words for this—the feelings, the textures, the taste, the smell—except that I was a goner, a total goner. The skin all over my body was alive and quivering, but she could’ve set me ablaze with a flamethrower and I wouldn’t have noticed, cared, or moved an inch away. I kissed her back—what else could I do?—and wrapped my arms around her waist, and held on tight, so I wouldn’t drift away, or drown.

Stacy pulled back, shook her head side to side, and smiled; her pupils were small and her cheeks were flushed. “Whoa,” she thrummed.

Yeah, I knew
exactly
how she felt.

We were quiet for a minute, or a day, or a week, just sitting there in the dark, watching the stars and moon twinkle on the water, holding on tight, hearing the breeze in the treetops, the party gurgling in the distance, but then Stacy shifted a little, her knee went too far up and struck something, just barely, but I had to say ouch because it was something that couldn’t be so much as brushed by a knee without smarting.

“Sorry, did I hurt you?” Stacy asked, looking down as she shifted her knee back toward mine. When she looked up, she was smiling that devious smile again, and said, “That’s not more bug spray, is it?”

No, it wasn’t bug spray. The Lookout, ever vigilant, was roaring a loud
Land Ho!
that no one could hear but
anyone
could see, especially if she was practically sitting in your lap. A lightning bolt of embarrassment crackled through me, and searing heat rose from my neck and ears. But there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it, and I knew it, so I tried to breathe deep and relax. Because if the Lookout was anything, he was committed to his work, and right now
he
was on the job.

I tried to cross my legs, out of sheer good manners, but my stomach muscles were stiff, knotted, and taut, which made it hard to lift my knee, and Stacy’s hand was pressed down on my knee, to begin with, which kept me from moving it, and which made everything harder than it needed to be.

“Can I see it?” she whispered.

I wasn’t sure I’d caught that; even though Stacy was looking me square in the face as she’d said it, and I saw her lips form the words as I heard them, so I had a pretty good idea of
exactly
what she’d said, and what she was asking, and just what it meant. When it finally sank in, the dilemma before me was all too clear. This was way too much for me, too new, too fast, too good to be true, and the
only
word I wanted to say was
yes!
But it also hit me that if I said yes, and showed her, then she would’ve seen
everything
there was to see, on top of the fact that I’d already told her everything there was to tell, or at least far more than I’d ever told anyone else, and then I’d be left with nothing she hadn’t seen or heard, nothing to hide, no secrets; I’d be wide open, exposed, vulnerable, and
naked in front of a girl
. What if she didn’t like it, any of it, or me, or worse, what if something went wrong? Because if I’d learned anything in life, I’d learned nothing was ever too good to be true, but something always went wrong—especially if you got caught with your pants down. So what was I supposed to do?

“Plee-ease?”
Stacy sang. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to, but I
swear
I won’t
tell
anyone.”

Goddamn, she was persuasive when she wanted to be! But could I trust her, when I knew I couldn’t trust anyone else? I gulped air, or tried to, but missed, and coughed. My legs might’ve been fidgeting. My breath was shallow, my hands were cold, my heart was racing, and my shirt was already off. How would I know whether or not I could trust her if I didn’t
try?
The worst she could do was laugh. Aw, shit, that would totally destroy me. But if she did, we were right on the water, so I could just dive in and get it over with and never have
to worry about anything ever again. So there was always that. But she wouldn’t laugh, she couldn’t; she’d asked me, she wanted to see it, and she’d sworn she wouldn’t tell, she’d
sworn
it. It would be our secret, not hers, not mine, but ours. Would she keep it, though? I didn’t know. How could I know if I didn’t try? But what if I tried and something went wrong, like it always did? I had the feeling I could ask the same questions over and over, maybe forever, and never get anywhere. Fuck it. I was going with the flow; the shorts were coming down.

“You
promise
you won’t tell?”

“I promise.” Stacy nodded, and kissed me on the cheek.

“Okay,” I relented as I untied the drawstring, lifted my hips, slid my shorts to my knees, and felt how warm and dry the rock was beneath my butt. First rule: keep your ass dry. Check.

“Holy shit, Genie, you got some big-ass balls!”

So I’d been told. But somehow I was ready to hear that, so it didn’t really freak me out or embarrass me at all. “Huge,” I reminded her.

“Well, they’re a little big, but not like mega or anything.” Stacy smirked at me. “So don’t let it go to your head.”

“No, my name,” I said. “My name’s Huge.” Couldn’t anyone get that straight?

“Omigod, yeah, sorry.” Stacy blushed and covered her mouth with both hands. “I didn’t
mean …
.” She fumbled, cut herself off, and stopped.

This was awesome, truly awesome. She’d made the mistake; she was embarrassed, while I was calmer, cooler, more excited, nervous, riled up, and petrified—all at the same time—than I’d ever been before in my whole stupid life. I was in new territory, out of my depth, had my shorts around my ankles, with
Stacy Sanders
sitting next to me, and I was in control of myself, totally in control. Shit like this did not happen every day; no fucking way, not to me.

Stacy had pulled herself together; it looked like she was flowing
with it, too. “I mean, uh, what I meant was … it’s nice. It’s …
pretty
.”

Okay, so maybe I wasn’t totally in control; maybe I wasn’t so calm, maybe I wasn’t all that ready. Because never—with all the dictionaries in the history of the world at my disposal and a million years to work through them—
never
would I have come up with that word to describe the Lookout. Never. It just wasn’t possible; I could
not
have said that on my own. But somehow Stacy made it work; it fit. I was
naked
, she was
looking
at me, and she could’ve laughed or insulted me or mocked me or cried out and ran and destroyed me completely, but she went easy on me, she said something nice:
pretty
. Yeah, I was more grateful than I’d ever been and just totally fucking floored.

Not quite as floored, though, as when I felt her touch.

No, she didn’t ask, and it was wrong to touch without asking or being asked, but I’d practically dared her to by pulling my shorts down in the first place. Besides, the Lookout seemed rather eager to make Stacy’s acquaintance, and if he was okay with it, then I was, too.

“Is that okay?”

“Uh-huh,” I squeaked.

“Cool, Huge. I really like you.”

She could say that over and over and over again if she wanted to and it would never get old. As for me, I couldn’t say anything. Not a word. I wanted to, but I couldn’t—everything was just so …
different
. Same motion, same mechanics, practically same size fingers and hand, and I’d done it a thousand, ten thousand, or a hundred thousand times in the last year alone, but this was something else, someone else, a girl,
Stacy Sanders, holy shit
, and it was
not
the same at all. No way. It was different, meaning better, way better, as if I’d left some small detail out and had been doing it wrong all along. It was like all I’d ever been touching was skin—okay, sure, buzzing, sensitive, tickly skin, but still just skin—because that’s all the Lookout was: skin and
spongy tissue and blood. But Stacy was touching all that and something else, too, something more. It was tender and achy and hurting, but it felt good, really good, like a bowl of hot soup on a cold winter’s day, and it spread out and spilled and warmed and lifted and startled and hurt and felt good again and even better and better still, and I wanted to tell her what she was doing, what she’d found and was touching, that I’d never felt it before, hadn’t even known it was there, that there was
more
to me than I’d thought, but it was
there
now, right
now
, because
she
was doing it.

But I couldn’t speak, my tongue was wooden, I had no voice; my mouth was slammed shut, just like my eyes, my limbs hardened, my chest steamed, my heart frothed, my brain went dry, so I had no words and nothing to say, but I wanted to, I
wanted to
anyway, to say something funny or nice, to make her smile or blush, to tell her something she’d like, to thank her, make promises, find in her what she’d found in me, and give it back, share it, but I couldn’t, I couldn’t; I was soaring and shaking and thrilled and lost and frightened and coming apart, and the best I could do was
warn
her.

“Look out!”

EIGHTEEN

I felt tingly, dizzy, and cold, almost as if—almost
as if I’d done something wrong. I stood from the rock, hitched up my shorts, tied them, and turned around to look for Stacy. She was further inland, squatting down and washing her hands in the stream that crept its way through the lower part of Darren’s property. The light from the party seemed harsher now, eerie; the tiny backlit figures I’d seen earlier were blurred and creepy, and the only sound I heard was blood flushing in my ears. Maybe it was all the wine cooler I’d slugged, maybe I was buzzed or drunk, because everything seemed a little slow, or tilted, like I couldn’t get my balance—like something was off.

“I hate that part,” Stacy said.

“I tried to warn you,” I blushed. Wait a minute.
What?

“It’s okay,” she chirped.

It was okay; everything was okay.
That part?

Stacy stood up, shook the water off her hands, and then dried them on her skirt. She faced me, tilted her head, and smiled. “What?” she asked.

“Nothing,” I said, staring, blinking. My brain was gluey; I was stuck on “that part.” How could she know it had parts, or one that she hated?

“Wha-aat? Tell me, please?”

“You hate that part,” I whispered, almost begging.