But I’m the new, patient Sutter. I go into every store and look at every item and nod and make listening sounds—hmmm, oh, uh-huh. I even let her hold up pants to my waist to see how they’re going to look. As if Kendra and I had anywhere close to the same build! The pants all look the same to me, but none of them are quite what Cassidy’s looking for. Luckily, I brought along my flask.
Actually, it’s good that we have to hit so many stores. I want the afternoon to last. It gives us both plenty of time to take nips off the whisky and start getting past that awkward balancing act of the ex-boyfriend and ex-girlfriend trying to pretend they’re just friends now. By the time we leave Lola Wong’s, we’re having a great time, walking along doing the playful shoulder-bump thing, laughing at whatever, everything but holding hands.
She says screw the shopping, she can always find Kendra’s pants later, so I fill up the gas tank to go cruising. It doesn’t matter where to. We don’t have anyplace we have to be. The afternoon is ours.
I steer the conversation to the good times we used to have together, the parties, the concerts, the haunted house at Halloween. There are funny stories to go along with all of them. One memory really gets her going—last August when we sat on my roof in the rain and watched the lightning going crazy off to the west. It was charging straight our way, but we didn’t care.
“That was amazing,” she says, her eyes lighting up. “The rain felt so good on my skin. And the lightning cracking across the whole sky—it was better than any fireworks show ever. I mean, that must have been so dangerous, but I don’t know—I could just feel the electrical power like it was running through my veins or something.”
“It wasn’t dangerous,” I say. “We were immune to lightning that night. We had a spell on us.”
“We did. We did have a spell on us.” She pauses for a second. “I don’t know how many times I felt like that, just a handful. And every time was with you.”
I give her the old Sutter grin. “Well, you know me—the Amazing Sutter, master of prestidigitation.”
“You are.” She smiles and gazes through the windshield. “You bring the magic. I feel it right now. It’s like nothing can touch us, like everything else in the world—the problems, the responsibilities—have just disappeared. We’re in our own universe. I’d really miss it if we lost that.”
I give her neck a squeeze. “You don’t have to miss it. It’s right here. No worries, no fears, just a big fat Thursday afternoon wrapping us up in its arms.”
She leans over and nuzzles her head against my shoulder. “That’s right,” she says. “There’s nothing but right now. I don’t want to think about anything but that. Is that okay? Can we just do that?”
I rub my cheek across her hair and go, “Hey, it’s me, Sutter. Of course, we can do that.”
By the time we get back to my house, we’ve polished off the flask and started on beer, but we don’t even put a dent in that. I don’t know how many times we’ve made out on the living room couch, but kissing Cassidy was never sweeter than it is this time. Her hands swirl under my shirt like wild minks and mine do the same under her sweater. Every time I start to say something, her mouth clamps back on mine.
It’s a challenge to keep kissing while walking up stairs, not to mention peeling off clothes at the same time, but you know what they say—you gotta do what you gotta do. As we lie down on my bed, this feeling swells up in me like my whole chest could burst open and a bunch of new undiscovered colors would come flying out. Her body has never looked so beautiful, except for maybe the first time I saw it.
“You know how I feel about you,” I tell her, and she says, “Don’t talk.”
Then a weird thing happens. Her hands stop skittering and her body stiffens. I’m still kissing her heavy and firm but she’s not kissing back. It’s like yelling across a beautiful canyon and waiting for an echo that never comes.
I’m like, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Just go ahead.”
“What do you mean, ‘just go ahead’?”
“Just go ahead and do it.” She’s lying perfectly still now. Her eyes are closed, and all the electricity has drained out of her.
I prop myself up on one elbow and look down at her. “I can’t do it if that’s how you’re going to be.”
Of course, part of me is thinking I really could physically do it, but that wouldn’t be any good. The whole magnetic thing about sex is you want the other person to want you. I mean, that’s what separates us from the animals. That and haircuts.
“Are you thinking about Marcus or something?” I hate to mention another guy’s name when I’m in bed with a naked girl, but it’s a question that has to be asked.
Her eyes clench tighter.
“Are you, like, in love with him?”
“I don’t want to talk about him right now.” Her bottom lip’s trembling.
“It’s just a yes or no thing. I’m not asking for a whole essay.”
“I don’t know.” The tears start to track down. “Maybe. I’m, like, really confused right now.”
“What about me? What about this afternoon?”
“That’s what’s got me so confused.” She pauses and sniffs. This is looking like it’s going to be one of those real red-faced, high-snot-content kind of cries. “This afternoon has been wonderful. It really has.”