Free In Deep by Terra Elan McVoy Page B

I don’t move either, not because I want to be touching him necessarily, but because he so clearly wants to be touching me. Immediately I know he remembers everything about grabbing me last night, whispering huskily in my ear. The center of my fly heats up, sending prickles out through the rest of me. I’m not sure whether I should move or hold still.
    The decision gets made for me when Gavin starts clapping, after the guy playing Grier gets bored by her continual, giggly missing, and has begged his friend into the game instead. Grier pouts and crosses her arms, but she must realize how drunk she’s getting because she does relent. She looks ridiculous and stupid, and she thinks she’s having a good time. Meanwhile I’ve sipped down only about a third of the way through this first beer, even though it’s Saturday and I don’t have practice tomorrow. I don’t intend on sleeping in another bathtub again. Or on that fleabag couch, either.
    â€œCome on, let’s get some air,” Gavin says, hooking Grier under his arm again like she’s some adorable package.
    I stride ahead, imagining what I’d do if he reached out and touched me right now. Even though we’re several feet apart, it’s almost like I can feel his hand on my back as we go through the screened-in back porch, where a bunch of kids are staring into their own or one another’s phones. We move out into the wide expanse of lawn closer to the edge of the lake, where the bonfire’s happening. We sit down together in the grass, just beyondthe circle of people up close to the fire. I can’t tell if it’s on purpose or just the way things work that Gavin ends up between me and Grier.
    The fire is leaping and golden, and the kids in front of us are only tall, dark shadows against it. We’re close enough to be warm, but not hot. It’s dumb, I know, but I can’t help checking to see if there’s a fire ring. Things could get out of control very quickly with a bunch of drunk kids around, so it makes me feel better when I see cinderblocks half-buried in a circle around it.
    I’m about to ask Gavin if he came here a lot when he was in high school, both to be lewdly funny and because it’s awkward for none of us to be talking, when Grier goes, “You two are the best,” from nowhere.
    We look at her. Her face is amber from the glow of the fire, and she’s propped on her elbows in the grass like a little kid. She sits up and reaches across Gavin to squeeze my arm.
    â€œGavin’s only been here a week and I feel like we’ve been together forever,” she coos. “I could stay here into infinity. This fire. So nice. You two.” But then she jerks her head up from Gavin’s shoulder. “You need to be nicer to each other, though.”
    She’s in the let-me-tell-you-how-I-really-feel mode she gets in that means “superdrunk.” We haven’t even been here for an hour, I don’t think.
    She pats Gavin’s face with sloppy little slaps. “Why aren’t you nicer to my friend?”
    He smiles down at her. “You’re goofy. Brynn and I like each other fine.”
    I remember his hand on my hip, his mouth so close to mine. Not even twenty-four hours ago.
    â€œNo, you don’t.” Her blurry eyes roll in my direction. “Why aren’t you nicer to Gavin? This is the first guy I’ve really liked.” She leans to pat me, too, but swoops in a little too far and almost falls into Gavin’s lap. I have a feeling Gavin and I are about to have to be plenty nice to each other as we hold Grier over the lake while she pukes her guts out, but I just smile at them both in a way that I hope hides the anxiety rising in my chest.
    â€œSee?” She points a finger in my face. “You don’t deny it, do you?”
    I don’t know where she’s going with this. She doesn’t know where she’s going.
    â€œI