I watched her carefully climb down out of the tree. When she finally dropped from the final branch, I grabbed her around the waist and slung her over my shoulder.
“You promised me, Cade. Put me
down
!” she cried as she beat on my back as hard as she could.
“Promised? Really? I don’t remember that.” I was laughin’ so hard I could barely get the words out.
In the summertime, we spent most of our time down here at the pond. Our pond darn near covered an acre of land. It was surrounded by big, lush willow trees and my dad had built my mom a beautiful gazebo on the east side that had a swing made for two. My dad loved my mom so much. I remember when the gazebo was ready. He had tied a big red bow around it and brought us down here to watch her “open” it. She cried like a baby. They were always so happy and you could tell they were so in love. It grossed me out. I couldn’t stand to see them kissin’ and huggin’ on each other all the time.
Yuck!
Sometimes, Suzanna and me would come alone and other times my dad would make me bring my cousins with us. I didn’t mind bringing Cord and the twins, Colt and Cole, but Clay was too little and he was just a pain in the butt. Dad always said Clay only drove me crazy because he was just like me - he used to call him Cade Junior. That was crazy. Clay was nothin’ like me. I was cool and he was just a pain in the butt.
Today, it was just me and Suzanna and we were havin’ so much fun. Well, until she got scared that I was going to toss her into the pond again. I mean, sure, I had been known to toss her into the pond now and then. But I loved the look on her face when she would fly up outta the water. That look cracked me up. Her red hair was always shinin’ and her eyebrows would be all scrunched up. Today, she had climbed that tree so fast, that there was no way I could’ve caught her.
She was still hittin’ me as hard as she could when I ran both of us into the pond. I dunked her under the water and she came up spittin’ and yellin’. Her red hair was shining in the sunlight and her brown eyes were glistenin’. She had on a black and white polka dot bathing suit and when she flew up outta the water I noticed something. Something I hadn’t noticed before. My best friend had boobs. That was new. Or at least new to me. I never really looked at her like that. I knew she was a girl, but she was Suzanna. We had been pretty much inseparable since the third grade and I didn’t think about her that way. I thought that would never change.
But boobs are boobs.
I don’t care if they’re your best friend’s or not.
Well, I guess I stared a little too long at them, because she asked, “What are you looking at, cowboy?”
“Um, nothin’?” I didn’t mean for it to, but it sounded like a question when I said it. I was embarrassed.
Cade Walker was embarrassed - uh, that didn’t happen.
I started to swim over to the other side of the pond when she shocked the crap outta me. I felt her hand touch my waist, so I stopped movin’ and turned around. As soon as I looked into those pretty brown eyes, she grabbed the waistband of my swimmin’ trunks and pulled them off lickity split! How in the heck did she do that? All of a sudden, she was gettin’ farther away from me and I was left standin’ in the pond naked!
“What the hell?” I cursed at her as I tried to cover myself. I knew she couldn’t see anything, but still the girl had my shorts in her hands. She was swingin’ ‘em around and laughin’ at me.
“Give me my shorts back!” I shouted, trying in vain to get my shorts out of her hand before she got too far away.
“Nope. Think I’ll take ‘em with me.” She giggled and ran out of the pond. She took off toward her bike.
I tried to run after her, but remembered I didn’t have on any pants. “Suz, please bring me back my shorts. I can’t go home without ‘em.” At this point I was beggin’, but she didn’t seem to care.
“You promised not to throw me in the pond, Cade Walker...you did it anyway. Now, I never promised not to steal your pants...so I guess this makes us even,” she hollered at me as she started to ride down the lane on her bike.
“
Please!
Come back, Suz,” I screamed after her, but she was already gone. I had no idea how I was gonna get home. I couldn’t ride my bike home naked. What was I gonna do?
I finally decided there was nothin’ else to do but get outta the pond and head for home. I waded outta the pond, grabbed my shoes - I laughed thinkin’ at least I could protect my feet on the way home - and walked over to my bike. That camouflaged ten-speed always made me smile, well, until right now. Right now, I wanted to be camouflaged, but no such luck. There was nothin’ left for me to do but man up and walk my butt home. It would be dangerous for my manly parts to ride home on my bike. I couldn’t risk it.
I was barely up the lane when I saw the most beautiful sight...my swimmin’ trunks hangin’ from a limb. Thank goodness...I knew Suz wouldn’t embarrass me like that. Well, I’d hoped she wouldn’t.
I put my shorts on and jumped on my bike. Suzanna’s house was just down the lane from my family’s ranch. So, I had to ride by her house to get home. After what she did, I thought she deserved a little ribbin’. I was gonna stop and give her a hard time and maybe even tell her mom what she did. That would embarrass her.
When I got close to her lane, I could see her standin’ on her front porch talkin’ to somebody. As I got closer I saw who it was, Branch Johnson. That jerk, what the heck was he doin’ here with my girl, uh, I mean Suzanna?
I saw her walk down the front steps and he took her hand in his. Branch was holdin’ her hand? Really?
I watched them walk over to the swing-set that Suzanna and I’d played on since we were in the third grade. They each sat on a swing and they were still holding hands. I didn’t even know Suzanna liked Branch.
My stomach dropped when he leaned over and kissed her. Why? Why did he get to kiss her? We’d been friends forever. I guess that was why. She wasn’t my girlfriend, she was my best friend. That was different. He got to kiss her.
When he finally pulled away from her, she was smilin’. I loved to see that pretty smile. It lit up her whole face. I hated it that
he
was makin’ her smile like that.
I couldn’t hear what they were sayin’, but when he stood up and started to leave, he said, “I’ll see ya at school tomorrow, sweetheart.” He called my Suzanna
sweetheart.
My Suzanna. Why was I feelin’ this way? I was mad at that jerk for touchin’ her. I shouldn’t be feelin’ that way, because she wasn’t mine.
She was my friend. It’s not like I wanted to kiss her, right? No, I didn’t want to kiss her, but I didn’t want that jerk Branch to kiss her either.
I watched Suzanna walk back toward her house. She didn’t see me, but I think her mind was on other things, like how Branch’s lips felt when he was kissin’ her. Damn, I felt like I was gonna puke.
I rode off down the road to my house. As I pulled up to my front porch, I saw Cord sitting there talkin’ to somebody. When I got closer, I saw that it was Anna. Anna was cute, but a little weird. Maybe not weird, maybe more crazy. She was always lookin’ at me funny and laughin’ at everything I said. It was really creepy. Like I said, she was cute. She was kinda short with blonde curls. She always wore really tight clothes and super short-shorts.
When I got up on the porch, she ran over to me. “Cade, you been swimmin’?”
Really?
Nah, I’m just soakin’ wet for no reason. Wow, this girl never claimed to be the brightest bulb in the box.
“Nope, just fell into a puddle on the way home.” Yeah, I was bein’ a jerk, but I didn’t care. I was tryin’ to get past her and into the house.
She grabbed my arm and giggled. “Oh Cade, you’re so funny.” She put her hand on my arm and was rubbin’ up and down.
Why wouldn’t she just leave me alone? Now she was rubbin’ her whole body up against me. Being a thirteen year old boy I’d watched all the videos and had the talk with my dad, so I knew what she was doin’. But it just seemed weird when she did it.
Cord ran down off the porch. “I’m gonna take your bike and ride down to the barn, ‘kay, Cade?”
“Uh, you sure you don’t wanna stay here, cuz?” I was givin’ him a look that I thought said, “Save me from this crazy girl”. Instead, I guess my look said, “Leave me here all alone with this crazy girl,” because my cousin rode away on my bike. I would beat the crap outta him for this later.
Anna pulled me down onto the porch swing. She was practically sittin’ on my lap. “Cade, don’t ya like me? All the other boys in school like me, but you don’t even talk to me.”
While she was talkin’, she was runnin’ her hands through my hair and gettin’ real close to my face. “Don’t you wanna kiss me, Cade?” She pressed her warm lips against mine. She tasted like bubblegum. I started feelin’ things, like all through my body. Then my body took over like it just knew what to do. It felt so good. Even though I didn’t like her, my body was really likin’ this kiss. It was my first kiss, but I could tell it definitely wasn’t hers. She licked my lips and next thing I knew, her tongue was swirling around in my mouth. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to be doin’, but I guess I did it right because she kinda moaned.
I pulled away from her and said, “Wow that was....uh, somethin’.”
Suzanna~
When I looked in the mirror in my room, I don’t know what I expected to see. I guess I thought I’d look different. I looked the same, but boy, I felt so different. Branch had kissed me. He like
really
kissed me. Shouldn’t I look different? I felt like I was a grown up now. I had my first kiss and it was scary, but kinda fun too.
I didn’t know if I liked Branch. I didn’t really think I liked him, but when he kissed me, it felt good, but I guess that could’ve been because it was my first real kiss - on the lips. I would always count my first kiss as when I kissed Cade’s cheek in the third grade.
In my dreams, Cade was always my first kiss on the lips, too. I knew Cade didn’t like me that way, but it didn’t keep me from wanting him to. I was pretty sure I had a crush on him since the moment I first saw those icy green eyes in the third grade. Messing up our best friend status wasn’t gonna happen. Not having Cade for my best friend wasn’t an option.
A feeling of remorse about leaving Cade naked in the pond hit me as I snapped out of my first kiss trance. I guess it was wrong of me to do that to him, but he really did deserve it. Still, I kinda felt bad.
My mom wasn’t much of a cook, but she made one heck of a lemon bar. Since it was really about the only thing she could make, we ate them a lot. It was really weird that lemon bars were all she could make, but I guess my Mamaw had taught her how to make those before she died. After that, my Papaw didn’t know much about cooking, so Mom didn’t learn how to make anything else. It wasn’t like she really cared about cooking for Dad and me, anyway. She liked the lemon bars and since they were easy to make, she kept them on hand so she could at least pretend to be a good mom who cooked for her kid.
Cade loved my mom’s lemon bars. He would sneak in the house, because my mom didn’t like me to have boys in the house, and sneak them out of the kitchen. So if I took him a lemon bar, he would have to forgive me for the incident with the swimming trunks.
If I was gonna watch him eat one, I would need one, too. I put a couple of them on a plate and covered them with plastic wrap. I figured it would be hard to ride my bike carrying the plate, so I decided to just walk over to Cade’s house. I didn’t want to risk dropping them.
The Walker Ranch was huge. There was a big barn along with several other outbuildings. The house looked like South Fork off that show
Dallas
that my mom watched on TV. It was big, white, and had a huge front porch with tall white pillars. There was a porch swing on one side of the porch and a full table and chairs on the other side. It was like they had a dining room on their porch. We would eat dinner out there a lot in the summertime. I spent most of the summer with the Walkers and most of the nights after school, well just most of my time with them, period.
I had learned so much from them. They taught me what a mom and dad were supposed to look like. They were supposed to be in love. My mom and dad barely spoke to one another. Cody and Candy, they got mad when I called them Mr. and Mrs. Walker, were so in love. They were always holding hands and kissing. The way Cody looked at Candy was just beautiful.
The lane leading to the house was lined with beautiful tulip trees and it had a big white metal arch over it that read:
WALKER RANCH
in really pretty lettering. Below that there was a smaller sign that read:
Cody, Candy, and Cade
. I always felt like I was home when I saw that arch. It always made me happy, well, until today. When I got to the end of the lane I met Cord as he was riding by. He stopped in front of me. “Hey, Suz. Whatcha doin’ here? Did you bring me one of those?” He was ogling my lemon bars.
“Nope, these are for me and Cade. Is he inside?” I was holding the lemon bars as far away from Cord as possible. He looked like a wild animal ready to pounce.
Cord was pretty darn cute or hot as my friend Callie would say. He was a couple years older than Cade and me. He had darker hair and really pretty brown eyes. He was getting muscles and if I didn’t look at him like my big brother, I would probably wanna touch them, but
eww
that was a gross thought. All of the Walker boys were like brothers, well except for one. He acted like a brother, but it didn’t matter.
“Uh huh, he’s on the porch with Anna, they are K-I-S-S-I-N-G,” he sang that silly song like a little kid.
“What? They’re kissing?” I asked. My stomach was feeling a little funny. I didn’t want him to kiss Anna. I wanted him to kiss me. I really, really wanted that.
“Yep. You better leave ‘em alone for a little bit.” He rode away on Cade’s bike toward the barn.
Bull!
I wasn’t gonna leave ‘em alone. I wanted that crap to stop. I ran up to the porch and I was frozen in my tracks. I just stood there watching. I couldn’t tear my eyes away. Their kiss wasn’t like my kiss with Branch. They were using their tongues. His tongue was in her mouth. She was moaning. He pulled away and said, “Wow that was...uh, somethin’.”