Feels Like Summertime (3 page)

“
I
f you shake
it more than three times, you’re playing with it!” Pop yells at me from the living room.

I look at my reflection in the mirror. I worked on the roof all afternoon, then came back to Pop’s and took a shower. I had to go to the store to get the makings for dinner, and now I’m trying to be sure I look nice. For what, I have no idea.

“I can shake it as many times as I want!” I yell back. I go out of the bathroom and find Pop waiting at the kitchen counter.

“Oh, thank God,” he murmurs. “I was about to throw in some tampons and pads so you could build a life raft and survive your period.”

“I wasn’t in there that long.” I grab a box and go to the fridge and take out all the dishes I prepared earlier. I made a salad, bought some bread and wrapped it in foil, wrapped sweet potatoes, and I have salad dressing, butter, and other condiments for the food. I got some hot dogs and buns, too, since I wasn’t sure if her kids would eat steak. I grab the steaks and put them in the box. “I feel like we’re doing meals on wheels.”

“I took it upon myself to get you a date.” He pats me on the shoulder. “You can thank me later.”

I drop the fork I’m holding and it clatters loudly on the counter. “A date.”

“You would have sat there beside her all afternoon fingering your vagina if I hadn’t intervened.”

“Pop, did you see her?” I hold my hands out in front of my stomach. “She’s out to here. Pregnant.”

“Pregnant, shmegnant,” he grumbles. “Best sex I ever had was when your mom was pregnant. She was hotter than a five-dollar pistol.” He gets a faraway look in his eye. “She would ride–”

“Pop!” I yell, trying to cut him off. “Stop it. I don’t want a play by play!” I stuff my fingers in my ears and scream, “Lalalalalalalalalalalala!”

Pop walks out the door grumbling, leaving me to follow in his wake like I’m on a towrope. I heft the box onto my shoulder and follow Pop to the golf cart.

When we get to cabin 114, Pop slams on the brakes, sending the cart skidding off the path. “What the hell, Pop!”

“Just testing your reflexes.” Pop cackles and I get out of the cart.

I don’t know why I came home. He’s going to make me kill him. Then he’ll be dead and I’ll be in jail. I walk up to the cabin.

The door opens, and Katie’s oldest daughter holds a finger up to her lips. “Mom’s asleep,” she says. She steps to the side so I can look in, and I see Katie on the couch with her hand tucked under her chin. My heart clenches. She must have been really tired.

“Don’t wake her,” I say. I’d hate for her to miss a nap. Aren’t pregnant women supposed to need more sleep?

Katie’s doppelganger steps out onto the porch, closing the door behind her. “What did you bring?” She leans over to look into the box.

“A little bit of everything.”

Suddenly a boom goes off behind me and Pop walks around the corner. His eyebrows are singed and his hair is standing straight up. “I think the grill starter is broken,” he says. “I had to light it the hard way.”

I pinch the space between my eyes, at the bridge of my nose, and count to ten. Then I count to ten again.

“If you want to eat tonight, you better put the potatoes on,” Pop warns. Then he goes to sit on the porch, pulls a newspaper out of his back pocket, and flips it open. “You’re going to starve an old man to death if you don’t get moving.”

“You know what, Pop,” I start to say, pointing my finger at him. But the door opens and Katie comes out. She rubs her eyes and my breath catches.

“Am I late for dinner?” she asks. She smiles at me and all my ire at Pop floats away on the breeze.

“You’re right on time,” I say. Pop rolls his eyes behind her back. I’m going to kill him. “Where’s my dog?” I suddenly realize I haven’t seen him.

“You mean Sally?” She grins at me.

“Sally?” Is she serious?

“Sally,” she says again. “Trixie named him. The rest of the kids agreed. It’s permanent.”

“Until I change it.”

“You
won’t
change it.” She stares into my eyes. “You asked my daughter to name him and she did. She’s been through a lot. Let her name the damn dog, Jake.” She marches back up the steps of the porch and slams the door.

Well, that went well.

“You’re not getting lucky tonight,” Pop sings out.

“Shut up, old man,” I grumble as I walk past him. He cackles at me and I flip him the bird. “Put the potatoes on, will you?”

He sets the newspaper down and barks at Gabby. “Let me show you how to cook potatoes, girl,” he says. He lumbers to his feet, rambles in the box until he finds the potatoes, and she walks around the corner with him.

I open the front door of the small cabin and peer around the edge of it. Katie is bent over by the stove and I stop to stare at her. From the back, she doesn’t look pregnant. She looks perfectly wide in the hips and round in the rear end. God, I sound like Sandra Bullock describing a football player in
The Blind Side
. That’s not the case at all. She’s all woman. Then she stands up straight, turns to the side and stretches her back by pressing her belly forward. She’s all
pregnant
woman. I have to remind myself of that.

Just as quickly as her pregnant belly hit me, so does the smell of baked goods. “What’s that smell?”

“Apple pie,” she says.

“You made apple pie?” My heart flutters like it used to when she kissed me all those years ago. I’m thirty-four years old. It takes more to make a flutter when you’re older. Food is a good way.

“Well,
made
is a strong word. I just reheated.” She points toward her daughter, who is on the porch with Pop. “I sent Gabby to the store.”

“Is she old enough to drive?”

She smiles. “Just barely.” She takes in a deep breath and rubs the flat of her palm over her belly.

“You okay?” I ask.

She nods. “I’m fine. Baby boy is moving around.” She narrows her eyes at me. “Do you want to feel?”

I point to the basketball-size hump under her shirt. “Feel your belly?”

She takes two steps toward me, lifts my hand and places it on the swell of her stomach. “Just wait a second,” she whispers.

I feel her breath as she inhales slowly. Then a tiny flutter bops the palm of my hand.

“Did you feel that?”

“That was the baby?” I ask softly.

She rolls her eyes. “No, I just have gas.” She grins. “Of course it was the baby.” She looks into my eyes, holding my palm against her shirt. “You don’t have any kids, do you, Jake?”

I shake my head and avoid her eyes.

“Have you ever been married?”

“You spoiled me for all other women, Katie.”

She shoves my shoulder and my hand falls from her belly. I want to put it back. “Wait,” I protest, “I was enjoying that.” She turns away from me. “Bring your uterus back. I want to touch it again.”

The front door opens and Gabby walks in. “Mom?” she says warily.

Katie looks up at her and arches her brow.

“Did he just talk about touching your uterus?” she asks her mother.

“Better my uterus than my vagina,” Katie sings out.

“Or your boobs,” Gabby adds, and then she shrugs. She jerks her thumb toward the porch. “Mr. Jacobson wants a deck of cards. He says he’s going to teach me to play blackjack.”

Katie crosses to the TV cabinet and opens it up. All the cabins are equipped with games and cards. She takes out a pack of cards and tosses it to Gabby. “Don’t bet with real money,” she says.

“Pop cheats,” I add.

Gabby clucks her tongue and acts like she’s shooting me with a pistol. “I got this under control,” she says, and she goes back outside.

“Her dad taught her to play blackjack when she was seven,” Katie says. “She’ll beat the pants off your old man.”

I grin. “Good. He deserves it.” I scratch my head. “So, about me touching your uterus again…” I hold my hand out in question. She takes it, lifts her shirt, and lays my hand upon her skin.

We suddenly go from curious and playful to warm and uncomfortable. “Um, this wasn’t what I meant.”

“Hey, Jake?”

“Yeah?” I feel that tiny little flutter under my hand again and a grin tugs at the corners of my lips.

“That day when you fell in the lake, the first day we ever met…”

“Yeah?” I wait.

“You didn’t pull me in with you.”

“Huh?”

“I jumped.”

I
shouldn’t tell him
. I know that. I’m playing with fire here, but memories are powerful things.

“You fell in the lake, and you
thought
you pulled me in, but you didn’t. I jumped in with you because I was afraid you would drown.”

“You’re lying.”

“Am not.”

“Are too.”

“Am not.” I go to the couch and sit down, then pat the space beside me. “You were so cute. And so drunk. You fell right over the side, and I was afraid you wouldn’t come back up, so I jumped in to save you.”

“It was so cold.”

“I know. I thought I would freeze to death.”

He sits beside me on the couch. “I kissed you that night for the very first time.”

Heat creeps up my cheeks. “I know. I remember. My first kiss ever.”

He jerks his eyes up to meet mine. “You told me you’d kissed lots of boys.”

I shrug. “I lied.”

“I was just glad I didn’t throw up.”

“Me too.” I bump him with my shoulder. “That was the best summer ever,” I say quietly.

“Yes. It really was.”

T
he first time
I ever wanted to kiss Katie Higgins, she was shivering inside a threadbare towel that someone handed her when she climbed up the ladder of the dock. I remember it vividly, because it was the first time I’d ever seen the shadow of a real live nipple on a real live girl. I’d seen nude women in Pop’s magazines, or at least the ones he didn’t hide well enough, but I’d never seen an actual boob before. Or even the shadow of one.

Her breasts were barely there, no bigger than mosquito bites on her chest. But her nipples seemed impossibly awesome. I stared at her chest until Pop smacked me on the back of my head and told me to get her a fucking towel that would actually cover something.

Embarrassment swamped me as I ran to one of the bins that held spare towels and pulled one out. I ran back, careful not to trip over my own two feet this time, and I held it out to her. By the time I got back, she’d crossed her arms over her small, but still perfect, chest and she was shivering. “Thanks,” she murmured as she took the towel from me and tugged it around her shoulders. Her teeth chattered as she pulled it closed in front.

“And there goes the magic,” Pop muttered. He turned to me. “Maybe now you’ll be able to think with the head that’s on your shoulders.”

“Doubt it,” I replied, since I could still see Katie’s nipples in my mind’s eye.

“You had better go home and get changed,” Pop said to Katie. He grumbled under his breath again. She didn’t seem phased by it, though, and she just laughed.

“I can’t go home yet,” she said. “My dad and my uncle said to stay gone for a couple of hours.”

“What the hell are they doing that takes a couple of hours?” Pop asked.

Katie wasn’t repulsed by his language. She just laughed again. “Playing Scrabble, I think. Whatever they were doing included a bottle of wine.”

“Is ‘playing Scrabble’ code for something?” I asked, looking from Pop to Katie and back.

Dad thumped me on the back of the head again. “Don’t ask stupid questions,” he said.

Katie giggled.

“Why don’t you take Katie up to our house and get her something dry to wear?” Pop said. He nodded toward the house. Katie turned around and I realized her skirt was sticking to her legs. And her pink panties were shining through the white fabric.

My dad popped me on the back of my head again. “Find her something dry to wear,” he said. “But you stay out of the room while she’s changing. I’m not ready to be a grandpa.”

Katie laughed out loud.

But then Pop pointed at her. “If you get my boy pregnant, I’ll string you up by your toenails.”

She giggled again. She held out a hand to me, and I slipped mine inside hers.

And that was the first time I ever held hands with Katie Higgins.

Katie followed me into the house, and I saw goose bumps erupt on her arms when she came into the cooler air. I motioned for her to follow me to my room. She followed, her tread light and wary.

I tried not to be too light on my feet, but the thought of having a girl all alone in my room was doing funny things to my guts. I gave Katie a t-shirt and a pair of running shorts, and I pointed toward my bathroom. “I’ll just go in there.”

I stepped into the bathroom and closed the door, leaning all my weight on it. “Holy shit,” I murmured. I looked in the mirror and ran my hands through my hair. Then I gargled with some mouthwash that was strong enough to steal my breath.

Katie knocked on the door. “You can come out now.”

Her sopping-wet clothes were piled up on my floor, and I could see the pink edge of her panties, which she’d tucked under her wet t-shirt. Panties she was obviously no longer wearing. The thought of Katie with her bare bottom touching my running shorts did funny things to my insides, and then those funny things shot straight to my dick.

I sat down quickly on the little futon along the wall of my room and shoved a pillow into my lap.

“Are you all right?”

“Fine,” I croaked.

“You’re not going to be sick, are you?” she asked, approaching me, her feet as soft as whispers on the carpet.

“Oh, no, I think I’m over that.”

She crossed her arms. “Then what’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing,” I muttered.

She nudged my knee with hers so I’d scoot over, so I did, and she gingerly sat down next to me. And my mind went back to the thought of her not wearing panties under my shorts. Shit. I’d never get rid of this boner with her here.

“You want to go back to the dock?” she asked.

“Why don’t you go ahead?” I replied. “I need to do something for Pop.”

She tilted her head at me. “What do you need to do?”

She leaned a little closer to me, and her eyes fell to my lips, then they darted back up to my eyes.

“I…I don’t remember,” I said.