My father is barely present enough to acknowledge me these days, most of his time spent on the phone arguing with creditors. The alarm system is engaged and the gate is electrified,” he says absently, flipping a paper and scrutinizing the contents. To him, I’m still a twelve-year-old with braces. At the reminder of college-namely, the tuition being due-my stomach groans and I roll to my feet, pasting a breezy smile on my face. College starts in a month and I’m already positive that none of the boys there will measure up, either.
What Gunner does to me in my dreams is more satisfying than what any boy could hope to accomplish in real life, so I don’t even bother with them. I’ve been in love with him, roughly, since I was twelve. And when the water molded his swim trunks to his lap, the enormous ridge between his thighs made my belly so ticklish, I turned so red everyone thought I had a sunburn. My knees shook beneath the water at the sight of his salt and pepper chest hair, the round slab of his stomach. At Paul’s birthday party a few months ago-both me and my best friend are eighteen -Gunner came swimming with us in the backyard and I almost hyperventilated. Really, there will never be enough time to absorb his big, bulky body. He doesn’t stop walking on his way to the kitchen, so I only get a few seconds to soak him in. He passes by the opening of the den and glances in briefly, smirking when he spies me collapsed on the Twister mat beside his laughing son.
Outwardly, I try not to show a reaction, but on the inside I’m rattling like a rickety wooden roller coaster and my stomach has been left at the top of the steep drop. I’m getting ready to disrupt his balance by bumping him with my hip when the front door of the house opens and closes briskly. “List it, dude!” Paul yells at the television-which he is watching upside down through his legs. Three of our other friends are sprawled out on the couch, cheering us on, one of them absently flipping through the television until finally landing on Love It or List It. Since I met Paul in seventh grade, his house has been my second home. We’re in his den playing Twister on Friday night, as we’ve done so many times growing up. I stretch my right leg out and hook it around my best friend, Paul, stamping it down on the red spot, giggling when my arms start shaking from holding myself in place too long.
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