As far as I could tell, Phoenix just wanted a friend.
So it was better if he stayed covered because there was something totally drool-worthy about his muscles and all that skin displaying his bleeding heart tattoo. It covered so much real estate, it must have hurt like a bitch to get that done. Given that his shorts were too big, they tended to strain down, exposing the ab muscles I now understood how he’d gotten. He had been tenacious doing those crunches. But I was determined that I could ignore any reactions my body made toward his and embrace a new friendship.
I liked his company.
I didn’t want him to leave.
I wasn’t really sure why but I figured it didn’t matter.
For the first time all summer, I wasn’t spending the majority of my time hating myself.
“Here, let me carry that,” he said, taking the small, soft cooler from my hand. He also picked up the blanket and tucked it under his arm. He gave me a smile. “Are we going on a picnic? Man, I never thought I’d be doing this.”
“Too lame?” Maybe it was too tame of an entertainment for him. I admit I was a little disappointed.
“No. It’s just no one has ever invited me on a picnic before. Once when I was about ten my mom and my aunt took me and my cousins to the fair, but they got high behind the grandstand, and Riley got busted for stealing a hot dog for Jayden. The cops cuffed him for twenty minutes to scare him before letting him go. I don’t think Easton was born yet. Or maybe my aunt was pregnant with him at the time. I don’t know, I don’t remember. I just remember thinking that it was like a whole fairground full of families doing normal shit and having fun and eating craploads of food, and I couldn’t have any of it.” Phoenix made a face. “And I have no idea why I just bored you with a shitty story like that.”
What did I say to that? I knew he didn’t want my pity. And he seemed to be musing about the past more than anything. “I don’t have any hot dogs,” I said. “But I can pretty much guarantee insects and oppressive sun, so you’ll get the genuine picnic experience.”
Phoenix gave a short laugh. “Thanks. That’s nice of you.”
“When I was ten I had a bird shit on my head at the fair. I tried to wash it out in the bathroom but it was still gunky and I cried for an hour before insisting on sitting in the car alone sulking.” The memory made me smile. “I was kind of a jerk about it. And my brothers called me Shithead for the rest of the summer.”
“Brothers are good for that. Probably the only reason I’m glad I don’t have any. Are they older than you?”
“Yes.” We started down the stairs. “They’re thirty and twenty-seven. I was born when my brother was in kindergarten. I think I was a bit of a surprise.” Though I was pretty confident it was a happy surprise. My mother had always wanted a girl, and one of her favorite things to do was take me for a mani/pedi.
“Why is everyone so surprised by pregnancy?” Phoenix asked. “If you have sex, the probability is there.”
Wondering if he was thinking about Angel, I locked the front door behind us. “True. But my mom is sixty now. I think she thought she was too old to get pregnant again.”
“I don’t know how old my mom is,” he said as we walked down the driveway. There was a frown on his face. “I guess she has to be about . . . forty-three?”
“How old are you?” I asked him, starting to hate his mother. She sounded awful. We got in my car, Phoenix loading the cooler and blanket into the backseat.
“I’m twenty. My birthday is September second.”
“That’s in a week and a half. Do you have plans?”
“I plan to sit outside somewhere and appreciate my freedom. Maybe I’ll buy myself a Dilly Bar at DQ.”
It had been a stupid question. What kind of plans did I expect him to have? A big event at a restaurant? A party bus? “That sounds awesome. Can I steal that idea for my birthday in November? It’ll be my twenty-first, too, and I know everyone is going to expect me to go out and party and get loaded and it just isn’t my thing. Not anymore.”
“It’s your birthday. Do whatever you want. Fuck ’em.”
“I have a feeling you’re better at living that philosophy than I am. I worry too much about what people think.” Part my personality, part the way I’d been raised, I was definitely a people pleaser. I wanted everyone to be happy. To like me. I backed down the driveway and paused at the street, but as I looked left and the right, I saw Phoenix was doing it again, staring at me in a way I didn’t understand.
“We’re pack animals. It’s natural to want to belong. But some of us never will. We’re meant to be alone.”
Was that me now? God, I hoped not. I was so lonely I ached with it. But here, in the hot car with Phoenix, I felt like at least one person understood what I felt like, and I wondered if two loners could make each other less lonely. So far, the answer for me was yes.
“Do you want to drive?” I asked, putting my car in park. I didn’t want to have to focus on the road. I wanted to watch him, and I wanted to feel . . . I don’t know . . . taken care of.
But he shook his head. “I don’t have any insurance.” Then for some reason he laughed. “Actually, I don’t even have a license.”
“You don’t have a license? I thought you said you borrowed Riley’s car. Why don’t you have a license?”
“Long story.” He was smiling. “But the gist of it is you need actual proof of who you are to get a driver’s license. I don’t have any of that. No birth certificate, no Social Security card. Just my criminal record. And I might have possibly been breaking the law in driving up the street, but don’t tell my parole officer.”
It didn’t seem like being unable to drive or breaking parole was all that hilarious, but he looked good smiling. I couldn’t help but grin back. “I guess I’m driving then.”
“Good plan.”
The park was only a few minutes away. I found a spot in the lot, and we climbed out and moved past the reflecting pool where kids were dipping their fingers and dogs were drinking. It wasn’t as hot as it had been, and the sun felt good on my bare shoulders as we staked out a spot and Phoenix spread the blanket. The band playing in the gazebo was some kind of big band–style quintet, and the majority of the guys I knew would think it was seriously corny, but Phoenix didn’t say anything. He just laid down on the blanket and stripped his shirt up, balling it behind his head. His foot tapped up and down to the music and he lounged.
“Look at the sky,” he said.
Using my hands to cradle my head, I lay down on my back next to him and stared upward at the vast blue umbrella of the atmosphere above us. I felt a lazy contentment I hadn’t in months. The breeze ruffled the sundress I had put on, not because it was a fashion statement but because it was loose and easy and didn’t crawl up my ass like all those short shorts I had bought last year. My dress danced over my knees, and my hair ruffled softly, and the sun warmed my skin while the band played something bouncy and retro in the background.
“‘The bluebird carries the sky on his back.’ That’s Henry David Thoreau.” Poetry didn’t always make sense to me, but the American transcendentalists we had studied freshman year told a simple message I could understand.
“‘No one is free, even the birds are chained to the sky,’” Phoenix said. “That’s Bob Dylan.”
Turning my head toward Phoenix, I ran my tongue over my bottom lip, in a bit of awe of the moment, that I was here, like this, with him, someone I hadn’t even known two days earlier, and that the jagged edges of anxiety were being softened. “Poor birdies,” I whispered. “Chained, carrying the sky . . . so burdened.”