I suddenly feel like a phony, spouting off this shit like I’m some kind of expert. The truth is, if they hadn’t made me go into counseling, I’d never have done it on my own.
“And did it help?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. Maybe. I ended up making the football team my senior year after missing the year before, and I managed to get decent grades.”
The front door slams downstairs and then there’s the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs. A moment later, someone is pounding on my bedroom door.
I get up and unlock the door. It’s James.
“Dude, I’ve been texting you. Are you getting the beer for tonight or am I?”
Tonight? Shit. That’s right. There’s another party. I glance over at Ivy. I doubt either one of us will be in a partying mood tonight.
“I don’t think we’re going, bro. In fact…” I pull him out into the hall and close the door.
“What’s up?” James asks.
“I haven’t talked about this with Ivy yet, but can we stay at your family’s beach house tonight? After what happened last night, it would be good for her to get away.”
“Yeah, sure,” he says. “I’ll get you the key. Just make sure to wash the sheets in the morning.”
It takes us a little over an hour to get to the beach house that James’s parents bought as a vacation property when he started at PSU.
On the way down, we stop at Subway and pick up some sandwiches for later. The weather is pretty decent, so as soon as we arrive, we drop off our stuff and head for the beach. The house is on a bluff overlooking the water, so we zigzag down several flights of steps, which dump us right onto the sandy beach.
We spend a couple of hours just walking, picking up broken shells and rocks that Ivy says are pretty. My pockets are filled with her finds.
“I still don’t feel like I know you, Jon,” she says, as she examines a small, mustard-colored stone.
“What are you talking about? We just bared our deepest, darkest secrets to each other.”
“Yeah, but do I know your birthday? Your favorite color? Your favorite kind of animal? No.”
I laugh. She does have a point. “November 13. Navy blue. Ocelot.”
She makes a funny face. “Ocelot?”
“Yeah, they’re these really cool small leopards. Plus, I like the name. Say it three times really fast.”
“Ocelot, ocelot, ocelot,” she says, laughing.
“See what I mean? Ever since I did a report on them in the third grade, I’ve liked them.” I grab a stick and start writing our names in the sand. “Except for your birthday—January 14—I don’t know those things about you, either. Unless a lemur is your favorite animal,” I add, remembering her stuffed animal.
“It’s one of them,” she says. “I also love meerkats. I’ve watched every episode of Meerkat Manor.”
I nod. “Flower was cool.”
She knocks me in the shoulder. “Get out. You watched it, too?”
“I can’t say that I’ve watched every episode, but, yeah, sometimes. And your favorite color?”
“I switch off between teal and purple.”
Given what she was wearing the first night I met her, I should’ve known.
Once we get back to the house, we have a fancy dinner of Subway sandwiches and Diet Coke. It’s too cold and windy to be out on the deck, so I grab my guitar and sit on the couch. Ivy stretches out on the other end, with her head on the armrest and her toes—in matching socks this time—tucked under my leg. As I pick at a few random chords, she props a book on her chest—a collection of poems—and starts reading.
It feels good to just hang with her. Doing nothing. Saying nothing. Just being in each other’s company.
“Can you play me something?”
I look over and her book is laying facedown on her chest.
I start playing one of my father’s lesser-known hits. I can play all his songs, but this one is my favorite. I stop when I realize what I’m doing.
“Nice,” she says, smiling. “Is that something you wrote?”
I’m glad she doesn’t recognize it. “No.”
I change chords and a different melody fills the room. This time, it’s a song I wrote. Or I should say, am writing. I’ve never been able to get the ending right. And I’ve never played it for anyone before. Ivy is the first.
They say you’ll always like the music you listened to in high school because it takes you back to a time when things were simpler. When everything was new. First kiss. First love. First time you have sex. You’re standing on the edge of your whole life with the world stretched out before you. Everything and anything is possible.
For me, that time wasn’t simple. I don’t have fond memories that I relive when one of those songs comes on the radio. It’s when a lot of bad things happened. Plus, my father had a top ten hit at the time that everyone was listening to. I couldn’t get away from it. Hell, the marching band even played it at halftime once. I lost my shit during the second half and ended up getting kicked out of the game.
So I started writing my own music. Not to take after my father, but to get him out of my head. This song calms me, takes me away from all that.
The air around me stirs. I open my eyes, not realizing I had closed them. Ivy is sitting on the floor at my feet, her chin tilted upward, listening. I put my palm against the strings and the sound fades away.
She frowns. “Don’t stop, Jon. It’s…it’s beautiful. I want to hear the rest.”
I’ll tell you what’s beautiful. The girl in front of me. I exhale a long, slow breath, hoping I’m not in the middle of a dream right now.
“Tell me you wrote that one, because—”
“How did you know?” I ask, curious. She wasn’t nearly as confident when she asked the same thing about my father’s song.
She shrugged. “I don’t really know. It…it sounds like you, I guess.”
The initial chord sequence came to me while I was living in the basement of my foster family’s home. I’d sit down there for hours, often stoned, and play it over and over. Ivy’s right. It is a part of me.
“Mmmm.” She closes her eyes. “Keep playing.”
So I do, starting from the beginning. After the third chorus, when I get to the part I usually struggle with, the song changes slightly. For some reason, I reverse the chord sequence.
I stop, replay that part. It’s…it’s perfect. I can’t believe it didn’t come to me until now. I play it again, start to finish. Holy shit. That one little change has made all the difference.
Suddenly, I’m staring down into her warm green eyes, and she’s staring up at me. Something shifts between us. An awareness. A shared secret.
Without saying a word, she moves closer. With the song still echoing in the air, she removes the guitar from my grasp and sets it on the floor beside the couch. Her eyes are dark with need, echoing my desire. She hooks her thumbs under the waistband of my sweats, so I lift my hips and she slides them down. My erection springs free.
“Jesus, Ivy.” I can’t get inside her fast enough. I start to pull her up on my lap, but she stops me with a hand on my chest.
“Not yet,” she says and pushes me back in my seat. She frees my feet from the sweats and tosses them behind her. Which leaves me sitting on the couch, naked from the waist down, my cock jutting out at her. “I admit I had that in mind, but seeing you like this—” The tip of her tongue darts out. “—makes me want to do something else first.”
Holy fuck.
I’m pretty sure I just got harder.
“Is that okay with you?” she asks, a smile tugging at the corner of her luscious mouth.
“Of course.” She could ask me to do anything right now and I’d gladly do it.
She positions herself between my knees, leans forward and takes me into her mouth.