“Jesus, Ivy,” he groans, rocking his hips back almost to the point of withdrawal.
I dig my nails into his back to keep him from going any further. He needs to stay in me. I’ll die if he doesn’t. He makes a few shallow thrusts, causing the ridge around the tip of him to rub against my sensitive flesh. I’m on the verge of coming again.
Something niggles in the back of my mind, but I can’t think what it is. Something I’m supposed to be doing right now. And then it occurs to me that I didn’t check my exits or make sure I could get away if I needed to. Tears sting the backs of my eyes as the realization hits me. My old fears don’t control me anymore.
Dr. Mehta was right. Telling Jon the truth made all the difference. Not only did he not reject me, but I feel safe with him. He won’t hurt me. I trust him.
I hold him tighter, twine my legs around his.
He thrusts into me with fluid strokes, and then, “Ivy!”
Another intense wave of pleasure rushes through me, starting from where we’re joined and spreading outward like wildfire. Down my arms and legs to my fingers and toes. Jon collapses on top of me, both of us sweaty and breathless. We stay like this for a while, until the world stops spinning around us.
He rolls off me and I hear the snap of latex as he removes the condom.
Holy crap. That’s what I forgot. Birth control. How could I be so careless? Stupid, Ivy. Real stupid. Thank God he had enough sense to use a condom, because I sure as hell didn’t think about it. I started up on the Pill again, but that was less than a month ago, so it’s not effective yet.
Something else tugs at the back of my mind. But like a vivid dream that vanishes when you wake up, it’s not clear enough to retrieve it.
“Ivy?” Jon asks, his lips against my ear.
“Mmmm. Yeah?” I’m so spent I can hardly move.
“Before I fall asleep, I want you to know something.” His words are still slightly slurred from the alcohol.
I nestle into his shoulder. “What’s that, baby?”
“Ahhh,” he says, sighing contentedly. “I fucking love when you call me that. It’s hot.”
I smile into the darkness. “You do?”
“And I love what we just did. All of it.”
My body is still tingling. “Yeah, me too.” Way off in the distance, I can hear some people talking, but everyone around us is quiet. I can tell that’s not what he originally wanted to say, though. “Was there something else?”
His body twitches. He’s obviously on the verge of falling asleep. “What?” he mumbles.
“That’s okay, baby. Go to sleep.”
“No. I need to tell you…something.”
God, he’s both hot and adorable at the same time. How is that even possible? “You do?”
He mumbles a few words, but I can’t understand.
Great. Why is it, when I want him to speak up, he doesn’t, but when I want him to be quiet, the whole campground can hear us?
“What, Jon?”
“Mmmm. I fucking love you, Ivy.” Then he rolls over and leaves me lying here, stunned, in the darkness.
“I love you too, baby,” I whisper, but he’s already asleep.
The next day, neither of us says the L-word again, but it’s like we’re newlyweds or something. We can’t stop touching each other. When I hand him a yogurt from the cooler, I can’t help myself and stroke my finger along his arm. Grabbing my hand, he presses his lips to the inside of my wrist, then lets go and eats his yogurt. When I take the cup of instant coffee he made me and sit in one of the chairs around the fire pit, he comes up behind me and starts rubbing my shoulders.
He brushes my hair aside and kisses the back of my neck. “That was fun last night,” he whispers.
“You remember?”
“Hell yeah. I wasn’t that drunk, Ives.”
I hear the zip of a tent and look up to see James emerging…along with a gorgeous blond chick I’ve never seen before. He grins at us as she puts on her shoes. After he kisses her and she leaves, he walks past us to the picnic table where the coffee supplies are. A few minutes later, he joins us at the campfire, a cup of coffee sandwiched between his hands.
“Have a good time last night?” Jon asks.
“I sure as hell did.” James takes a sip. “And from what I could tell, you did too.”
We spend the rest of the day going back and forth from the venue to the campsite. I’m glad that we got into the closest campground. Some people have to walk more than a mile each way.
On Sunday, we get up early and trek over to the stage, but both of us are so tired that as soon as we wrap ourselves in our blankets on the grass, we fall asleep. After listening to a few bands, we head back to the campsite for a lunch that consists of peanut butter sandwiches, chips and beer. Tina is talking to some girls I don’t know and Sara is sitting on James’ lap. Kelly tells me about the internship she just got with an accounting firm in Seattle, but she doesn’t know how to break the news to Reece. He’ll be working in Portland for the summer and they were going to rent an apartment together.
She changes the subject when Reece approaches.
I look around for Jon, but don’t see him. “Where’s Jon?”
Reece shrugs. “Haven’t seen him in a while.”
I walk the ten steps over to our campsite and pop my head into the tent. Jon is lying on top of the sleeping bags with his eyes closed. He doesn’t open them even though the tent zipper is really loud.
He’s not sick, is he? I kneel next to him. “Are you ready to head back over? O-Twist will be onstage in about twenty minutes.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Aren’t you coming?”
“I’m not feeling that great. You guys go on without me.”
I lightly rub his arm. “Can I get you anything? Water? Something else to eat? Some Tylenol?” We did party pretty hard again last night. I’m surprised I didn’t wake up with more of a hangover.
“No, I’m fine. I’ll try to rally for the next one.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. You should go. I’ll be fine. I just need to take a power nap.”
“Okay,” I say, kissing him on the forehead. At least he doesn’t have a fever. “I’ll text you.”
“The cell coverage sucks, though.”
“I’ll try anyway.”
Dani and a few of her friends are waiting for me. I’m glad that both Tina and Sara are coming with us, too. I know it’s silly, because I’m not really a jealous person, but I don’t want them popping in on Jon just to quote unquote see how he’s doing.
We get to the venue and find a good place in the middle of the crowd. When O-Twist takes the stage, everyone surges forward as if the crowd is one solid entity. People seem wilder than they were yesterday. Guys keep hoisting girls onto their shoulders (a few of them are even chicken-fighting), and security keeps telling them to get down. After the second or third song, a group of asshole guys pushes their way through to the front, almost knocking Dani and me over.
“Jerks!” She throws her empty water bottle at the last guy’s back.
After O-Twist plays one of their biggest hits, Sara declares that they’re awesome. “I had no idea this was them.”
They’re pretty retro to be playing Sasquatch—my dad has a few of their early albums from a long time ago—but no one seems to mind.
Someone else jostles us from behind, but this time it’s a group of girls.
Dani spins around, practically shooting daggers from her eyes. “Will you fucking chill out? Geez.”
I bite my lip to keep from laughing. Back at school, she’s pretty quiet. I didn’t know she could be so bold.
“Stupid bitch,” one of the girls says. “You’re in our way.”