No Regrets (9 page)

“But you were,” Tricia says.

“You were on it, man,” Henry agrees. “Lifeguarding in action. Did you fill out a report?”

“I turned it in to Cindy when I left the pool this afternoon. She thinks everything will be okay.” Whenever there is an accident at the pool we have to fill out a series of paperwork and reports and turn them into the main office. Liability and stuff.

Henry props his elbow behind my head and discretely brushes the skin under my ear. Damn him.

“Anyone need a drink?” I ask, jumping to my feet.

“Beer,” Tricia says.

Tate calls out, “Same.”

“I’ll help,” Henry says, following me out of the room.

I’m barely out of the living room when he has me pressed against the refrigerator. Magnets and photos drop around my feet. “Do you feel that?” he asks between kisses and I wonder if he’s talking about the magnetic bottle cap opener digging into my back or something else that I definitely feel pushing against my lower stomach.

“Umm?” I hum into his mouth.

“There’s like a vibration between us. I don’t know if I can go back out there.”

“We have to,” I say twisting away from him even though I don’t want to. “They’ll come for us eventually. Tricia knows but obviously T
ate is clueless and he has to stay that way.”

He opens the refrigerator and pulls out four beers, holding two in each han
d. I take two away from him. “I’m giving him another hour, then he has to leave.”

“What are you going to do?” I whisper. “Kick him out?”

“Why don’t I just tell him I want to make out with you. He’ll leave, right?”

I shake my head. “We can’t tell him. We explicitly told him he couldn’t date or see or sleep with anyone at work. No way he lets us get away with the same thing.”

A thin line forms on the bridge of his nose as he considers this. God I want to kiss it. Him.

“He’ll punish us and not let us go on the overnight trip and then he’ll probably start screwing Mrs. Robinson and it will be terrible, awful, horribleness.
”

“So you want to keep this a secret from Tate?” he asks.

“Don’t you think we should?”

He nods slowly, settling his fingers on my waist. “Whatever you want to do. You’re right, we’ve cockblocked him for weeks. No way he takes that well.”

“I say we keep this between the two of us and see where it goes, okay?”

Henry frowns, his eyebrows furrowing together like he wants to argue or something but instead says, “Okay.” He gives me one last kiss, a deep one, leaving me breathless
, picking up photos on the kitchen floor.

*

His hands move against my back, stroking the hot, sweaty skin. We’re drenched and disgusting. I taste the sunscreen on his face and neck, mingled with sweat and I should be repulsed. He should be repelled. From this position, with Henry leaning over me while I’m perched on the office desk, I can tell he isn’t repulsed. He’s turned on, visibly.

“He’ll catch us,” I say
.. A couple of kids shriek and scream from the pool deck jarring me into reality. Still, I make zero effort to leave.

“We’ve got to stop anyway,” he agrees, actually pulling away. He turns and adjust
s himself, a pained expression on his face.

“Later?”

His eyes bore into mine, “Definitely.”

I watch him leave, shirtless and brown skinned. Two magnificent dimples mark the lower part of his back, just above his shorts
, and I can’t wait to feel them, taste them. Ever since this started, my body has been in overdrive, which is bound to steer this straight into a disaster. I don’t want this to be a disaster but now that Henry and I have our chance, I can’t seem to care or place any sort of limitations on our relationship.

“You almost done?” Tate asks from the door. He looks clueless so I guess the pheromones between Henry and I aren’t noticeable. Yet.

I hold up my still full lunch bag but pretend it’s empty. “Yep.”

We take our lunches in shifts, Henry sneaking in during mine to
‘check’ something. Tate’s starts after mine and I notice he’s only got a drink from the refrigerator. He usually eats like a horse.

“No lunch?”

“Oh, yeah, Lisa brought something and said I could have some.”

Lisa AKA Mrs. Robinson. I lift a hypocritical eyebrow.

“You know I can’t say no to home cooked food.”

I give him a
pass for that and since I feel a little guilty lying to him about me and Henry. I walk out of the office and through the covered shelter area where Tate has settled into a feast of sorts with Mrs. Robinson and her kids. It’s an odd scene but not entirely out of line. We’ve all made relationships with the families at the pool this summer and if Tate is keeping his hands to himself, then everything should be fine.

If.

I take the long way around the pool, making sure to walk by Henry twice. He keeps his head forward but I know he’s got his eyes on me behind his tinted glasses.

Summer just got so much more interesting.

*

“I had an idea,” Henry says that night. We walked to the diner for dinner and he’s got a huge milkshake he’s sucking down. I’m afraid to even mention my job at the ice cream parlor out of fear he’ll be upset I quit.

“What’s that?”

“I think we should get tattoos.”

I jerk to a stop, forcing him along with me since our hands are connected. “Um, what?”

“Tattoos. Pain and Wonder is just down there and I think it would be sort of cool.” He points to the lights on the tattoo parlor down the strip of bars and shops.

I question for a minute whether or not Henry may be insane or something. “Where is this coming from?” I ask, because I’m fairly certain I never mentioned getting a tattoo.

“Well,” he says, turning to face me. He brushes my hair behind my ear. “I was thinking about your no regrets thing and it’s kind of an awesome idea. Especially since we had all that baggage.”

“No regrets.”

“I mean, we don’t know where this is going to end but we both want to give it a shot. I say we mark it—“

“Literally,” I cut in.

“Yes, literally. Because if we work or not, in a way this signifies a whole new phase in our lives. Dropping the past and moving toward the future,” his smile is adorable and he’s adorable. Even though this is incredibly stupid
, I feel the edges of my mouth lifting in a smile.

“No regrets,” I repeat, letting the words and meaning roll over my tongue.

His hand squeezes mine. “Exactly.”

I think that when we get there
we will turn around.  Surely, we’ll chicken out but I see the determination in Henry’s eyes and I get what he’s doing. He’s committing. After the damage we’ve done to one another we need to prove we’re both in this for real. No more games or childish behavior.

The guys at the tattoo parlor fit us in that night. I keep my eyes on Henry as the needle injects in my skin. It hurts. Like a mother, but it also feels
so good. The buzzing needle vibrates against my skin and it heightens all my senses. “This is so stupid,” I tell him.

“Idiotic.”

I’m flat on my back and he leans over to kiss me. I feel his tongue in my mouth and the piercing needle against my skin and in the midst of sensory overload, I let go.

*

“Your boyfriend is watching us,” Josh says over the loud jukebox music. It’s Thursday night at Motorhead and we’re all finishing our first fishbowls.

“I didn’t tell him to come,” I say. “Swear.”

“You didn’t tell him not to come either,” Tricia clarified.

I feel the sly smile on my face and glance over at the bar.
Henry’s hair is curly and wild and seeing him in a tight-fitting T-shirt and cotton plaid shorts makes me a little crazy. We’re half naked near each other so much that when we’re covered it seems to up the tension.

He’s not paying me any at
tention, drowning his own drink with his roommates, but he wanted to be close. I wanted him to be close.

“So have you guys done it yet?” Josh asks.

“Uh, it’s been like, three days.”

“Yeah
, but you’ve waited years,” he says. “I thought you’d be humping like bunnies by now.”

Tricia nods in agreement. “I thought they were having sex in the kitchen the other night when Tate came over. Alas, just getting beer.”

“We’re taking it slow,” I sort of lie. We’ve been making out whenever possible. In the pump room at the pool. Outside his apartment. In the car. It’s frantic and sex-starved, but everything has been over the clothes and we seem to be waiting for something, I’m just not sure what.

“He agreed to that?” Josh frowns.

“No, not exactly. I don’t know how long it will last, but like you said, we’ve been waiting a long time. It’s like this strange friend-to-more bridge we’ve got to get across. Also we’ve got this mutual cockblocking thing going on with Tate.”

“It’s going to be delicious when you do,” Tricia says and Josh smiles wickedly in agreement. “What about this weekend?”

The overnight camp weekend.

“Definit
ely possible, but I guess it depends on what kind of sleeping arrangements we’re given.”

“If you do it in the woods watch out for snakes,” Josh declares and then shudders.

Tricia and I look at one another and burst out laughing. Henry hears us and turns, smiling in my direction. “Go see if he’ll buy us a round of drinks,” Josh prompts.

I side out of the booth. I’m wearing another dress, on purpose, this time with thin straps that falls just above the knees. I’ve just started toward Henry when I see that he notices me
and my skin starts to heat.

“Hey,” I say, meeting him at the end of the bar. I smile at Syd and Charlie, his other roommate.  They wave back.

“Hi.”

“Josh wants you to buy him a drink,”
I laugh over the loud music.

“He’s not really my type
.” His hand reaches for my hip and rubs the spot only he and I know holds a secret. “But, I’d be willing to spend the two dollars if they’ll let you leave early with me.”

Henry’s blue eyes bore into mine and I lose all my senses.
Like pull off my clothes in the middle of the bar, senses. I lick my bottom lip. “I’m pretty sure you can buy them off.”

“Done.”

I wait at the bar while Henry orders and delivers the drinks. Tricia sends me an encouraging wink while taking her first sip. I guess they forgive me for bailing. I feel a tug on my arm and look over. “So you’re the girl,” Syd says.

“Excuse me?”

“The girl that has our boy Henry all wound up,” Charlie clarifies. “We finally officially meet.”

“I don’t know about that,”
I say, feeling awkward with their teasing. “But nice to meet you, too.”

Syd’s cute enough, with a lean face and pointy nose.
He’s got on a fedora and a shaggy beard. The hipster thing totally works on him. Charlie’s sort of a hyper mess, bouncing in his seat with a wide grin on his face. No wonder they smoke up all the time, trying to calm him down.

“We call Henry
‘The Saint’ because he’s been pining for you for so long,” Charlie says, his smile growing bigger.

“What?”

Henry slides between me and Charlie, cutting off any answer. “You ready?”

“Yes. Definitely.”

With our fingers linked we leave the bar, ignoring the cat calls from our friends. “This seems like a big deal to our friends,” I say, once we’re outside away from the bar smells and sounds. I rode my bike but we ditch it to walk home.

“They want us to be happy.”

We pass the edge of the business district, cutting through campus on the way back to our apartments. “I guess.”

“Josh gave me one of those,
‘don’t mess with my girl’ talks. It was weird.”

I laugh. “Josh
is
weird. But loyal to the very end.”

We walk down the street like a cheesy
newly-dating couple, tangled limbs and goofy smiles. Henry leans in to kiss me often and I taste the beer on his tongue. Every touch between us sparks the fire running just under our skin. “Your roommates like to tease me,” I say, trying to cut the sexual tension.

“I don’t think that was teasing.”

His jaw tenses but he doesn’t seem angry. Something else boils under the surface and I wonder about his ‘Saint’ status. How much truth there is in that nickname. I’ve been accused of many things but being a saint isn’t one of them.

“They’re nice
, though. Part of your post-fraternity thing?” A car speeds past us and Henry shifts our positions, putting himself closer to the street. He never loses contact, though, hands shifting fluidly from my hand to my back to my neck to around my waist. Mouth against mine. A trail of heat follows and my stomach burns and twists.