Page 75 of Him

“Fine.” I stand up. “Wait here a second.” I jog to the car and dig an old plaid blanket out of the back. When I rejoin Canning, I give him a cocky smile. “See? It’s agoodthing I never clean my car.” I spread it out on the grass and flop down.

Jamie sits beside me. We both lean back at the same time, and my hand comes down on top of his. So I move mine a couple inches to give him space.

But he moves his too, covering mine.

I don’t want him to know how much I like that, so I don’t lookhim in the eye. Instead, I stare up at the darkening sky over the lake and wonder how I’ve made it to age twenty-two without ever going on a date. I’dteasedJamie about it earlier, too. But here we are. Dinner and live music. Sitting on a fucking blanket in the park. I’ve never dated anyone before, and I’m probably not very good at it.

After a while the band starts up. There are four of them—a singer, a guitar, a double bass and percussion. The first song they play is a weak cover of a Dave Matthews song.

“Huh,” Jamie says.

“What?”

“I’m worried.”

“About the music?” I’m in a mood to be generous. “They’re just warming up, right? Every band covers Dave Matthews. It’s a law, I think.”

Unfortunately, things don’t improve.

“Could that be an old tune by Billy Joel?” Jamie asks.

I listen hard for a second. “God, maybe. It sounds like they’re trying to play ‘New York State of Mind’.”

“Not sure they’ve quite got it.”

I flip my hand over and squeeze his fingers as the sky grows darker.

By the third song, it’s so bad it’s funny. The lead singer looks out into the crowd and announces, “We’re going to play an original tune that my friend Buster wrote.”

Jamie and I both clap, like we know Buster.Go Buster.

“It’s called ‘Captive Rain,’ and we’re giving this song its world debut.”

The drummer counts them in, and the first four bars aren’t so bad. But the lyrics are… awful. I don’t know what the guy is singing about. Captive rain is coming at him like a...train.

“Oh my God,” Jamie whispers. His hand lands on mine again.

As the song progresses, I can feel him start to shake beside me.

“Shh! I’m trying to hear the music,” I say, and he pinches me with his free hand. “Dude, he just rhymed ‘chicken’ with ‘stickin.’”

Jamie snorts and I reach across my body to clamp a hand over his mouth. So he sticks out his tongue and licks my palm. So I wipe that on his shirt. Seeing as we’re seconds away from repeating our experiments with MMA, I make a suggestion. “Time to swim?”

His eyes cut over to mine. “I don’t have a suit.”

“Seriously?”

When the song finally ends, Jamie jumps up and heads for the trees that border the lawn. I wad the blanket under my arm and follow him.

He’s waiting a few yards into the woods. “Look out for poison ivy,” he says, and I freeze, looking down. “Made you look!”

“Jesus, Canning.”

He laughs and picks his way toward the water’s edge.

We can’t see the people on the lawn from here, but we can still hear the band. It’s almost completely dark, which is good for us. There are some rocks at the water’s edge, so I toe out of my shoes and put them in a safe spot. Then I strip off my polo.

Jamie is laying his clothes on the rock almost daintily. He’s even removing his shorts. I’d forgotten he was trying to keep them clean.