Page 20 of Summer Skate

CARTER

I’ VE HAD ABOUT ENOUGH . I’ M CLOSING this deal.

I wait until I hear her car in her driveway, then I walk to her house.

I’m walking, or at least I think I’m walking.

I don’t feel much like a person, more like a pile of nerve endings that is somehow making its way from one place to another.

I don’t go into the house, just head straight to the gate, which opens into the backyard.

The gate is tricky, and apparently doesn’t respond to throwing your whole body directly into it.

Four times. I reach over the top and fiddle with the lock, which doesn’t work.

It jingles, but doesn’t open. I have one remaining option and that is to break it, leaving in my wake a small piece of silver metal, lying on the grass.

“Somebody broke your gate,” I say to her, she who is sitting with her legs crossed on a lounge chair in a black bikini. She is drinking a beer.

She laughs and rubs her forehead. “Oh, really? Who was it? That rabbit who is always running in and out of the bushes?” She stands up.

“Could be.”

She crosses her backyard to examine the damage. I run my eyes over her whole body, not sure where to look first. I’m taking it all in. I want to touch and lick and I don’t know where to begin.

“Carter, what the fuck! The guy who owns this place is going to kill me . . . ”

“Has he seen you? You’ll be fine.”

“You could have just called me . . . I was sitting right here.”

She sits back down, hands me a can, and then shifts on her towel so that she is lying down. I sit next to her. I am trying not to ogle her. I am trying to look her in the eye, to pretend like I’m not losing my fucking mind. I have no idea the degree to which I am pulling this off, but I am trying.

I take a long sip and put my hand underneath her thigh and squeeze. I say: “Let’s go in the water.”

We take our drinks to the edge of the pool. We get in.

Once I get her in the pool, I’m relaxed. The water slows me down, makes me feel in less of a rush. I can take my time. She wants me. I want her. It’s no longer a matter of if , just when, how, what. A question of strategy.

The water is dark, but there is a circular light at each end of the pool, illuminating our fragmented bodies. Her legs are bent under the water and the only thing I can see clearly is her head and the tops of her shoulders, the straps of her bathing suit tied behind her neck.

We wade around in the water for a while.

“How was your night?” I ask. “Did you sell all your copies?”

“Every last one.”

“I bet.”

I shake my head. “That Glamour chick.”

“I know. Believe me, I know.”

She goes underwater and swims to the other side of the pool. I watch as her legs go from one end of the pool to the other. She comes up for air, rubs her eyes. She looks even more beautiful coming out of the water, with her hair and eyelashes wet.

“Did you know that there’s a blue moon tonight?” I ask her.

She looks up. “ Oh . Wow,” she says. “The moon . . . the stars. You’re really pulling out all the stops for me.”

“Whatever it takes.”

“I had no idea there’d be a blue moon tonight,” she says, still looking up.

“That’s because you don’t live with a psychotic goalie.”

“What does it mean? Did he tell you?”

“Of course he told me. He hasn’t been able to shut up about it.”

“Tell me,” she says, softly.

I move my arms across the surface of the water, getting closer to her. “Well, it’s very rare.”

She takes a step back. “That I knew.”

“It can accelerate your response to things. If there’s something you’ve been thinking about doing, now is the time. It means it’s time to level up.”

I take a step forward.

“Well, isn’t that interesting .”

“Hey, I don’t make the rules.”

Every time I get close to her, she swims away, goes to the steps of the pool, crosses to the deep end, sips from her beer. It’s becoming a ridiculous game of cat and mouse, the underwater version.

Once she stops moving, I position myself right in front of her, at the halfway point of the pool. Our bodies are a foot apart.

I lean into her ear, whisper: “Why are you torturing me?”

Under the water, I hold the sides of her waist with my hands. It feels so good that I almost can’t stand it. I touch the back of my hand to her stomach, graze over her belly button. She takes a step back, wriggles my hands off her.

She says: “Because I’m the one with something to lose.”

“I have something to lose. You could walk away from this at any time.”

“That’s not the same thing.”

She widens her eyes and then splashes a bunch of water in my face. I go underwater for cover, and by the time I open my eyes again, she’s gone.

I see that she’s now out of the pool, spreading her towel at the edge of the shallow end. She sits with her legs dangling in the water.

“I don’t think we should hang out anymore,” she says.

“Fine by me,” I reply.

“So this will be our last night?”

“If that’s what you want.”

Then she lies down on the towel, knees bent, hair strewn behind her across the stone. She turns her head to the side, faces me. She stares up at the sky, and I watch as her knees sway from side to side. I stare at the curve of her hips, the dip of her stomach.

I swim to her. I look up at the blue moon and feel like this night exists outside of time, like there can be no record of these events.

I lean down, kiss the side of her thigh, then keep going until I reach the side of her knee. I play with the side of her bikini bottoms, where the fabric meets her hip bone. She moves slightly to accommodate me. I look at her face. Her eyes are closed. I take two fingers and touch between her legs.

“How long have you been this wet?”

She opens her eyes. “Since I texted you earlier.”

“Do you always get this wet when you talk to me?”

“I always get this wet when I talk to you.”

I am so hard that I groan as I press, in a state that is almost painful. I groan again as she moans. I press again, and again. Her voice is getting louder. This is the most turned on I’ve ever been, the sexiest girl I’ve ever seen in my life.

“Can I take these off?” I say, as I hook my fingers into her bikini.

She lifts her butt slightly off the towel, tilting her head back, raising her chin toward the sky.

She’s running her hand along the side of my body now, across my stomach muscles in a way that is making me wild , wild with desire for her.

“Take them off,” she says. “Please take them off.” I pull them over her ankles and now there is absolutely no stopping me. I shift her body so that I can have both of her legs over my shoulders.

I put my head down and my tongue between her legs and the sound of her breath quickening is the best sound I’ve ever heard. As I feel her insides with my tongue, her breathing gets louder.

She is playing with my hair, running her fingers along my scalp. She is pushing herself against my mouth and I’m licking her as deeply as I can.

She is arching her back, panting and saying my name, over and over again. Carter turns to harder . Suddenly, she gasps and I quickly put my fingers inside of her as she bucks up and down and comes against them.

Her body lies flat against the towel. There is a siren in the distance as she catches her breath. I kiss her neck as she comes back down to Earth. My fingers are still inside of her. I am out of breath myself.

The siren gets closer, but because I’m so lust-drunk it doesn’t occur to me how rare it is to hear a siren around here.

“Do you smell smoke?” she asks.

“Do I smell smoke?”

She turns to me. “Are they pulling into your driveway?”

I can see red lights closer now, flashing through the bushes. “Shouldn’t you go see what’s going on?” she says.

“Jessica, my friends could be on fire and I wouldn’t go over there right now.”

“What about your drugs?”

“Oh, FUCK .”

The next morning, our car ride to go work out is dead silent.

We pull up to the brown-shingled cottage, just off 27, and get out of the car—me in my Nike workout clothes, Harps in some pair of ridiculously short shorts and a tank top, and JT in a headband, wristband, oversized T-shirt, and mesh shorts, looking like he’s about to play basketball in the nineties.

This class isn’t a part of our training regimen, but at some point, we discovered it was a great way to meet women and as far as the workout itself goes—well, it can’t hurt.

We call it “mobility training,” a break from the endless skating drills, the hours of weights at the gym.

On one wall of the cottage, there is a plaque with silver block letters, widely spaced apart: Tracy Anderson . The A is not crossed, so it’s just an upside-down V. Groundbreaking .

“Pass me that water bottle,” Harps says as we get out of the car.

“Get it yourself,” I reply.

“Geeeeez.”

“You could have burned down the house last night,” I say. “You guys were acting like fucking amateurs.”

JT says: “He’s pissed that we blew up his spot last night.”

I say: “You had to have fifteen candles lit in your bedroom, Harps? That was pretty fucking stupid.”

“It was a blue moon party.”

“So?”

“He had to have them lit,” JT says. “He did not have to forget about them once the girls wanted to go into the hot tub.”

“Curtains.” Harps shakes his head at the sky. “The curtains were my downfall. I am sorry, man. I regret my actions.”

JT says, “I don’t regret it. Carter learned a valuable lesson last night: Always screw as if time is of the essence. Because you never know.”

“I’m not in the mood for one of your lessons,” I say, pulling open the door to the studio.

“Nothing a full-body workout won’t cure,” JT replies. And I’m hoping he’s right. Because my full body feels like shit.

The pop music is already blaring. At this point in the summer, we know almost everybody in there. Harps slept with the girl at the front desk. JT is trying to fuck a blonde in a ponytail and all-white bodysuit who is busy giving specific instructions to another woman about facials.

We put our phones in lockers, then go to opposite corners of the room. It’s crowded, a packed class, filled with the sound of women gossiping.

For a hairdresser, he has such a weird hold on her . . .

What kind of surgery is she having again?

You know, people are looking for more personalized gifts these days . . .

The big question is: How much do you need a matching set?

Some are stretching in pastel leggings and neon sneakers, their breasts sticking out of the tops of their sports bras. Some sit on their mats, next to a set of miniature dumbbells.

I roll out my mat. There is one older woman who has been trying to get me to hook up with her all summer. She was married to a banker who turned out to be gay. She got ten million in the divorce. She approaches me, tells me once again about the movie screenings she’s doing in her backyard.

“You should come by one night.”

“Maybe,” I say.

“What night is good for you? We could do tonight! Tomorrow?”

“Oh, I don’t know . . . ” I look around, over at the door, where I see Charlotte come in. She is wearing pink leggings with a pink sports bra, her neck covered in gold and diamond necklaces. She has a lace scrunchie around her wrist.

The class is about to start. I watch her face as it dawns on her that there is only one spot available, and it is next to me.

She gets closer, gives me a steely look and then goes about setting up her flower-covered mat, positioning her phone to take a video.

She is annoyed, but she seems to brush it off.

She squints at the mirror, purses her lips. The show must go on.

A girl comes up to her to compliment her hair tie, whispering: “That is so cute!”

She whispers back: “So cute, right? I got it at a lace store in Venezia . I was in this little lace village. All Edwardian lace. It was a dream. Literally my heaven.”

I can feel my muscles tense at the sound of their voices. So cute, right?

The class begins. We are on all fours and kicking our legs up into the air. We are balancing on the mat with our hands and swinging our legs from side to side.

Everyone’s arms are flailing around. Every time I raise my arms, it’s hard not to hit Charlotte’s. I have to deliberately avoid her arms, which is hard to do while keeping up with the moves.

“Do you mind?” she says, when my arm collides with hers for the fourth time.

“I do, actually.”

Don’t get into it with her. It’s not worth it . I inhale to the count of four, hold for four, exhale for six.

She goes over to her phone, stops the video. She repositions herself so that she can start a new video, smoothing her hair and tilting her head from side to side to examine herself from different angles.

“You’re not supposed to have your phone,” I say. “This is a workout class.” She pretends not to hear me. Our arms collide again.

“You gotta move over!” I say.

She sighs, goes up to the front of the class, whispers something in Tracy’s ear.

Tracy looks at me. I clench my fists for ten seconds and then release them.

Challenge negative thoughts. Reframe from a different perspective.

Accept the imperfections of others and yourself .

I am trying, but nothing matters besides the monstrousness of this girl. She should get what she deserves.

Charlotte returns to her mat. I stare her down.

“Fucking tattletale,” I say to her.

“If you don’t stop harassing me . . . ”

“What are you going to do? Tell all your followers?”

“At least I have followers.”

“Yeah, you have followers all right, and not much else.”

She looks taken aback. Her eyes well up with tears. She turns away from me and stares at Tracy, tries to get back to the routine, but she’s moving slowly. She plays with her necklaces, fixes her ponytail.

She turns to me and says, loudly: “You don’t belong here.”

Tracy stops the music. All the women are staring at us.

“Oh yeah? Well, I was so uninterested in you the other night that I spent the entire time staring at the girl behind you. Why don’t you spend a little more money on your appearance? Then maybe nobody will notice you’re completely devoid of personality. Here’s hoping!”

She starts to cry and rolls up her mat. She walks away.

“Fuck you, Carter!” she yells, from across the room, and then swings open the door. Everyone in the class is staring at me.

“She’s the worst,” I say. “Fuck her.”