Eve and I are standing again in her dark kitchen. I’m near coma with nerves and she’s giddy and wide-eyed, bouncing Ping-Pong-style off the walls. I know how she feels. I’m superfly in my trusty navy hat, and I play it cool. Cryogenic.
After I help her put away a heap of swanky lawn furniture and take down streamers and a HAPPY GRADUATION sign—the aftermath of a toaster I clearly wasn’t invited to—we’re raiding her folks’ sauce stash and finding too little. Shots on an empty gut and I think we’re pretending we’re more bombed than we are. We heel it upstairs and I know she’s waiting for me to do something. Anything. But I’m arctic stone. Paralyzed.
A lava lamp glows against terra-cotta-painted walls and I read and reread song lyrics pinned to her wall, each one scrawled out in multicolored marker designs on paper tacked between magazine photos of giraffes and rivers and trees. I stand and spin some tunes on her old turntable. She plugs in white Christmas-tree lights that wind in looping shapes along her walls and ceiling. I scan a shelf of beat glass orbs—glorified paperweights—bubbles and streaks of color blown and frozen into their clear bellies. I pick one up, put it down.
“Word, Thumbs. These are eggs.”
Eve smiles and blazes up some incense. I sneeze, wish I had some canna.
We’re standing in the middle of the room and I yank on a string of beads hitched to a fan above my skull and the blades whir slowly to life. I watch them going round and round and then Eve’s humming crank bad to some Etta, taking a swig of tepid Southern Comfort. I close my lids. I’m thinking about a tar.
Just then a warmth—her breath on my face comes quick and hot, syrupy with sauce. Then her mouth’s on mine. Her lips are wet.
She envelops my lower lip, pulling slightly, with a soft pressure, and her teeth, biting lightly. I open my mouth a crack and her breath head-on collides with mine, and I’m flooded full by her nectarous, boozy air.
Time stops. All clocks are still, wouldn’t dare tick. Or tock.
Down, deep into my lungs, I inhale our kiss and she travels light speed through my body and pushes, fiery hot and scorching, into my fingers and toes.
The very tips of our tongues touch, and then push. And pull. We’re Slip ’n Slide, we’re dancing. Then she’s gone, as quickly as she came. I pull open my lids and all I see is her face. Her fingers press tiny scallops into her shining strawberry lips, and her eyes are massive wide, but then the corners of her mouth curl and she smiles.
She’s giggling, blinking, and a massive grin hits me fast and furious. She’s cracking up as she sits back down on her bed and I sit, too, rubber, like Gumby, and the edges of our hands touch. I curl my pinkie around hers. Linkin’ Logs.
I remember: inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. I yank off my navy hat and stuff it into my skinnies’ back pocket. She sighs and drags her hand over her curly golden hair and I’m waxing full again and shining bright. I look smack into her eyes and she laughs, opening her mouth to speak, and I kiss her.
I kiss her. And I kiss her. And I kiss her.