twenty

This is wild. I’m on a boat!

Can you even? Because I can’t. The only “boat” I’ve ever been on was a dilapidated ferry in the nasty-ass Hudson River, going from Jersey to New York for the San Gennaro Festival in Little Italy. Nonna paid seven dollars each for us to experience twelve windy minutes on the water, cramped into a pair of ice-cold metal seats, surrounded on all sides by tourists and commuters. “We really shoulda taken the train,” she’d said as we floated past the Statue of Liberty. “But I was feeling fancy.”

If she could only see me now — reclining on the cushy ledge of a sleek, modern speedboat as it careens through the endless royal-blue ripples of Lake George. Surrounded on all sides by mountains draped in lush fir trees.

“Babe, slow down!” Shayla’s shimmery platinum hair blows in a thousand different directions. She’s curled up on a seat in front of Robbie’s captain perch. “I basically forced my dad to let us do this. We need to not crash.”

Tank top–clad Robbie cracks a sly grin and revs up the speed. My balls rocket up to my throat in response to the acceleration. Colliding with another boat seems unlikely — we appear to be the only ones out here so far — but still.

I try to relax. What’s the worst that could happen? Robbie knows what he’s doing. I watch his shoulder muscle flex slightly as he cranks the speed control even further up. It turns out his bicep tattoo is of an angry-looking tiger. Goddamnit. I almost forgot about how hot he is. And now that he’s actively putting our lives in danger, he’s only getting hotter. Is there any greater turn-on?

Stop! There’s an actual gay guy on this boat who likes you. Focus on him!

I make eye contact with Will — seated directly to my left — and he tosses me a silly wink. I think back to our banter in the kitchen and smile. It’s not like I’m not attracted to him. But putting these two guys right next to each other on a little boat is just cruel. Will is cute. But Robbie is… Luke, basically.

“Dude!” Will yells at Robbie. “Look out!”

My balls shoot back up to my throat (a.k.a. their new permanent home) as Robbie swerves the boat away from a giant buoy directly in our path.

The turn is so sharp that the boat goes full-force directly into one of the waves it had just created a few seconds ago. I’m not even exaggerating, the whole thing jerks sideways and almost tips over!

Will’s Yeti beer cooler slides across the floor and crashes into my feet. Robbie grips the wheel. Shayla digs her nails into her seat cushion. Will throws his arm over my shoulders. I clutch my fingers around one of those steel rope-holder things on the boat’s rim. There’s a loud thump underneath us. For a moment the boat is completely airborne — dolphin-esque — and then it’s rapidly skipping over a series of mini-waves — until another thump finally plunks it back into position on the water.

I haven’t pissed my pants, but the extreme terror followed by extreme relief I’ve just gone through has definitely taken my bladder — and every other organ in my body — on a journey.

Will squeezes my arm. “You okay?”

I nod.

“Yo!” Robbie slows the boat to a crawl. “That was so dope.”

“You know there are speed limits,” Shayla barks at him. “My dad would kill you if he knew what just happened!”

“He’s already gonna kill you for the wagon, sweet tits,” he cracks. “I might as well join you in the afterlife.”

“Correction: He’s gonna kill Will.” She pauses. “And what did you just call me?”

“I’d love it if you didn’t fling misogynistic epithets at my sister,” Will chimes in. “And also if you didn’t crash our dad’s boat. That’d be awesome.”

“Relax. I’m just messing around.” Robbie flashes an unapologetic smile. “Don’t worry. Alistair’s precious little speedboat is fine.” He taps the steering wheel proudly. “These things are built for speed. It’s literally in the name.”

“Don’t do it again.” Shayla blinks and takes a breath. “Let’s just anchor down somewhere. I wanna stay still for a minute.”

“Wait,” I interject. “Your dad’s name is Alistair? That might be the WASP-iest name I’ve ever heard.”

Robbie cracks up. “It really is.”

“What’s your dad’s name?” Shayla grabs a Twisted Tea from the cooler and plops back down on her cushion. “Let me guess. Um. Super Mario.”

“I have no idea what his name is, actually.” My statement stuns everyone into uncomfortable silence. Not my intention! It just came out. And now I don’t know how to reverse it. “I could probably ask my mom,” I continue. “But I don’t really care.”

Shayla and Robbie look at me like they don’t know whether I’m serious or just trying (and failing) to make some kind of weird joke. Will must think it’s the former. He looks at me like I’m one of those ASPCA Sarah McLachlan–commercial orphan puppies. Like he’s never heard of someone not having a dad before.

“Okay… so.” Shayla’s eyes dart back and forth between me and her brother and boyfriend. “Let’s go in the water!”

“You crazy?” Robbie says. “You don’t remember how cold it was yesterday? My nuts were practically frozen to the bottom of my kayak.”

I process and immediately delete a mental image of Robbie’s frozen kayak-nuts. It’s somehow wildly enticing despite the grossly non-sexual context of the statement.

“Don’t be a bitch, Robbie.” Shayla pulls her hair into a ponytail. “It can’t be any worse than the Polar Bear Plunge we did at Lake Louise last year.”

He does a sarcastic military salute. “Yes ma’am.”

“Too bad I didn’t bring any swim trunks,” I say. “Who knew it would be eighty degrees in April?”

“The weather people called it last week,” Shayla says. “That’s why we came up here. Otherwise my ass would have been on the first flight down to Miami.”

“Miami was an option?” Robbie says. “What are we doing here again?”

“It’s sentimental!” Shayla says. “And I mean, look at this.” She motions around at the idyllic scenery as Robbie pulls us into a secluded cove. “It’s so pure.”

“Thomas Jefferson used to love this lake,” Will offers. “He once described it as the most beautiful water he’d ever seen. Rockefeller had a mansion on it, too. This place was the summer hot spot for New York elite back in the day.”

“Thanks, loser.” She looks over at me. “Is this the kind of talk Will was boring you with that whole time you were sitting in the kitchen not making out?”

Will ignores Shayla and looks at me. “I’m majoring in history at Yale next year.”

“That’s fun!” I lie.

“Is it?” Shayla asks.

Robbie jolts the boat into stillness at a centralized location in the bay. He digs an anchor out from a latch in the floor and throws it overboard. I watch in awe as the water gulps down the rope attached to it. This is all so surreal. I’ve always associated anchors with, like, summer-themed décor at Home Goods. (The bears of beach houses, if you will.) Turns out they’re real and people use them!

“Here we go.” Shayla stands up and strips down to the navy-blue bikini she’s been hiding beneath her outfit. Robbie follows suit and throws his tank top into the corner of the boat. I scratch a nonexistent itch on my forehead and look in literally every other direction.

Will taps my leg. “I’ll stay here with you.”

“Wusses!” Shayla takes a giant breath and hurls herself overboard.

“Why do I listen to her?” Robbie asks himself before making a jump of his own.

Two seconds later they’re wailing in pain from what I assume is extreme temperature shock. Shayla’s high-pitched scream combined with Robbie’s deep-voiced groan creates a striking dissonance.

“I gotta take a piss,” Robbie finally says.

“Babe, gross!” Shayla yelps. “But same.”

They swim in opposite directions away from the boat until it finally feels like Will and I are alone. I can breathe easily again now that it’s just us. Having Robbie around was making me more self-conscious than I realized — like his hotness was too blinding for me to fully let my guard down.

“So what was that thing about your dad?” Will says. “If you don’t mind my asking?”

“Oh.” I shrug. “It’s not a big deal. I just never knew him. He was a twenty-year-old dirtbag who knocked up my mom when she was sixteen. It was all very ‘Papa Don’t Preach.’”

“Whoa.” He gives me that dogs-on-death-row look again. “That’s some heavy stuff. I’m sorry.”

“I honestly don’t care!” I say. “Fuck that guy.”

This is so not a conversation I’m in the mood to have.

“Fair enough.” Will unbuttons a few more buttons on his white linen shirt. His chest hair catches my eye again. Good! I managed to survive being on this boat with Robbie all that time and still have the ability to find Will attractive. “Wait,” he adds. “What’s ‘Papa Don’t Preach’?”

“Shut up!” I say. “You seriously don’t know that song? Madonna?”

“I’m sorry?” He shakes his head and laughs. A dimple emerges at the corner of his mouth; it makes me want to kiss him. “I feel like I just offended you.”

“Of course you did,” I say. “I didn’t realize this whole time I’ve been flirting with a guy who doesn’t understand the iconic cultural impact of Italian-American icon Madonna Louise Ciccone.”

Will raises an eyebrow. “This is you flirting?”

Okay, he just negged me. Now I’m really attracted to him.

“It was me flirting,” I correct him. “But that’s definitely over now.”

“Well, damn.” He takes his glasses off and places them in a cupholder on the inside edge of the boat, which I interpret as an invitation to kiss him any minute now. “I guess we’ll have to start over from the beginning.”

You know I wouldn’t normally make the first move, but something comes over me again. Like I need to redeem myself after last night’s rejection. So I lean into him and press my lips against his before he has a chance to say anything else. He seems caught off guard, but then his mouth relaxes and he kisses me back. We slip into a groove. For about… ten seconds. Then he comes up for air and squints at me.

“I think we should stop,” he says.

“What?” I ask. “You’re not into me?”

“That’s not it.” He uses his hand to wipe a smear of saliva off his lip. Was I kissing sloppily? Oh, my God. “I’ve been wanting to kiss you ever since the moment you barged in on me last night. But —”

“Then shut up,” I reply — sounding about a zillion times meaner than intended. But maybe this is just how it goes with Nice Guys. You have to be the one to move things forward.

Will’s neck stiffens for a second, like he wants to question my aggression. But I kiss him harder and force him to relax back into it before he can say anything. I let my hands roam all around him — thighs, arms, neck, chest, back. He’s not touching me in quite the same way — his hands are mostly just stationed around my hips — which makes me wonder if maybe he’s truly not into this.

But then he kisses me back and his stubble scratches against my face and I decide that he most definitely is. I just wish he was being more of a leader about it. I’d love nothing more than to sit back and give myself entirely to him right now. Here. I close my eyes and think about the entire set of circumstances Mom and I are currently running away from. Fix me.

I lose myself in a daydream of Will making it all better somehow. The fire investigation dies out. We dive headfirst into a serious relationship. I visit him every weekend at Yale and work on my act while he’s in school. In four years, we move to LA together. My past is rendered irrelevant — burned to the ground just like that stupid house.

“Listen.” Will takes my hand, which I didn’t even realize had crept down to the waistband of his shorts. “This is getting a little hot and heavy for broad daylight.”

“Is it, though?” I ask. “We’re literally the only people out here.”

I crane my neck and scan our surroundings for evidence of life. I peer through the sunlight and see Robbie crawling out of the water to join Shayla on a rocky island jutting out of the water in the distance. His back is strong and his ass is perfect. No. I’m not looking!

“Shayla and Robbie,” Will says.

“They’re all the way over there.” I point at the rock-island on which they’re currently having a make-out session of their own. Completely unconcerned with us. “See?”

“We’re still out in the open.” He pulls away and sits back. “And we were starting to have a good conversation before. I was hoping we could continue it. Get to know each other a little better, you know? I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong idea.”

This is uncharted territory for me. I’ve been rejected and/or ghosted by dudes more times than I can count — but that’s always a blow reserved for after we hook up. Not that Will is rejecting me altogether; he does sound serious about wanting to get to know me better. But still. What better way is there to get to know someone than by shmooshing your bodies together?

I don’t know what to do, so I decide to try kissing him one last time to see if I can change his mind. Will moans, which I interpret as a sign that I’ve achieved success. Good! I bring my hands back down to his thighs and sneak one of them up his shorts until I can feel the elastic trim of his boxer briefs. His leg flinches a little but I don’t care. I wiggle my hand up further — and further — and further — until my fingers are fully wrapped around his junk. This time his leg flinches a lot. He pulls away.

“Dude!” he whisper-shouts. “What the hell are you doing?”

The boat rocks as I roll myself off him and we detach entirely.

“I thought you liked me…” is the only thing I can think to say. Which sounds extremely pathetic, because it is. This is humiliating. “It’s not like you’re not hard.”

“Of course I do,” he says. “And I am. But Joey — I mean, you’re going from zero to a hundred here.” He adjusts his shorts. “I just told you all I wanted to do is hang out and talk.”

“I know,” I stammer. “I didn’t think you actually meant that.”

“Why would I say something I don’t mean?” he asks.

“I don’t know, I’m sorry.” I can’t help but think about my first date with Luke. My head was buried in his crotch not even two hours into it. And that was in the backseat of his Subaru — on land! In a Houlihan’s parking lot! Way riskier than being out here in the middle of a deserted lake. “God. You must think I’m such a mess. First I break your wagon and then I grab your —”

He interrupts me and tells me it’s not a big deal, let’s just start over, it’s fine. But I know it is a big deal, it’s too late to start over, and it’s not fine. Because my first impression was right after all. I’m way too fucked up for this guy.