The Sweetest Summer

Chapter Fourteen - When We Were Young

"Wait, I'm confused." Marissa took a long pull from her water bottle, plopping her perfectly round ass into the sand beside my volleyball court. We'd been going at it for over an hour now, Marissa practicing her latest jump serve on me, and I was beat. Small blue bruises kissed my forearms and my collar bones where she'd nailed me.

"What are you confused about?" I laughed, sitting my own bony ass beside hers.

"So, you went out with Connor again?"

"Yes."

"And he kissed you?"

"Yeah."

"And then you came home and Elijah West was just sitting there, waiting like a teddy bear on your bed?" I laughed.

"Something like that."

"So then, what happened?"

My skin burned, recalling the way his mouth had devoured me under the starlight. "We kind...of hooked up." I bit my lower lip into my mouth, and Marissa choked on her water.

"You guys had sex?!" She practically screamed and I clasped my hand over her mouth, scanning the beach which was empty aside from Mrs. Herschel who was watering her hideously overgrown plants. I waved at her sweetly and she waved back, unaware of Marissa's outburst. Thank God.

"No we didn't have..." I blushed. God, I was such a virgin I couldn't even say the word.

"Sex?" Marissa prodded.

"Would you please stop saying that."

"God, you're such a virgin." Marissa laughed, mirroring my thoughts, and I bristled even though I knew she was only teasing.

"Yeah? Well not for much longer." I bit back. "Eli invited me to his house this weekend for a movie marathon, and you know what that means..." I wagged my eyebrows at her suggestively, failing to mention the fact that it was a Harry Potter movie marathon. Those round glasses and lightening bolt scar hardly screamed 'I'm going to lose my pants and my V-card'.

"Your parents are just going to let you stay at his house all weekend?" Marissa's dark eyebrows rose somewhere close to her glossy ebony hairline. Her Vietnamese parents would lock her away for all of eternity for a stunt like that, but my own couldn't care less.

"Eli and I have had a million sleep overs over the years. They would never suspect anything would happen between the two of us."

"Damn. Well I don't know if that's awesome or super depressing...but either way, good luck." She stood and dusted the sand off her legs. "From what I read in the gossip blogs, your boy is somewhat of a sex God. It only makes sense with his revolving trailer door of actresses on set." My stomach twisted into knots at the idea of Eli with other women, as in multiple, and my own sexual inadequacies.

*********

I stared at my reflection in the mirror, past the mound of discarded clothing on my floor. I was supposed to be at Eli's twenty minutes ago, but I couldn't settle on a damn outfit to wear.

My weekend backpack was already stuffed full  of swim suits, and shorts, and tank tops, and loads of (brand new) lingerie, but it was harder to decide on an arrival outfit. I wanted to pretend I didn't realize his true intentions for the weekend. Like I really believed that all he wanted to was 'watch movies'. All weekend long.

I pulled a black low cut tank top down over my grey distressed skinny jeans, turning my head to one side to study myself. It wasn't terrible. Casual, cute, and a little punk chic. As a second thought, I tied a thick red flannel around my waist, just in case Eli wanted to do a bonfire...after he was done doing me.