The wind folds the brim of her hat over her face again, but I can feel the vibration of her eye roll. “Not like that, you pervert. What if I clear out the flat for you so you and Percy can have some time alone? I’ll make certain you aren’t disturbed, so you don’t have to worry about that, and we can create some sort of ambiance to set a mood.”
I hadn’t thought of any of this. I certainly hadn’t considered making a spectacle of the evening. Sex had always been something quick and informal and usually standing up in the deserted hallway off a barroom or behind my mother’s hibiscus bushes. Not something that required any kind of production value. “What do you mean by that?” I ask.
She shrugs. “You know, dress the flat up a little. Get some good wine and clear out the cockroaches and spread rose petals about.”
“Roses make Percy sneeze.”
“Well then, we shall substitute very finely chopped potatoes.”
“You’re such a romantic.”
“Do you want my help or not?”
“The idea of you helping me with this in any way is upsetting.”
“Fine.” She turns the page, though it’s almost certainly just for the drama of it. “Remain virtuous and frustrated.”
There’s a splash, and Felicity and I both raise our heads as Percy stumbles up the beach, dripping wet and shaking water from his hair like a dog. He’s wearing nothing but his breeches, 5
which the ocean has slung low on his hips and pasted to his legs, rendering him a veritable anatomical study. He’s got this little bit of softness at the base of his stomach that stops my heart, and his dark skin is speckled with sand, making a starry sky of his bare chest.
He’s breathless from the swim and swipes his hair out of his eyes as he flops down on his stomach beside me, showering me with sea water. Felicity, though certainly too far away to feel the splash, shelters her book. “Come have a swim with me,” Percy says, pressing his face into my arm and biting affectionately.
“No, thank you,” I say, for not only do I loathe putting my head beneath the water, but also there are several reasons why I do not want to remove my trousers at this moment. Though I’m not sure they’re doing much good to hide the fact that I am very much enjoying the sight of him slick and salty from the sea.
“Come on.” He snuffles his face into my shoulder, which I think he’s trying to disguise as affection when really he’s using me as a towel. “I’ll teach you how to float.”
“Montagues aren’t made to float,” I reply. “We’re far too sturdy.”
“Built like corgi dogs,” Felicity adds, her eyes fixed determinedly on her book.
“Corgi dogs float.” Percy rolls onto his back, pulling my arm under him. He’s drowsy and silly with the afternoon at sea, his skin sticking to mine everywhere we touch. “Come jump with me.”
I let out a bark of laughter. “You think I will jump off that cliff into that ocean?”
“You will for me.”
“I’m . . .” I look around for an excuse other than cowardly. “Reading.” I snatch up Don Quixote, so fast I almost knock Felicity’s hat off, and throw it open for emphasis, realizing too late that it’s upside down.
6
“That seems false. Felicity?” Percy tosses a lump of damp sand at her. “Come have a swim?”
“I am actually reading,” she replies.
Percy lets out a dramatic sigh, then climbs to his feet. He makes one last attempt to pull me up after him, but I do not concede. The only thing stronger than my love for Percy is my hatred of the goddamn ocean, which is dark and deep and much, much stronger than I am. He gives up, flicks his wet fingers in my face so that I flinch with a laugh, then lopes away, back to the water.
He takes it with such deliberate slowness that I’m almost sure he knows just how fantastic his ass looks in those wet breeches and is trying to use it as a siren song to lure me in after him.
Be strong! I command myself. Odysseus resisted the sirens! Did he? I don’t actually remember. But I am almost positive none of his sirens had an ass that fantastic.
As soon as Percy is in the water again, I toss Don Quixote onto the sand and scoot up next to Felicity. “All right, fine, yes. Help me.”
She doesn’t even glance up. “Don’t sound so grateful for it.”
“Your involvement in my intimate activities requires no gratitude on my part.” From beyond the waves, I can hear Percy laughing as he swims out again to Ebrahim and Georgie. “But I am desperate. And you are the only one available.”
She snorts. “Bet you say that to all the girls.”
Aside from the chastity, Percy’s and my first stretch of togetherness has been a delirious, gauzy dream. A stupidly picturesque setting with this gorgeous gent, and goddamn I would have had him the first time we kissed in earnest, up to our waists in the Aegean Sea, but for the fact that I had recently lost half my hearing and the whole of my ear, and I was not in a state that was conducive to any sort of strenuous and prolonged physical activity. And when it does happen, I 7
intend it to be strenuous and prolonged and deeply physical. So instead of shattering the commandments on the spot, we had lounged upon the beach that day and talked, at great length and—at last—with great honesty and also a good amount of recesses when one of us would lean over the other and offer something better to do with our mouths.
It had felt like the first deep breath I’d ever taken, to tell him everything, to hear his half of it all. I also wanted to go back in time and give us both a good scolding for not using our words earlier and explaining to each other we were both pining for the same thing. We could have already been going on two years of togetherness. But that’s all part of our story, I suppose. It seems shinier and more spectacular here and now, and after everything.
That night, I had lain in bed atop the blankets, twitchy and wakeful in a room so humid that beads of condensation were forming upon the plaster walls. I stared sleepless at the ceiling for what felt like hours, sweating off years of my life and wondering if I had imagined the whole brilliant day, beached on the Aegean. Perhaps the next time I saw Percy, away from the glorious shine of the sunlight on the water, we’d be bashful and private again, or he would decide that confessions of love and fidelity and a life together were foolish. I had kissed my fair share of lads who had only used me as a counterpoint to their own virtue. My primary contribution to our circles back home had been making everyone else feel grounded and well-behaved in
comparison.
Or maybe I couldn’t live up to my grand words. Maybe I could never be enough for Percy, no matter how hard I tried or how much of a reformed rake I was. I wasn’t sure what I’d do when he realized that. Somehow, letting our feelings out in the light had both eased so many of my fears and created an entirely new and aggravating set that wouldn’t stop poking me.
8
The flat had settled for the night. The chatter from a dice game downstairs had quieted, and only the cicadas and the swoosh of the ocean underscored the silence. I thought of getting up for a drink to calm me enough to sleep, but even excusing it as medicinal did not seem the best way to start off my new resolution to experience all my feelings sober. Which, turns out, is really goddamn hard. I was still battling the urge when the floorboards outside my room creaked. Then I heard the door open, followed by a silence so long I thought I had imagined it, another strange new auditory hallucination resulting from my injury.