15
Sam
“I have a great idea,” said Sam to the kids on the beach.
“Here we go,” said Cayla.
Sam ignored her. This really was a great idea. “Let’s camp out down at the cove tonight. All of us. Sleeping bags and s’mores and stuff. The weather’s good. And if there are waves in the morning, we can surf first thing.”
Everyone liked the idea, and they agreed to meet on the beach before sunset so they could walk down to the cove and arrive as it got dark. Sam didn’t have any particular feeling about sleeping outside, but the idea of being there in the dark with her friends and then watching the sky brighten first thing gave her the feeling that she was taking summer to a whole new level.
Sam and Wyatt found themselves walking ahead of the pack with their surfboards and sleeping bags. He was wearing a Chicago Cubs T-shirt that had been washed the exact number of times it took to make it rest perfectly over the outline of his chest. Sam had noticed this before, stealing glances at him from the passenger seat of his dad’s truck. It was strange, she thought, how distracted she could be by his body in that T-shirt when she spent half the day with him in no T-shirt at all. Wyatt shirtless looked great, but Wyatt in that T-shirt was obscene.
They dropped their sleeping bags in the woods, and Sam and Wyatt pretended to be surprised to see the array of shells surrounding the big linden tree. “Looks like they all came in on a single wave,” said Wyatt. Everyone agreed, though no one was very interested.
The sun wasn’t quite down, and everyone scattered around the cove to watch it set. Sam was watching the orange sky move into purple from behind the branches of the linden tree when she felt Wyatt come and stand behind her. She turned around and touched the bottom of his T-shirt. This was another thing she didn’t think through, her hand just wanted to run the fabric between her finger and thumb. She imagined she could feel where it was still warm from resting against his skin. She wanted to touch his stomach. She knew that you can’t just go around touching people’s stomachs, but now her whole body wanted her to run her fingertips over his abdomen. It terrified her. She looked up and he was watching her.
“I have a thing for this shirt,” she said. “And seriously, Wyatt, I’m the weirdest person ever.”
Wyatt smiled, and she turned around to watch the sun finish setting.