At the end of the next street, I took another left, which would eventually connect me with a little road that would take me back home. I sprinted the last part of the way, running so hard it felt like my heart was going to explode out of my chest. But it also felt good, because it obliterated the rest of the thoughts from my mind. And then I walked for a minute, to cool myself down, and finally I felt as though I could go back inside and fall asleep.
There was a light on at Cole’s, a light in the living room, though it didn’t look like the TV was on. I wondered what he was doing in there, and part of me wanted to go up to the door and knock. But I didn’t.
Chapter Sixteen
Cole
“So, any luck in the getting laid department?” Ben had stopped by on his way home from work. Declan was in bed, and we were sitting out on the deck with beers. “Or are things still high and dry for you? You still wanting to call this bet off?”
“I’m taking my time with it,” I said. “Why? Are you getting nervous? Are you starting to realize that you are most definitely going to lose, and if you want to get your ass to any playoff games this year, you’re going to have to pay for it yourself?”
He laughed. “I never knew Cole Becker to be a man who took his time with this sort of thing.”
“Well, then, maybe you don’t know me as well as you think you do, after all.”
“It sure as shit threw me for a loop when you originally tried to call this whole thing off because you were all concerned about her virginity,” Ben said. “That definitely isn’t the Cole Becker I know. The good doctor by day, the raving hedonist by night.”
I waved him off. “I stopped with all of that stuff a long time ago.”
“I know, I know. You’ve got a kid now; you’re all responsible and shit. But don’t you think that means you deserve this sort of thing more than ever?”
“I don’t even know what you’re talking about,” I said.
“Some fun is what I’m talking about.”
“I’m having fun.”
“Are you?”
“Yeah. We’ve got plans to go to Moose Lake tomorrow, in fact. I’d invite you along, but I know you’re working.”
The thing was, the better I got to know Allie, the more I liked her. In fact, I couldn’t remember ever liking a girl so much. Was it because we hadn’t slept together yet? In the past, if I liked a girl even half this much, we would’ve definitely hooked up by now. And I knew I wasn’t just imagining this simmering tension between us that seemed to grow more and more intense with each passing day. It was hard to focus at work, it was hard to sleep at night, and I found myself wondering all the time when I was going to see her again.
I was sort of driving myself a little crazy, actually.
The good thing was, though, that when we finally did sleep together—I knew it was going to happen, it was just a matter of when—that it wouldn’t just be to win this stupid bet. I didn’t even care about the bet anymore, but I’d let Ben think I did. If I’d been feeling bad about her losing her virginity in this manner, there was no need for it now because I truly did have feelings for her. More than just physical attraction feelings, too. Not that I was going to get into all of that with Ben. There were some things that he didn’t need to know about.
The next day, Allie came over in the late morning, we all piled into the car and went to the public side of Moose Lake, and the beach was already pretty c
rowded with people lying out on towels parked on beach chairs under umbrellas and kids digging by the water’s edge with plastic shovels and buckets.
“This looks like a good spot,” I said, and we set up the beach quilt and the chairs. Declan wanted to go in the water immediately. Allie said she was going to suntan for a little bit, so we went down and waded in. Declan dunked himself, then worked on dog paddling and frog-kicking. After he got tired of that, he asked if I would give him a ride, so I dove in, then swam up behind him and he climbed on my back, arms wrapped around my neck.
We swam out to the buoys and then made our way back to shore. He let go of my neck and slipped off my back once we got shallow enough that he could touch. I dove back under once more. When I resurfaced, I looked toward the beach, where Allie was. She was sitting up on her towel, talking to a couple guys that I didn’t recognize. They looked young, probably her age, a couple of fresh-faced kids that just graduated from college.
“... sick lake house,” one of the kids was saying as Declan and I made our way over. “You should check it out.”
“The house sounds great,” Allie said, “but I don’t really go to house parties.”
The two kids glanced at me as I reached for a towel. They were both smooth, practically hairless. Boys, really. Backward baseball caps, a tribal tattoo on the taller one’s upper arm. They eyed me, then Declan.
“Hey,” I said, wrapping the towel around my waist.
They looked from Allie to me, then back again.
“This is Cole,” Allie said. “Cole, this is Devon and Asher. They’re from New York.”
“My parents have a lake house here,” the one named Devon said. He looked at Allie again. “He your boyfriend?”