I'll Be Here

him.  I wondered about the smell of his skin and feel of the dark blonde curls that tickled his collar.
    Couples began to fork off and in the moonlight Dustin pulled me away from the crowd down to where the water brushed the dry sand.  He held onto my hand and he kissed me for the first time while the black water lapped at our shoes. 
    I felt warm all over and when his mouth moved down my neck and his hands crept up my shirt to the swell of my breasts, I didn’t stop him.  If Dustin’s mouth was a little sloppy due to him being tipsy I didn’t really care.  When his fingers grazed my zipper I held onto his hand with mine.  Dustin sighed and kissed my earlobe.  He bent his head and told me that I was gorgeous and that I was his. 
    He held my hand in his as we walked back to the epicenter of the party. 
    “What’s with your friend Laney?”  By the time he asked the question we were close enough to the bonfire that I could see his face.  His nose was crinkled.
    “What do you mean?”  I asked even though I knew exactly what he meant. 
    “She’s weird,” he said as if it were a fact, not an opinion.
    I looked for her.  She was standing off to the edge of things talking to a boy I recognized as a senior.  I could barely make out the words but a few carried through the other noises.  Taxes, nouveau rich, right, decency…   I cringed.  Laney was talking politics.  At a party.  A party full of teenagers. 
    Dustin frowned.  “You can do better.”  Like it was a simple thing.  Like you could choose your friends and change them like a pair of pants that don’t work for the weather.  Like that’s all it was. 
    And as the senior rolled his eyes and walked away from Laney I thought that maybe Dustin was right. 
    ***
    The beach doesn’t change much and neither do the parties.
    Usually they are at the beach access over at the east end of Palmer Road.  It’s called The Hooch which is a name that no one really gets, but it sticks and I wonder if that’s because no one’s been able to think of anything better.
    The crowd at the Hooch consists mainly of kids from Northridge High, but there are always some people from Bayview, which is where Alex graduated from.  And some of the time a few people will show up from Saint Joseph’s.  In all the times that I’ve come to a party at this beach with Dustin I’ve never bumped into Alex and I’m starting to have second thoughts.
    I’m glossing over the part where Alex picked me up tonight because I think that I blacked out through most of it.  Pretty much all I remember is him opening my car door and my arm brushing against his and the rest is a blur.  I didn’t recognize the soft indie music coming out of the speakers but I focused on the chords to get myself under control.  I will not even mention the way that Alex smells and that as soon as he was in the driver’s seat I was tempted to crawl over the center console and sniff his neck.  
    “You’re sure?” He asks with his pierced eyebrow raised like it is completely independent of the other when I tell him where the party is.
    “Yeah,” I reply, a little flustered that he’s asked the question.  Alex looks at me for what I think seems like a long time, but he doesn’t say anything—he just drives us here. 
    I wait at the front of the car rubbing my upper arms while he rummages in the backseat for something.  When he comes up beside me I see that it’s a black hoodie. 
    “Try this,” he says.  His blue eyes are electric in the fading light.  “You look like you’re freezing.”
    It’s true.  I am shivering.  Only I could freeze when it’s practically summer but the air down by the beach is always cooler than I think it will be.  Even this time of the year, the wind picks up over the open expanse of water and blows in a chill like the breath of someone with ice cubes in their mouth. 
    The jacket slouches over my shoulders and falls to the middle of my thighs where the soft cotton tickles me.  It smells like Alex and reminds me of another time and another jacket. 
    “If I were you, I would hold off on making plans to go to the Antarctic anytime soon,” he says. 
    I laugh.  “Damn.  I guess I should call my travel agent first thing in the morning.”
    He flashes his full-on smile and my breath catches.  God . 
    Though it’s almost nine, this time of year it is just getting full dark.  Even so, it’s obvious that a few people are already hammered.