I'll Be Here

my favorite activities.  We begin a game.  We imagine what the clustered people are talking about and we create amusing dialogues to accompany the stories. 
    I explain to him that the sallow-faced girl sitting on the blue cooler is actually a diplomat’s daughter and the young man to her left is her hired bodyguard.  They were having a clandestine affair but have recently ended things due to an argument.
    He turns to me, his head tilted to the side like a bird.  “What was the argument about?” 
    “The argument,” I say on a breath, “is over a pair of underwear.”
    His eyes crinkle with skepticism.  “Underwear?”
    “Don’t look so unsure.  Undergarments have put many decent relationships asunder.”  I pause with exaggerated reverence.  “For years his deep, dark secret has been that he loves to wear girl’s panties underneath his clothing.”
    He’s grinning.  “Interesting...  And the diplomat’s daughter discovered this weird fetish of his and decided that it was too much for her to cope with? ”
    I tap my leg.  “Actually no.  She doesn’t even mind that he sneaks into her room and wears her underwear.  She’s forward thinking and progressive.”
    Alex inclines his head.  “Clearly.”
    “The thing that drove them apart is that she discovered him in possession of someone else’s underwear—a lacy pair of hot pink cheekies.  He claimed that they belonged to her and that she had simply forgotten about them but she knew that was a lie because she’s been strictly a bikini brief kind of girl for years.  So much better for circulation.”
    This surprises a loud laugh out of him—a golden thing that fills the space around me and transforms his face.  I catch myself staring a little too intently at the creased skin around Alex’s eyes and the curve of his upper lip so I force myself to look instead at the shifting shadows thrown by the fire. 
    Maybe I should consider this plan again.  It’s one thing to use Alex to get back at Dustin.  It’s an entirely different thing to fall for Alex a second time and have my heart smashed all over again.  That’s the very last thing I need right now, yet here I am, sitting on a salt-dried log next to Alex Faber while my stomach flip-flops and I try my damndest not to think about what he looks like without his shirt on or where the placement of the alluded to tattoo may be. 
    Alex’s laugh fades to a smirk and he taps my arm playfully with his elbow.  “Can I ask you a question?”
    “Sure,” I say though I’m anything but sure.
    Alex tilts his head to one side.  “What exactly are cheekies ?”
    This question throws me and I feel simultaneously embarrassed that I ever brought up women’s underwear in his presence and pleased that he doesn’t seem to have a lot of working knowledge about lingerie.   
    I am building up the courage to explain what “cheekies” are when I feel the prickling of a hundred tiny bugs scurrying across my back.  I recognize the tingling sensation as a sort of radar I’ve developed recently.  Laney told me that it was in my imagination.  “You can’t sense your ex-boyfriend,” she’d said as she bit a moon-round bite out of an apple.  I disagreed and Dizzy backed me up.  She told me that she experienced the same exact thing for exactly two months and four days one time.  It made me wonder what happened after two months and five days but I didn’t get the chance to ask because the class bell had rung and we’d scampered in different directions so that we wouldn’t be late. 
    Tonight the awareness makes my chest hurt.  I turn my head and there is Dustin filtering through the knotted people with his hand on the back of Taylor’s neck.  I recognize the gesture because he used to touch me the same way and with the awakened memory I can practically feel the warmth of his hand on my neck, his fingers twirling absently in my hair. 
    Taylor is wearing a tightly fitted cream colored short-sleeved sweater and tall shoes.  I want the shoes.  They are made of soft caramel colored leather and they look expensive.  The heels are at least three inches and I wonder if I could even pull off high-heeled boots.  I’d probably end up falling over.  And actually, high-heels seem like a stupid thing to wear to the beach, right?  I bet she can barely keep her balance on the soft sand.  
    Dustin is wearing jeans that fit the way jeans are supposed to and he stops when he sees me.  His