A Kind of Contradiction

Rather than endure a two-hour car ride in Nash’s Jeep, I decided to spend my time making eyes at Patrick in the rearview mirror while he drove Julia and I up to the lake. He tried ignoring me for the first hour, then fought off a grin for the rest of the drive. Julia was wonderfully ignorant of all of this, and didn’t even bat an eye when I told her I needed a minute to fix my eyeliner and to go on ahead without me.

Once she was safely out from the cluster of cars and on the beach, I clambered into the front and pressed a chaste kiss to Patrick’s cheek. I sat facing him, my legs extended over the console to rest in his lap. Patrick ran a hand along my calf, slowly leaning toward me. I got impatient halfway and grabbed his face, pulling it down to mine and smiling against his mouth. The hand on my calf slid up and came to rest on my hip, lingering on the waistband of my shorts.

I draped my arms over his shoulders, one hand gripping the back of his neck. Patrick was leaning awkwardly across the console but didn’t seem to care as he worked his way down my neck, lips and teeth and tongue hot against my skin. I let out a content hum and felt Patrick smile against my collarbone. My eyes had drifted shut, chin tilted upward to allow Patrick more access. He kissed along my collarbones and back up my neck, nipping the sensitive skin behind my ear, then cupped my cheeks and pressed an open-mouthed kiss to my mouth.

“You should go,” he muttered against my lips, leaning our foreheads together.

“I don’t wanna,” I sighed, knotting my fingers in his hair. “Let’s just go.”

“Cosima,” Patrick said, pulling back. While my hands fell into my lap, his shifted up into my hair, tangling in the lilac strands. “Go. Have fun. But don’t make out with anybody. I’ll pick you up later.”

I grinned. “Can I come back to your place?”

“Won’t your mom be expecting you?”

“I’ll text her and say I’m staying at Julia’s.”

Patrick hesitated, squeezing his eyes shut. “Are you sure?”

I kissed him once, then twice, then three times. “Sure I’m sure. See you later.”

Once I was out of the Prius, I slipped on my sunglasses and threw another smirk over my shoulder. The beach was full of teenagers in various states of intoxication, including several boys sword-fighting with some of the longer, thinner pieces of driftwood they’d gathered for the bonfire. There was a stack of chopped wood too, which made up most of the tinder, and somebody was already starting to arrange it in the fire pit.

I filled up a cup with beer from the open keg, silently thanking whoever had bought it this weekend for getting enough to sustain everyone. Last time, the kegs had run dry before nightfall. Julia was standing near the bonfire pit, watching the sword-fighting boys. I went up behind her and bumped my hip against hers.

“You’re staring,” I said with a grin.

She rolled her eyes. “Cute shirtless boys are running around. Why aren’t you staring?”

“They aren’t that cute,” I objected, narrowing my eyes at one of the boys. His back was spattered with acne and his stomach was hollow. He couldn’t have been more than fourteen. “They’re in, like, ninth grade.”

“Not that one,” she said, indicating the tallest of the group. His chest was a little more filled out and he at least had armpit hair, which a few of the others didn’t. But he was still younger than us, maybe fifteen or sixteen.

“You’re a cougar,” I informed her.

But it didn’t seem like she’d heard me, because she was staring at my neck with furrowed brows. “Where did you get that?”

“Huh?”

Julia tilted her head to the side. “You have a hickey.”

“Shit!” I said before I could stop myself, slapping my hand to my neck. “Shit, shit, shit.”

“Who…?”

“Um,” I stammered. “It was, uh—“

I looked around, searching for a familiar face, so I could throw a name out there. But, short of Danny, filling up beers for Lindsay and Audrey, I didn’t know anyone. Then I realized who wasn’t around.

“Nash.”

Julia’s eyes widened. “Nash? You said he wouldn’t go near you.”

I wished he would. “Yep. Nash. I guess I was wrong.”

“Oh, there he is!” she said, staring over my shoulder. Nash had come up to the kegs where Danny, Lindsay, and Audrey were. He grabbed a cup and let Danny fill it, but didn’t drink. “He isn’t even looking over here.”

“That’s because…um, well, we don’t want Danny suspecting anything.”

“Smart,” said Julia with a nod. “There’s Luke! I’m gonna go say hi. He was flirting with me at a party a few days ago.”

“You do that,” I said, giving her my fullest smile. Once she was gone, off after some sandy-haired boy with freckles, I heaved a sigh of relief. Then I texted Patrick, warning him to be more careful next time.

“Hey, Cosima.”

I looked up from my phone. “Steve. How are you?”

“Good. I’m, uh, good. You?”

“Fantastic, thank you for asking,” I replied, smiling brightly. He looked terribly confused, the poor thing. “Can I help you?”

Steve scratched the back of his neck, involuntarily flexing the muscles in his arm. “I saw you standing here alone, thought I’d come say hi.”

“She’s not alone.”

Both of us stared at Nash, who’d come out of nowhere. Steve frowned and started to make an excuse, but took one look at Nash’s stony expression and walked off. I furrowed my brows, looking between Steve’s retreating figure and Nash.

“Any reason in particular you did that?” I asked.

Nash swirled the beer in his cup. “Steve’s a tool.”

“So?”

“Why were you talking to him?”

I sighed. “He literally just came up to me and said hi. That’s it. You should take some pointers from Steve, even he’s better at communication than you are.”

“Cosima.”

“What now?”

Nash took a swig of his beer. “Let’s go up there,” he said, motioning to the ridge overlooking the lake.

Then he started walking, just expecting me to follow without complaint. Since I was already weak where Nash was concerned, I didn’t even hesitate to go after him. We climbed the ridge and, upon seeing a couple heatedly making out on one side, headed for the other end. It was lower and shadier, but at least we couldn’t see the couple. I took off my sunglasses and put them in my purse, then stepped closer and closer to the edge until I was in the sunlight.

With one glance over my shoulder to see that Nash was watching, I put down my purse and cup, then lifted the black tank top over my head. When Julia told me about the bonfire, I insisted we go bikini shopping. I didn’t want to borrow somebody’s again. After a lengthy search, I found a decently priced green bikini with polka dots.

I had been kissing my sort-of boyfriend not fifteen minutes earlier, and now I was trying to get a reaction out of the boy I’d been thinking about for weeks. I knew, somewhere in the back of my head, that I shouldn’t be so fixated on Nash when I had Patrick. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get Nash out of my head. And, by the way he sucked in his lips and squeezed his eyes shut, Nash couldn’t stop thinking about me either.

“Why did you want to come up here?” I asked. I had to squint in the sun since I’d taken off my sunglasses, but I liked the warmth too much to step back into the shade.

“To be with you,” Nash answered. “Away from Danny and Audrey.”

“They must’ve seen us leave,” I said, my heartbeat accelerating. “Danny already thinks we don’t want to be alone together because you were an idiot at lunch the other day. What’s he going to think now?”

“He didn’t see us leave. His back was turned.”

“If you wanted to be around me, we could’ve just sat by the bonfire. Nobody would care.”

Nash put down his cup, pulling a flask out of his pocket. He unscrewed the lid and took a drink, then crossed the rock to me and held out the flask. I took it silently, keeping my eyes locked with his as I drank.

“I thought about that,” he said. “Then I thought we could sit up here and just talk. But you had to go and take your shirt off, now I’m having a bit of trouble.”

“Good,” I replied, taking another sip of whiskey. I handed the flask back to Nash, and he was careful to avoid our fingers brushing. “I like making you uncomfortable.”

Nash shook his head. “Not uncomfortable. Just tense.”

“Then why do you keep insisting on being around me?” I asked, cocking my head to the side.

“I tried not to,” he admitted. “I couldn’t do it.”

Then, for the first time since we got up here, he looked at my neck. My heart sank when he frowned, because I knew the moment was over.

“He’s here?” Nash asked quietly. I furrowed my brows, not understanding. “Your boyfriend.”

“No.”

“Then who…?”

“It was him,” I confirmed. “This happened, uh, earlier.”

“But you were at the house all day,” Nash said. “Until Julia and her brother—“

He stopped, lips halfway forming the next word. Nash stared at me for a moment, reading my expression. Then he laughed half-heartedly.

“It’s Julia’s brother, isn’t it? What’s he, like, twenty-six?”

I tried to hide the panic before Nash could see it and failed. I stepped back, raking a hand through my hair. “Twenty-four.”

“Fuck, Cosima. You’re fucking unbelievable.”

“What?” I breathed, blinking at him.

“Twenty-four? Are you kidding me? You’re seventeen, Cosima. Did it ever cross your mind that he might be taking advantage of you?”

“Have you completely forgotten the conversation we had where I told you that he wouldn’t even touch me?”

“If I’d known he was twenty-four—“

“But you didn’t know, because it doesn’t matter!” I exclaimed. “And for the record, we haven’t slept together. So stop thinking I’m throwing myself at every single guy I come across.”

Nash frowned. “You’re actually dating a twenty-four year old?”

“He’s nice. He took a little warming up, but he’s not afraid to be seen with me in public That’s more than I can say for you.”

“You went back to him because I said no,” Nash stated, stepping forward. I couldn’t look at his face any longer, and decided to stare at the trees instead. “Tell me I’m wrong. That night, when I asked you if you were going to see him again, you wouldn’t have if I’d stayed. But because I said no, you went back to him.”

“Yes,” I answered. “If you’d stayed, I never would’ve started seeing Patrick. Friends, maybe, because he’s actually really nice, but that’s it. Too bad you said no.”