Little Waves

Her back arched as I pushed into her, her mouth open, eyes lost to the sky. She came with a cry I could barely hear over the deafening booms. This time, I made it last, pumping into her as the display settled into the dark of night again and all around the lake people cheered. It felt like they were applauding us.

I neared my finish and murmured her name. "I want to taste it," she told me, and I pulled out of her. I stood, and Cheyenne was right there, helping her friend to her knees, her bikini bottoms askew and showing off her shaven pussy. Eva was just inches from her naked sex and I could see the need and frustration in Cheyenne's eyes in that moment. In a blink, it was gone again, and she turned to me with a smile that I would have thought was genuine if it hadn't been for that sliver of a moment.

"Give her a treat."

Eva took me deep, staring up at me with those dark, playful eyes. Her hands went to my base and she stroked me as she took me as deep as she could. The adoration in her eyes was too much. I could barely last a minute with her lips around me.

"Eva..." I warned. She pulled off me to my entrance, still stroking me fast and hard. I ran a hand through her hair and moaned, "Fuck, that's good, that feels so fucking good... Eva!"

I came across her tongue and hit the back of her mouth. She closed her eyes and pulled away just far enough I painted her face with the last few shots, my streaks hitting her cheek and chin. When I finished, she kissed my tip and looked upward at Cheyenne. "Want a taste?"

"Oh, you know I do," Cheyenne said, and leaned down. I thought for a moment they might kiss, but no, Eva wiped a glob of me off her cheek and fed it to her friend. Cheyenne watched me out of the corner of her eye and bobbed up and down on Eva's fingers like she was sucking a cock. That got a laugh out of Eva, and like that, the show ended. She got to her feet and I wrapped an arm around her to kiss her forehead.

"You are wild," I said. "I like that."

* * *

The next few days were a blur. I spent every moment I could with Eva, christening each room in my house, the deck, the patio, and even the garage on one memorable occasion. We made time for her friends, but they had summer jobs to tend to while the pair of us were pretty free to revel in our new relationship.

It wasn't just the sex. We took long walks that left us not exactly lost but certainly farther away from humanity than I'd ever been. A day drive saw us back in Pike Bridge, having lunch with my family there and exploring all our old haunts. We kept it going and wound up in New Bainbridge, where we walked through the campus we both attended and stayed the night in a hotel -- where of course we made love in every room before we had to check out.

I wasn't sure how to bring up Cheyenne's longing looks on the Fourth. Hell, I wasn't even sure it was my business. And yeah, a selfish part of me looked at Eva and growled "mine," but in my heart, I think I was always going to say something. Or I'd like to assume I would have, I don't really know.

However it would have played out if things ran their course was changed the day Eva found out I never kayaked before. It was also the morning we drove back from New Bainbridge, so we were passing through the Harpy Mountains.

"I should have stopped at a couple sporting goods stores and priced out a kayak or a canoe," I said. It was an idle comment, but even a trickle can start a flood.

"Ooh. Cheyenne has a couple. Well, I mean, her parents do, but you get the idea."

"Have you ever done it?" I asked.

She had her phone out and was idly playing with different camera angles in the changing shade of the mountains for road trip pictures for her modeling page. She thought she looked basic with her hair back in a ponytail slipped through a baseball cap and a raglan tee with the logo for Queso Conquistador, a small chain of Tex-Mex restaurants she was modeling for that summer by showing off their merchandise in sexy ways.

"Yeah! I love it. And Overlark is perfect for it. The lake is so shallow you can't really go in above your head. Have you?"

"No. Well, not as an adult, anyways. I've got pictures from when my brothers and I were kids and we went out on a rowboat, but I was so young it doesn't count."

She started tapping away on her phone and a minute later got a response. "Cheyenne says we can borrow her tandem kayak. Oh, this is going to be fun. It's a workout but it's so relaxing."

"How did you two meet?"

"Friends of friends. I started my modeling page my sophomore year, and my pictures were... well, they were okay, but I was doing a lot of things wrong. Bad angles, bad lighting, But I knew makeup really, really well because of Mom."

"Remind me, your mom..."

"She's a makeup consultant. Anyways. Friends of Cheyenne's found out I was getting into online modeling, and introduced us. When we found out we had similar histories of fighting to lose weight but not starving ourselves, we bonded. What she knew about lighting and camera angles, she taught me, and what I knew about makeup, I taught her, and then her roommate. We started to branch out a bit, bring in other girls. It's fun. Like our own modeling agency, only no mean bitches allowed. Good vibes only."

I thought for a moment about how to phrase the next words out of my mouth and still came up short. "Uh. Fourth of July. That got pretty wild. You two... you've shown off like that before for each other?"

Eva chuckled. "I wasn't a virgin before you, if that's what you're asking."

"No, no, no judgment. I just... ah... have you two ever hooked up?"

"Oooh, you'd like that, wouldn't you?" She goosed my cock through my khaki shorts. "No. We've kissed a few times but mostly for the pics. Guys love that."

"I'll bet," I said, thinking of Cheyenne standing next to me in the dark as Eva sucked my cock.

I didn't know if I should bring that up, so I let it slide. She deserved to know, and I knew now I'd tell her at some point, probably soon. But talk shifted to the upcoming start of her job, another topic I'd been meaning to bring up with her.

"I'll need to start going through some of the training material and paperwork, get that done," she said.

"And housing?" I asked, playing innocent.

"Oh, uh..."

"I was looking at rentals, and did you know Ted and Annette Parker's house is up for rent in Pike Bridge? Beautiful place. On the expensive side, but..."

Eva gave me a sidelong look. "It was a cute place," she said warily.

"There are rentals opening up all over New Bainbridge too. About as expensive but you'd be in the city, close to your college friends."

"I... I..." She looked so flustered I couldn't hold back my grin anymore and she smacked me. "Oh, you're an asshole."

"Come live with me. You can have any room for an office or a studio. Mine included. The view up there is fantastic."

She studied me. "Are you serious?"

"Yeah. I know you wanted to take things slow, but even if you decide this isn't going to work out-"

"It's going to work out," she said quietly. "Don't you dare think it isn't. I'm crazy about you."

"I'm crazy about you too. So what do you think? Want to move in?"

"Yes. Absolutely. Yes." She pushed over the center console and kissed my cheek. When she pulled away, Eva smacked my hip. "Jerk move old man. I thought you were serious there for a second."

"Aw, I'm sorry."

We talked offices the rest of the trip. Eva was always going to be shy about what she really wanted to a certain extent, but I finally wrangled out of her that what she was thinking was that she'd like to convert the basement where I had my workout gear into a combination office and photo shoot area. That sounded good to me since there would still be plenty of room down there in an unused room for my weights.

Back home, we took the time to unpack and grab some water before we headed to Cheyenne's. She was gone for the day, as were the rest of the roommates. The kayak was in the garage against a wall. I noticed skis there too and winced. Although it was only mid-July, I needed to start thinking about firewood for the winter and a generator in case the power failed. If I got stuck at home in a blizzard, which was a very real possibility, I wanted to be prepared. So much to think about, being a new homeowner.

Big though it might be, Overlark Lake was pretty shallow, all things considered. There were no motorized boats for that reason, which was perfect in my estimation. I loved the quiet of the lake, and it was emphasized even more as we paddled miles on end. The muscles it took weren't ones I used often, and I have to admit, it took me by surprise how much strength it sapped from me.

We beached at a public access dock and rested on our backs under the shade of a pine. Eva snuggled in tight next to me and I could have slept like that, if it wasn't for the people at the campsites around us.

But we both paid for the inactivity. When we returned to the water my muscles bitched in a symphony that would have made Andrea Bocelli proud. I wasn't the only one. "We went waaaay too far," Eva groaned after she upended the last of her water down her throat. "We're going to go home and we are going to soak in the tub for hours."

That was enough to spur me on to the finish, and finally we reached the shoreline nearest Cheyenne's. Eva bounded ahead to start up the bath while I carried the kayak up the path, my muscles by now extraordinarily grumpy with me.

The bath helped, but by that point, we were so drained we didn't even fool around -- much. Nor did we make it back to my place. We crashed on Eva's bed there at Cheyenne's, the cool sheets and her desk fan too nice to ignore. I didn't remember closing my eyes. All I knew was Eva snuggling back against me, her butt nice and warm against my half-hard prick, and then I was waking up, startled by something I didn't consciously hear at first.

What I did know was that I was thirsty. Damned thirsty. I slipped out of bed, threw on my shorts and tee shirt with a lot of additional muscle pain, and headed out into the hallway. There, I heard it. A faint sob.

Someone was crying.

It took me a minute to find Cheyenne. She wasn't downstairs or in her room, but out on her deck, head in her hands, her whole body shaking from the force of the tears she was trying to hold back. I slid open the door and she jumped, staring up at me under a mask of utterly ruined makeup.

"Oh shit," she said, scrambling off her stool-height chair and moving towards the door. "I didn't mean for anyone to hear me."

"Hey. Stop," I said, grabbing her shoulder. She did, and broke out into a fresh wave of tears. I didn't know what else to do so I came in for a hug.

Cheyenne tucked into me. I squeezed her tighter and held her like that for a long minute. Finally she pulled back and asked mutely, "Is she awake too? I don't want her to see me like this."

"Because you want her too."

She looked up at me. "Yes. I guess... you saw at the party."

"Yeah. I put it together pretty fast."

"I'm sorry. I won't ever come between you two. But I walked past her bedroom tonight and I saw her and you and..." She gave me a broken smile. "I just hope someday I find that someone like you two found each other again."

"Does she know?"

"No. And I want to keep it that way."

"Okay. I won't tell her. But I want to know why you never did."

"I did try to, once. We were doing a cute little shoot, you know, kisses on the cheek, that sort of thing. We'd been drinking a little wine. One of our kisses got... mm... deeper. I thought maybe in the moment she liked it. But she pulled away and laughed it off and told me we really shouldn't drink so much. I thought about telling her how I feel but here I am, two years later, and nope, still a coward. And now she has you and that's amazing, it really is. I swear, all I want is for her to be happy." She pulled away completely and headed for the door. "I'm sorry. This was never supposed to... I'm sorry. Please don't tell her."

She fled, and I was left with a twisting knot in my gut. "Sorry, Cheyenne," I murmured after her, because I lied. I knew I had to tell Eva.

* * *

Eva sat at the kitchen table and listened while I made chicken Kiev that night. I was pulling out all the stops out of a vague sense of worry Eva would run to her best friend with arms wide open and leave my butt behind. And also because chicken Kiev is fuckin' awesome. Seriously guys, if you want to impress your girl on date night? Chicken Kiev. All the way.

When I finished telling her about Cheyenne, she refilled her wine glass, drank half of it down, and muttered, "Shit."

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner. Truth was, I think she's pretty great and I didn't want to lose you."

"You're cute. And stuck with me." She frowned, but it was a cute frown, overexaggerated with her nose scrunched up. "Hm. I guess I knew. I remember that time she's talking about. We were pretty buzzed and I kinda just blew her off thinking she was joking or we had too much to drink or something. But yeah, now that I think about it, there were a lot of tells. Ugh. I feel like a jerk."

"Don't. She could have told you. But I get her being afraid of it too. You lose the moment and then there are no cracks for a long, long time until you start to look like a stalker."

"Like me with you."

I laughed. "Sure. But you did come to me. Eventually. I don't know that she would have."

"No, the whole suffer-in-silence thing is more her style. She was stuck in a bad relationship right around the time I first met her. Didn't say a word to anyone. Thought she had to endure it herself."

"What happened?" I asked, coming to the table and taking up my bottle of Firestone Walker.

"The guy was low-key verbally abusive. Always cutting her down. Like, okay, she broke the twenty-five thousand follower mark and was so happy about it, but when she told him, all he said was, 'How much more will that earn you?' He didn't think modeling was a real job and told her she'd be relying on her parents or a boyfriend's money. He didn't yell, he didn't get angry, but it was like... like..."

"Death by a thousand cuts," I suggested.

"Yeah, exactly. Our friends and I, we found out pretty much the way you did. He got really snide with her at a restaurant and in a few she went to the bathroom. A friend of ours, Dayna, found her in there a couple minutes later, crying."

"Shit."

"Yeah. She wasn't going to break up with him, but she admitted to us she was miserable and we finally got her to see it was the right move. Cheyenne's always taken care of us, so it was really hard to be the one to take care of her. I guess she needs that now too."

I sat and took her hand. "So what do we do?"

"Let me think about that. I have an idea, but give me time. And don't let on that I know. This'll be fun. I think. Maybe. Or maybe you'll both think I'm crazy."

"Too late," I said cheerfully, and she smacked me.

* * *

I didn't exactly put the drama out of my mind but life took over for a while. We moved over Eva's things, and drove back to New Bainbridge and the tiny suburb her parents lived in to borrow her dad's truck and haul some of her furniture and things in storage. Her parents, as she said, were thrilled we wound up together. I assured them I never thought of Eva in any way but friendly when she was a teenager, although it was pretty unnecessary. They were happy to see us together, and even happier when we made arrangements for them to come out one weekend and stay with us.

Back home, we spent a lot of time with Cheyenne and their friends setting up the basement for Eva's work spaces. The girls knew a staggering amount about lighting and green screens and sound baffling. I was mostly man candy, there to lift heavy things and grunt when appropriate. They could have handled that too, but they were sweet and stroked my ego.

Lucia, Becky, and the rest would be leaving on the 15th. I never thought to wonder why specifically that date, never thinking it had any special connotation. They would be going to the Grand Canyon together, and then splitting up to go their separate ways before college in New Bainbridge started again. We made tentative plans to do a group vacation sometime the next summer, with no two people agreeing on where.

They thought they had all the time in the world, that it was always going to be like this, a group moving as one. I knew the bittersweet truth, that life would necessitate some fractures. They would get married, have kids, or get jobs that kept them away from the group. They would make promises to spend a couple weeks on vacation, but one or two of them would have to skip out, and then it would be two or three, until finally the promises were heartfelt and maybe meant in earnest but rarely capitalized on.

But there was beauty in that too, in the moments they could steal with one another, in the lives they would lead, the families they would create, the heights they would all soar to. Things would change but change was not always evil. Eva understood this, I think, even before she graduated. She was the oldest, the first to go out into the world and she was the first to confront having to move onto true adulthood. She would never really leave those friends behind, but now she was ahead of them on the path and when she looked back sometimes they would not be visible.

That is a sad knowledge to have, and it can scrape a person raw. It's why sports studs hang out in bars twenty years after their golden days of football or baseball and talk about their winning games. It's why we have reunions. It's why we have funerals. It's why we cry when we say goodbye, because someday, there is always an end to the path and there are no more goodbyes, only the hope of one more hello, the greatest one.

I hope that path continues in a world better than this one, where we can walk together eternally. I really do. I want to believe there's a spot where that summer at the lake could last forever for Eva and her friends.

Endless summer. That would be heaven, wouldn't it?

* * *

On the fourteenth, Eva was a manic ball of energy. I woke to her singing in the shower, and when I joined her, she gave me the most enthusiastic blowjob to date. I tried to return the favor, but she said, "No time. If you started licking my pussy right now we wouldn't stop until you'd fucked me two or three times, and we wouldn't be done until noon."

"Don't see the downside here," I said.

"Trust me," she said with a mischievous grin. "It'll be so, so worth it."

I knew she and her friends had been planning one last party, but all I knew about it was that the party was going to happen lakeside down from my house. We brought over tables, chairs, and beach blankets, much like the 4th, as well as a big lean-to tent with the opening not aimed towards the lake, but away from it. I couldn't figure that out but Eva was very specific in her directions. We made up a bunch of finger foods and ran into town for ice and drinks, and by about then, people started showing up.

It was strictly limited to Eva, her friends, and their significant others. Only two guys could make it for this one. Lucia's guy, Paul, helped me with a pavilion tent and slapped me on the back, grinning. "Surprised more guys didn't show up. These Nude Day parties are always the wildest."

It took me a moment to register what he just said. "Wait. Nude Day?"

"You didn't know?" He turned and called to Eva, "You didn't tell your guy what day it is?"

"I thought it'd be funnier if I didn't," she called back.

"Oh, fuck me," I said, and laughed.

The drinks flowed early and the tops came off fast. Even with the cover of the tent, we had to be cautious, of course, but it was a perfect storm of a weekday and sheer luck. The only people we saw out on the lake were well above twenty.