Right on the lips.

Another Country -15-
by Erin Halfelven

I made up a bed on the couch. It was still a couch — lumpy, narrow, with that one spring that pokes your back no matter how you lie — but I managed to throw a sheet over it, add a blanket, and steal a real pillow from my bed before Cyndy and John took it over.

But I just lay there for a long time, staring up at the dark ceiling. Somewhere, a long block away, traffic flowed on the highway. Some big truck hissed, the driver applying his air brakes to negotiate that one turn that was sharper than it needed to be.

Josh had kissed me.

Right on the lips.

I’d never been kissed like that before. Not a joke, not a dare, not some weird middle school game. This was real. Or at least, it felt real. The memory ran down through my body like heat lightning.

I squirmed under the blanket.

My nipples ached again, tight and itchy like they were trying to push their way out of my chest. I didn’t dare touch them. I barely dared breathe. I could still feel where Josh’s hand had tilted my chin. The weight of his leg against mine. The look in his eyes right before—

I finally drifted off, sometime after midnight, tangled in the blanket and my own skin.

I dreamed of kissing.

Of mouths and hands and bare shoulders. Of Josh. Of wanting and not knowing where to put it all.

Then—“GOOD MORNING!”

Dad’s voice boomed through the room like a shotgun.

I flailed and nearly rolled off the couch, feet tangled in the sheet, heart slamming in my chest like I’d been shot out of a cannon.

Dad stood in the kitchen holding a mug of coffee like a trophy. “Come on, time to roll. We’ve got a trailer to requisition, remember?”

I rubbed my eyes. “Yeah. Okay.”

“Peterborough’s not getting any closer,” he added.

As if I didn’t know exactly how far it was. Maybe I could nap in the truck on the way.

——

Dad had made toast and poured a cup of coffee for John, who came stumbling out of my bedroom, sleep still on his face, tugging his gray Air Force jacket over a wrinkled civilian work shirt.

I didn’t usually drink coffee, but I poured myself half a cup and drowned it in milk. It was warm and bitter and didn’t help me feel any more awake. I debated adding sugar, but I’d have to get the box down from the cabinet. No one in our family used sugar in their coffee, so it wasn’t out on the table. The sweetness probably wouldn’t improve my mood much, so I decided to heck with it and sipped my milky concoction.

Dad, of course, was already bouncing around the kitchen like he’d been up for hours. He whistled while buttering toast, clinked mugs too loudly, and kept cracking jokes no one was awake enough to appreciate.

Even John complained. “Do you have to be like this in the morning?”

Dad just grinned like it was a superpower.

Mom and Cyndy stayed in bed, wisely avoiding the cheerful maniac while they could. I wished I could’ve stayed behind too, but I had been drafted for the trailer mission.

We actually made it out of the house before seven. The sun was barely up, painting the sky in soft bands of orange and gray. It smelled like springtime, and Dad and I both said, “Bless you,” at the same time when John sneezed. My own hayfever stayed quiet, for which I counted at least one blessing.

John got the front seat in Dad’s big crew cab pickup. I crawled into the back, curled up against the door, and tried to fall asleep again. The vinyl was cold against my cheek, and the truck smelled like dust and motor oil and old leather gloves.

The radio was already on — country music, of course — but low enough that I could tune it out if I tried.

I closed my eyes and hoped no one asked me anything.

— —

I must’ve drifted off again.

In a dream, Josh was in the back seat with me. The truck rumbled along the road, but we didn’t care. He pulled me into his lap and kissed me — slow and deep, like we had all the time in the world. His hands were warm on my sides, and I melted into him like I was made to fit there.

I must’ve made a noise.

Because suddenly I was awake, blinking at the ceiling of the cab, with Dad laughing and John snorting beside him.

“That must have been some dream,” Dad said over his shoulder.

“Yeah,” John added. “You were whimpering and carrying on. Sounded pretty intense.”

I sat up fast, face burning. “Shut up.”

They just laughed harder.

I didn’t say much after that. Embarrassed. Angry. Confused. I pressed my forehead to the cold window and tried not to feel anything. The scene outside had already changed from the flat fields and green orchards of the southern Kern Valley to brushy desert hills and then to more trees and greenery as we approached the town.

The two jokers in the front seat couldn’t resist a few more pokes in my ego, but thankfully, before their ragging could really get going, we pulled off the road.

Uncle David’s place was just outside of Peterborough, tucked back behind a long gravel drive and a row of ancient oak trees. The truck crunched to a stop in the shade, and Dad killed the engine.

The silence was a relief.

Uncle David’s friend Mason waved at us from behind the white rail fence. Mason was a stringbean of a fellow, lean and sallow, with straight black hair receding from a high forehead. Maybe ten years younger than Dad or Uncle David, he looked even younger —almost John’s age— despite his early baldness.

Mason was telling Dad that he might as well pull the truck out and back it up the driveway all the way to the end, where he could just hook up to the trailer, easy-peasy. John and I got out on the right side while Dad put the truck in reverse and backed out toward the highway again.

Mason stretched a hand over the fence to shake with John, but when he looked at me, his head tilted.

“Bobby?” he asked.

I hadn’t seen him since last fall, when he and Uncle David came down to Cabarker for Thanksgiving dinner. Didn’t he recognize me? Had I changed that much in six months?

“Sure,” I said, lowering my voice for some reason. I stuck out my hand, and Mason shook it, grinning. When we let go, our fingertips brushed just a second too long.

Then he winked — with the eye away from John’s view.

What the heck did that mean?