Page 115 of Love in Riverbend
Ricky shrugs. “Once in a while.” He laughs. “It’s weird. She doesn’t seem like a little kid anymore.” He leans forward and lowers his voice. “At breakfast this morning, Cory told me he reached out to her to fill the seventh-grade science position at the middle school.”
“No way,” I say. “How can Devan be old enough to teach?”
“Weird how it happens,” Ricky says. “I mean, I saw Jill. Almost didn’t recognize her.”
“Was Devan here?” Nick asks.
Pressing his lips together, Ricky shakes his head. “No. If she didn’t cancel the interview with Cory, she probably came to town and left. Like I said before, Mom doesn’t expect her to move back. I’m kind of shocked she even went to the interview. Hell, I meant to ask Cory how it went and forgot. Maybe she didn’t.”
“Who is Jill marrying?” Galvin, the fifth of our group, asks. Galvin is a year older than Ricky and me and lives in town—in Riverbend—but commutes to Bloomington where he is a chef at an upscale restaurant on Lake Monroe.
“Todd Blakely,” Nick replies.
Everyone makes noises as I try to recall Todd Blakley, and then it hits me. “Wasn’t he the one who shit his pants in elementary school? Even everyone at the high school was talking about how the whole bathroom stunk.”
After we all laugh, Nick nods. “That was him.”
Ricky grins my direction. “If I recall, Justin, you had to spray your pants with the hose because you didn’t give it a shake, and you had an embarrassing wet mark.”
I kick dirt his direction. “You swore to never mention that.” Even though I act mad, I take everyone’s laughs because Ricky is right. I was in that weird middle-school age and panicked. My plan worked. Only my closest friends knew what happened. “What’s Todd Shit Pants up to these days?”
You would think we were a bunch of old ladies gossiping, not men in their thirties.
“Finishing up his MBA in Indy,” Nick says. “Obviously, Jill has learned to overlook his childish mishap.”
Galvin turns toward the large barn.
The structure is mammoth. I’ve helped fill it with straw and hay. I’ve also had a few happenings in the hayloft. I’d suspect over fifty percent of Riverbend at least made it to second base in that barn.
“Did you guys hear something?” Galvin asks.
I make another quick glance and turn away. “Creaky wood and wind.”
“Or maybe someone is giving up their V card,” Ricky says.
I scrunch my nose. “I’m not the voyeur type.”
“It depends,” Galvin says. “There’s this one girl on pay-per-view...”
The conversation takes a drastic turn as Galvin and Nick expand upon the fetishes that keep their interest and those that turn their stomachs. I’m not listening. Instead, I’m back to the pond, to BK and me lying on my jacket, to the sounds of her moans.
Shit.
I stand, hoping no one notices my semi-erection. It sure as hell wasn’t the talk of vibrators and anal fisting that made my circulation reroute. “I’m ready to douse this fire.”
“Thank God,” Ricky says.
Harvey agrees.
Each one of us lifts a bucket. The fire hisses and steams as the embers take on the water. I stack the buckets and carry them toward the barn. The heavy door creaks as I push it open. For a second, I think I hear something up in the loft. Standing still, I listen. My thoughts go to BK. I consider calling out but know it’s stupid. She wouldn’t be there.
Could she be with someone else?
Why does that upset me?
I don’t hear anything else. The only sounds are those of the guys outside and the chirping of crickets. I take a moment and look out the large opening in the roof and see the stars.
With a sigh, I put the buckets in a supply room and make my way back out of the barn, closing the door behind me.
