safety I had in mind when I slipped my hands under the straps of her bikini to make sure no skin went uncovered. I wiped the extra lotion down her arms and then my own.
“Do you need me to do yours?”
I quickly shook my head, even though I wanted her to. “I put it on at home.” I’d worried in advance about the erotic potential of sunscreen application and decided it was best to limit it as much as possible.
Instead I unpacked our lunches, though it was barely eleven o’clock. Being on the beach, even for a minute, made me ravenous. We chewed our sandwiches silently, watching people arrive all around us. At the far end of the beach the last surfer holdouts were coming out of the water in their glittering wet suits, done until the late afternoon, when the rest of us would start packing up to leave.
“How do you make such good sandwiches?”
I laughed. “Me?”
“Yeah. Whenever I make one, even if it has the same exact ingredients, it tastes like shit.”
“That’s because you made it for yourself,” I said. “Food always tastes better made by someone else.”
“I think it’s specific to you, though,” said Jamie. A warmth entirely unrelated to the sun spread across my chest. “I mean, my mom’s food tastes like shit too,” she added.
I grinned. “It really does.”
Jamie elbowed me in the ribs. “Only I’m allowed to say that.” I winced from her touch but smiled through it. It was a nice but complicated feeling for her to tease me now, especially for something no one else knew me well enough to joke about. While Jamie could tolerate criticism of the people she loved—especially of her mom, especially during those few months of post-coming out silent treatment—I could not, even and maybe especially when I knew it was fair. One of my and Jamie’s biggest fights as a couple had started because Jamie had agreed when I said my mom seemed lonely. I’d stormed out of the restaurant where we were eating late-night tacos, gotten in my truck, and driven away. I came back for her a minute later, but still. It had not gone over well.
“Do you wanna go in?” I stood up fast, and bread crumbs fell from my board shorts to the towel below.
Jamie squinted up at me. “You just ate.”
“That rule isn’t real.”
“Yes, it is.”
“Maybe for, like, babies.”
Jamie rolled her eyes. “I’ll stay with our stuff.”
Then it was my turn for an eye roll. Jamie was always worried some stealthy preteen thief was going to make off with our beach bags in broad daylight. And then we’d be destitute, out a whole twenty bucks and a half-punched taco-shop loyalty card between us.
“Suit yourself,” I said, and took off jogging toward the water. I never got sick of that feeling: the way my adrenaline kicked up and my sun-roasted sleepiness fell away in anticipation of plunging myself into cool, salty water. I loved the moment the sand switched over from hot and dry to cool and damp. Sometimes, when there weren’t too many people in the water to see me do it, I ran that last stretch with my eyes closed, leaving it to my feet to sense when I was almost there. When I felt water slap against my calves I was awake.
I dove under the water and resurfaced where the water came up to my chest. I smoothed my hair back and turned to look at the beach. Jamie waved and I waved back. Then I did something I knew she’d kind of hate me for, but which I also knew would work: I started yelling.
“COME ON IN, JAMIE!” I hollered. “THE WATER’S FINE!”
I watched her glance casually around, pretending to search for whoever this Jamie person was.
“YEAH, YOU! GIRL UNDER THE BLUE UMBRELLA!”
I could see her scowl from forty yards out. Oh, she is going to straight-up murder me, I thought. But she’d have to come into the water to get to me first.