Playing Hurt - By Holly Schindler Page 0,61

hotter than the summer sun ever thought about. His hands are everywhere—my breasts, my backside, my thighs.

I suddenly realize what he’s touching, and I grab his hand. Stare down at my scar. After being pummeled by the shower stream, it looks brutally pink. Raw. Ugly.

But Clint untangles his fingers from my own, traces the outline of my surgical scar. Against the thick tip of his finger, the scar looks tiny by comparison. Actually disappears beneath his hand.

“Show me where your room is,” he mumbles.

I’m already twisting the knob to kill the shower, and we’re hurrying our naked, dripping bodies down the hall.

We fall into a twisted, jumbled mass on the bed as Clint kicks the heavy cover back. We’re like ocean waves that just keep rising and crashing against each other, our wet bodies and hair soaking everything we touch. My arm flies to the purse at my bedside, tugs the zipper down. Thank God for Fair Grove commencement night at Hill Toppers’, I think as I pull out the box of condoms.

Clint grabs the box, tears it open. I close my eyes as our mouths come together, gently. He rustles against me; I’m sure he’s rolling the condom on.

He’s gazing right into my eyes when I finally open them. I can feel him, hard against my inner thigh, breathing hot on my neck. I run my hands down his back, turning my touch as soft as a summer breeze.

An engine roars up to the cabin.

Clint frowns, turns his head toward my window. When the engine outside dies, he growls, “You gotta be kidding.” He jumps off the bed like the mattress has teeth and is threatening to bite him.

“What? What?” I ask, panicking.

“Your parents are here,” he says, his feet stomping the floor as he races out of my room.

“What?” I repeat, because I’m absolutely sure that I’ve heard him all wrong. This can’t be happening …

“Hurry,” Clint yells, even though I’m moving faster than I have since my last game.

Clint’s already fastening the button on his shorts when I burst into the bathroom. He throws his shirt over his head and tries to hand me the jean shorts I’d been wearing a moment ago. But they’re so tight, and my legs are still so wet, I know they’ll only get stuck mid-thigh. And I have no idea where my T-shirt landed. Desperate, I grab one of Brandon’s concert tees from the bag Mom’s using for our dirty clothes, along with the baggy shorts I slept in the night before.

“Come on,” Clint urges, dragging me back down the hall while I’m still hiking up my shorts. He grabs his iced tea off the counter, and we plop into a couple of kitchen chairs just as Mom opens the door.

“What—Chelse?” Mom says, her eyes flying wide behind her glasses at the moment she steps into the kitchen.

“You’re back awfully early,” I say, trying on an innocent tone. It doesn’t fit me any better than a pair of size two jeans would, no matter how hard I try to tug on it.

“Brandon—ah—he forgot his strap,” Mom stutters. “He’s trying to play sitting on a stool, but he’s so miserable not being able to dance—jump—whatever he does—that I decided to come back for it. Your dad’s still at Pike’s.”

“Hey, Mrs. Keyes,” Clint says, waving coolly before raising the glass of tea to his lips.

“Why are you two so wet?” Mom finally asks, through a frown.

“Turned the boat over,” Clint said. “Can you believe it? Not two minutes into our trip.”

“You didn’t get hurt again,” Mom says.

“No, no—Chelsea Keyes, made of steel. Literally,” I try to quip.

“Your clothes dried awfully fast,” Mom says, running her eyes over both of us. She crosses her arms over her chest and tightens her lips at me.

“I changed,” I say with a shrug.

“Me, too,” Clint adds. “I had some extra stuff in the truck. Chelse was nice enough to let me use your bathroom.” Is he explaining too much? He gulps down his tea so fast I’m sure he gets brain freeze. But he doesn’t show it—tonight, he’s rattled by nothing.

“You don’t have to run off—” Mom begins.

“No, no, that’s all right,” Clint tells her. “I have to get to the lodge. Guy up there does maintenance on the Lake of the Woods boats. I’ll get him to look over that motor on the skiff. Greg’ll kill me if I did any real damage.”

“Which means I can go to Pike’s after all,” I tell Mom with a