I Should Have Taken My Shirt Off

I should have taken my shirt off.
It was N’s idea to lie on our backs and look up at the stars. Obviously I said yes. Actually I just nodded. I couldn’t even get the words out. She was wearing a blueberry-colored bikini, which ripened a little in the darkness. What I mean is that I would have said yes—or nodded—to just about anything she suggested. “But I’m just warning you,” I said, “I don’t really remember any of the star stuff except the Dippers. And I even mix those up.” She told me not to worry and that if worst came to worst we’d make up our own ones. We walked slowly and unevenly. She picked out a spot to sit and we dropped down. We dug our butts into the soft cold sand. N took a loud, deep breath. I envied her a little. I didn’t feel relaxed like that. Because of all the itchy sand sprinkled up my shirt.
She rolled over onto her elbow. “Just take it off.” Stars reflected in her eyes.
It took me a second to realize what she meant. My shirt. On very clear nights sometimes it takes sentences a second or two extra to reach me. “Nah. I’m cold.”
“But you’re making a face like you’ve got sand up your shirt.” She always squinted a little whenever she said smart things.
I told her that maybe I liked having sand up my shirt. “But feel free to take off your bikini off if you want.” She answered with a combination between a laugh and a sneer. We both took this moment to stretch our necks and look at the parking lot. It was hard to make out, but we could see the little neon red bull’s-eyes of our friends smoking in the parking lot. They had left us alone. Their brilliant idea. To treat us like endangered species who needed to mate or something. It was both very nice and very uncomfortable to have our friends close by. I felt safe, but watched.
I asked her what she thought about two of our other friends who recently started sleeping together. “It’s pretty weird. But good, I guess.” I nodded along with her. It’s hard to pin down what I thought was so special about her but I think it had something to do with nodding. Usually when you nod it’s like you’re just agreeing with the person. But with N I felt like she could tell that my nod was also my way of answering her.
“He’s too affectionate though.” I took mental notes on everything she said.
“Totally.” I imitated a guy who couldn’t stop puckering his lips. It made her laugh and fall into me a little and that quieted us. It was so strange. It’s like whenever our bodies touched it cancelled out my words and thoughts. It was like I had to make a choice between thinking and touching. But obviously it was a lot more complicated than that.
I hid my hands in the sand. I asked her if she thought that we would still be friends in ten years. It’s a hard question to make eye-contact with. She shrugged and shuffled a little which added another dose of sand up my shirt. “I hope so,” she said.
“Me too,” I said. I nodded slowly. “I’m serious.”
“Do you think I’m not?”
I looked at her. “Listen. Have you ever had sex?”
She said yes quickly. In the silence a gust of wind came along and blew up the back of my shirt. Some of the sand drizzled lightly over my back. “Have you?”
“No,” I said. “Just not yet.”
“Oh,” she said. “I didn’t like it, though.”
I stood up. I was careful not to douse any sand on her. “You don’t need to say that.” She looked up at me. I was blocking her moonlight and it made her look dark and fragile. I shrugged and said I don’t know and then tried to laugh.
I held out my hand. She took it. We went back to go hang out with our friends.