“I do,” Abigail said, and half ran to her front door, not wanting to give him a chance to talk them out of what was happening.
The wrap party, like all of Boxgrove’s wrap parties, was held in the basement tavern at the Boxgrove Inn. Abigail got there early to help Marie, the bartender, set up the platters of snacks, and in return, Marie poured Abigail what looked like just a Sprite, but with vodka in it. The night before, after the second-to-last performance, Zachary and Abigail had fooled around once again, in his dressing room. At one point, Abigail thought they were going to have sex, and she broached the topic of condoms.
“You want to do this right here, right now, in my dressing room?” he’d asked. He already knew Abigail was a virgin because they’d discussed it.
“I don’t care where we do it, I just want it to be with you,” Abigail said.
“Let’s talk just a little bit more about this, okay?” Zachary said.
“Are you a hundred percent sure? I’m going back to New York in three days, and you and I—”
“You want written consent?” Abigail said, and laughed. Sexual harassment was all over the news, and she appreciated Zachary wanting to make sure, but she was ready.
“I’m considering it,” he said, but laughed as well.
After the wrap party Abigail had been planning on going home with her parents, then doubling back to meet Zachary in his room at the inn, but both her parents had left the party on the early side.
“I’m exhausted, honestly, Abigail,” her mother had said. “But you stay here. You’re young.” Abigail, who didn’t want to get too close to her parents in case they smelled the vodka on her breath, waved goodbye as they climbed the stairs to the street level. Then she returned to the booth where Martin Pilkingham was holding court and drinking scotch. She’d known him her whole life, and he felt more like an uncle to her than her actual uncles.
Toward closing time, the bar mostly empty, Zachary, gripping a pint of Guinness, pulled Abigail into a dark corner of the pub. She could smell the alcohol on his breath as he touched her face. “It feels so wrong, but it feels so right,” he said.
It was his hand on her face, and not the words, that made what he’d said sound like he’d memorized a script, that caused her knees to go temporarily weak. He took her arm and they walked through the winding hallways of the inn to his room.
She never saw Zachary again, except in an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and a terrible indie horror film called The Ghosting. The day after the wrap party Abigail went for a run with her friend Zoe and told her all about it. But what she really wanted to do was tell Todd; he was her friend, after all, and it seemed wrong that she couldn’t tell him about this momentous occasion.
She made a date with Todd to get lunch the following day, after his shift at the golf course, and she broke up with him, telling him she thought they should be single for their senior year of high school. He seemed somehow relieved.
CHAPTER 3
I’ve slept with four men,” Abigail said to the bearded guy whose name she still didn’t know. “And one woman. Does that count?”
“Sure,” he said.
“Not a huge number, I know,” she said.
“Probably about average.” He was pulling on a cardigan sweater, and Abigail wished she had her own extra layer. There were still embers in the firepit but any heat it gave off had diminished a while ago. Still, it was too perfect to consider going inside; the sky was a cluster of stars, and the air smelled of the lavender that bordered the patio. “I always heard,” he continued, “that when a man tells you how many women he’s slept with you should halve that number, and when a woman tells you how many men she’s slept with you should double it.”
“So you think I’ve slept with eight men?”
“And two women.”
“Right. And two women.”
“No, I don’t think that. I think you’re telling the truth.”
“I am, actually. I have nothing to lose. I’ll never see you again.”
“That’s probably true. A little sad, though.”
Abigail shifted forward in her cushioned Adirondack chair, to get closer to the ineffective fire.
“You’re cold?” the man said.
“A little bit. Not enough to go inside, though.”
“Want my sweater?”
Abigail found herself saying, “Yes. If you’re honestly offering.”
Before she was done talking, he’d pulled the sweater off and was handing it over to her. She noticed how thin and muscular he was under the tight-fitting flannel shirt. She pulled her arms through the still-warm sweater. One of the smoldering logs in the firepit popped loudly. Her phone buzzed again in her jeans. It was Kyra, checking in. U okay?