It’s two thirty now, so on my way back I swing by to see Matty. He’s walking. Halfway home. Just turned onto Woodland Road, Bills cap pulled low over his perfect face. I drive real slow next to him. He picks up speed, doesn’t look over. I wonder if he realizes it’s my dad’s truck. Maybe he thinks his evening will be made busy with a shotgun and a preacher. Maybe he doesn’t know whose truck it is and thinks I might be some kind of pervy serial killer. I keep his pace for all of Woodland, but when we turn onto Edgar, I get a good glimpse and he looks panicked and I feel bad. I roll down the window and yell, “Hey, butthead!”
He turns around. His face is blank and kind of white, but then he realizes who it is and smiles that big Matty smile that’s just about him and me.
“Why does you driving this big truck make me nervous?” he says, climbing in the passenger side when I slow down enough for him to get in. He kisses me on the lips, his head blocking my view. It doesn’t matter. I know these roads.
“I am an excellent driver,” I say.
“Okay, Rain Man.”
“Okay nothing. I know what I’m doing.”
“I’ll say.” He smacks his hand on my thigh. It stings the slightest bit. He uses the potholes as an excuse to bump his hand up higher and higher and I use them as an excuse to slide my leg toward him, so eventually, his hand is right there and he’s rubbing his finger up and down the seam of my jeans right where the legs meet and there’s that thick part, all the seams coming together, and he’s making me crazy and I want to close my eyes but I’m driving. He’s acting like he doesn’t know. Pretending like the bumps in the road just led his hand there and he has no idea what it’s doing to me. He’s humming and looking out the window, but there’s that great big smile across his face. By the time we pull into his driveway, he’s got my jeans unbuttoned.
We make out in the truck for a while even though his mom is at work, his dad is on a job out in Olean, and his little sister has Girl Scout cookies to sell or something. It’s more fun this way. His bedroom is getting old. And it’s not like anyone will see. His nearest neighbor is a quarter mile away, and there’s so many pine trees.
I still have my dad’s jacket on, but my jeans are hanging over the seat. Matty unbuttons his pants, grinning. Even when we kiss I can feel his movie star smile. His grandfather was a poster boy for the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II, and with his strong brow and noble chin, Matty looks like he could have been the one painted in the clouds holding a rocket bomb. His smile feels like sun breaking through.
“Do you have something?” I ask, determined to keep my wits about me.
“In my room.” He takes his pants off and climbs on top of me. It’s flopping around in his boxer shorts, like it’s spring loaded. We’re in our underwear, but I feel him trying to push the right things together.
“Go get it.”
“April!”
“Go.”
“Come on.” He sits up, but he’s still on me. Things are still aligned. He runs both hands through his hair.
“You come on.” We’ve been through this almost as many times as we’ve done it.
“I’m trying to,” he says, his voice so strained it’s more grunt than words.
“Matty.”
“I’m not cheating on you.” He holds his hand up, flat palmed. His pale brown eyes look golden in the afternoon light. “Scout’s honor. You won’t catch anything.”
“Pregnancy is an awful disease,” I say, trying to wriggle out from under him so we don’t have an accident. He’s trigger happy.
“Do you know how hard it is to get pregnant? Seriously. I’m being serious. My cousin Lindsey has been trying for years.”
“She’s like fifty.”
“That has nothing to do with it,” he says through his teeth.
“I think it does. There was an Oprah.”
“Would it be so bad?” It’s new, him trying different angles like this. Usually he flat-out begs and gives up easy. “We already know we’re getting married. Right? And you already dropped out of school.” He’s talking fast, like he does when he’s trying to scam his mom into a later curfew or a new skateboard. “It probably wouldn’t happen anyway, but everyone says it feels so different, like so much better. For both of us. Not just me. It’ll blow your mind, April.”
“It’ll blow your mind, April,” I say, making my voice crack like his. I laugh and I enjoy it when he looks wounded, like I broke his new Tonka truck. I put a pin in his plan. I love that I’m the only person who doesn’t cave just because he’s beautiful.