Another Summer by Sue Lilley

got up onto her knees and reached for her clothes but he was quicker, tossing them aside.
    “No, you don’t.  I like looking at you.”  He pushed himself up onto his hands, taking a drink from the bottle as his eyes scanned over her naked body.  “You are fucking gorgeous, do you know that?”
    Feeling wet and uncomfortable, she tried to stop thinking about covering herself up and took her first real chance to look at him.  She was fascinated by the way he was all soft now, flopping onto his thigh.  It had been so big, so hard only a minute ago.  Without thinking, she ran a finger over him.  He quickened at once.  Kissed her.
    “You want to go again?  Give me a minute.”
    The sun was relentless as they faced each other, still on their knees in the grass.  She watched him rolling her nipples until they were swollen and aching for his mouth.  She saw his fingers slide inside her, round and round, his thumb doing something magic until at last she fell back, gasping at the wave.
    “I didn’t know,” she whispered.
    She felt buoyant, subtly altered, as if every atom had been scrambled then re-assembled.  She wanted to thank him.  But he was already inside her riding his own wave.
    “I’m glad it was you,” she said later.  “My first time, I mean.”
    “Me too.”
    They did it again, during the night in the big old bed, their clothes tossed carelessly onto the floor.  As she drifted into the glow of sleep, she wondered if this was how it felt to fall in love with someone.  If it were possible for the loving to keep on getting better every time.  She didn’t realise it was already over.

***
    Joe had hidden his rucksack on the porch and by eight o’clock on the morning of Malcolm Dryden’s wedding, he’d already made his escape.  He’d had more than enough of feeling like the poor relation and as he threw his stuff onto the cross country train he felt nothing but smug about getting one over on Steve.
      Maybe he could’ve been more up-front with Evie but he just wasn’t into major goodbyes.  The girl was hot, but Jesus!  She’d been so into him he was seriously spooked.  He was nineteen and he wasn’t going down that route anytime soon, however much he’d fancied her. 
    Anyway, York wasn’t that far from Newcastle.  Once the waters had cooled, he might look her up.  She’d be a good bet for the odd weekend when there was nothing else happening.  Meanwhile, putting a few hundred miles between them seemed a better bet right now.
    By the time he lugged his rucksack off the train at tea time, he was starving and looking forward to a bit of his mother’s pampering.  He was too broke for more than a snack and if he went back to the empty flat, there’d be nothing in the fridge.  He hoped his mother wouldn’t have her usual house full.
    She was always extra thrilled to have him home, being the youngest and the only boy.  He hadn’t seen his four sisters since Easter but he really couldn’t be bothered to compete with too many squabbling grandchildren.
    He wouldn’t mind seeing Heather, though.  They were the closest in age and she had plans to be an accountant.  There was money in that.  And prestige.  He liked bragging a bit about her.
    But when he let himself into the pebble-dashed house, there was nobody home.  No cooking smells either which was seriously odd for a Saturday tea-time.  So much for being pampered.
    He rang Heather at her flat.
    “Joe!  Where the hell have you been?  Nobody knew how to get in touch with you.”
    “I was in Cornwall, at Steve’s.  Why, what’s happened?”
    “Just get over here.  Get a taxi.  I’ll pay.”
    There’d be no more pampering.  Irene Marsh had died from a heart attack a few days ago, sudden and instantaneous in the middle of the night.  None of them had even suspected she’d been ill.
    The next couple of weeks were a blur.  The nightmare of the funeral, the first one Joe had ever been to and he was expected to