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“Brontosaurus! I mean, we are in a pool.”
He smiled, reached out and brushed some water droplets off my cheek. “That’s really nice. But we need four people. And a ball. And ideally, a diving board.”
“Can we do a modified version? I…”
“What?”
“Nothing.” I dipped my head under the water for a second, smoothing my hair down. “Just weird déjà vu. I feel like I’ve heard about that game before? But that’s not possible.”
“So about that—fun fact—”
“We’re getting an aquatic fun fact? An AquaFact! A fact that’s anything but dry.” Russell smiled patiently, like he’d already learned to wait this out. “I’m done now.”
“I highly doubt that. Please interrupt me if you think of any more.”
“I absolutely will. Wait! A fact that will hold water. Okay, now I’m done.”
“It was just about déjà vu. There’s an explanation for why we feel it. It’s not that we’re remembering something from the past, or getting a sense of the future. When you have it, what’s happening is that your brain is coding a new memory as an old one, that’s all. Like something being put into the wrong folder. Nothing mystical.”
“Is it the same when you feel like you know someone? Your brain misidentifies them?”
“I don’t know.” He took a step toward me. “I think that’s something else. Something more… special. Don’t you?”
We swam closer to each other until we were only inches apart, and suddenly the float seemed like a huge impediment. I ducked under it and pushed it away. When I surfaced, I realized that we were close enough to the shallow end that I could stand—the water hitting just below my shoulders. I walked on my toes closer to Russell, and let myself just drink him in for a moment. I liked seeing him like this—water dripping off his hair, lit by the moon and the glow of a neon cowboy hat, nothing between us. His kind eyes, his half smile that was growing as he noticed me looking at him.
“What?”
“Just you.”
He touched my waist and looked at me. “Is this okay?”
I nodded, then I leaned forward and kissed him. He tasted like chlorine and pineapple soda, like sunshine and possibilities. While we were kissing, I touched his chest, and then his shoulders, and let my hands run down his arms, feeling the muscles underneath. He felt so strong—like he could hold me up if he needed to. (I couldn’t imagine when that would be necessary, but it was somehow nice to know.) I broke away and looked into his eyes as my hands started to trace lower, over the ridges of his abs. “Is this okay?”
“Uh-huh,” he said, kissing me again. “Very much so.”
And we were kissing in the water, and there was suddenly so much more of him that I could touch—arms and legs and stomach and back, all exposed to me, and I couldn’t get enough of it. He seemed to be feeling the same way, his touching my stomach, my back, my legs…
We were kissing faster now, and my legs were wrapped around his waist. Russell had one hand bracing against the side of the pool, one hand on my back, his fingers slipping under the band of my bralette. I was holding on to him, and somehow it didn’t feel like the football field kissing anymore. It no longer felt like we had all night.
There was a hunger to our kissing now, a need I’d never felt before. It felt deeper, and more intense, like somehow, even though we were surrounded by water, a fire had started burning.
“Um,” I said, when we’d both paused to take a breath. My legs were still wrapped around him, and I was above him, looking down. Russell leaned forward and kissed my collarbone. He slid my wet strap off my shoulder and kissed the skin there, his lips soft on me.
“Yes?” he asked, looking up at me. He smiled, then took a breath and pulled us both under. We surfaced together, and I was laughing and wiping water out of my eyes. “Sorry,” he said, running his fingers up and down my arm. “Couldn’t resist. What were you going to say?” he asked, even though he sounded a little bit dazed, which was exactly how I felt.
“Just—” I said, looking around. I unhooked my legs and stood on the pebbly bottom of the pool, flexing my feet. I wasn’t sure what happened now. I suddenly wished that one of us had a car. “I wasn’t sure if we should… go somewhere?” I realized this was the vaguest thing I could have said, but I wasn’t sure how else to put it. I wasn’t really sure what I even meant, just that I wanted this to continue, but maybe not in the pool.
“Well, we could…” He hesitated. When he spoke again, it was all in a rush. “I don’t want this to sound presumptuous. And I’m not saying we even have to… not that I would expect—or that you would! Just… This is coming out all wrong.” He looked at me and took a deep breath. “I was just thinking that—if you wanted—we could get a room.”
“Here?” A second later, I realized what an inane question that was. Of course here. Here, at the hotel we were currently at that had vacancies.
But—could we even get a room? Were we allowed to? A second later, though, I realized that we probably could—we were both eighteen, and technically adults, so booking a hotel room was something I was actually, legally, allowed to do. I just had never done it before.
“Wait—you have enough money for a hotel room?”
I’d assumed that we were somewhat in the same boat at the moment, money-wise. As in, neither of us had very much. Otherwise, why would Russell have even been stuck in the bus station to begin with? Why wouldn’t he have taken an Uber to Vegas with everyone else?
“I… have a credit card we can use. If you want! We don’t have to at all, and nothing has to happen. I mean…” He let out a breath, then looked at me again. “We could just take hot showers and watch HBO.”
