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I brightened. “Yup.”
“Well we’ve got all night.”
My fingers traced my parted lips. “What do you mean?”
“Don’t you know? Erica said to come over and we’re all hanging out tonight.”
Was that what she meant? “You mean sleeping over?”
He laughed, nodding.
My heart beat wildly at the thought of spending the entire night out with all of the guys. Were they sure we could? I was having so much fun now that I was completely forgetting my parents and everything that had happened. I checked the others as if they had been listening and looking for confirmation.
North, Luke and Kota stood in the pool. They were talking together at one end with Victor, Nathan and Gabriel.
At first I was distracted because it was the first time I had seen Kota without a shirt. I was thrown into near shock. He seemed just as well-built as the others. Why had I thought before that he was weaker or was it just the almost geek-like stereotype he resembled? He almost as defined as Nathan, but Kota was slightly slimmer, smoother.
Then it was seeing them altogether with their shirts off. I felt myself taking in a slow breath, in awe of their bodies, their striking handsomeness. How in the world did I end up friends with them? It felt like an eternity had passed since the first day and I had forgotten where this started. I felt so out of place compared to their shocking good looks and their various talents. Plain Sang didn’t belong.
After I had gotten my eyeful of them, I overheard my name being mentioned and I was straining to hear.
Silas lifted me a little higher in his arms. “So do you really want to fly?”
My eyes popped open and I grinned wickedly. I knew this was a distraction but I was too excited to care. “How?”
He let go of me until I was standing next to him. He backed up until he could stand waist deep in the water and positioned his hands out in front of himself as if he wanted to give me a boost. “Put both of your feet in my hands,” he said.
I dropped my hands onto his broad shoulders. My fingertips tingled at the touch of his bare skin. I slipped a foot into his hands, and pushed myself up until I could get the other one next to it. He wrapped his fingers around my feet.
“Bend your knees a little,” he said as he lifted me slightly out of the water.
I wobbled, mostly due to nerves, and my hands gripped at his shoulders.
“I’ve got you,” he said. His face floated close to my belly. I sucked in my stomach but steadied as he used his shoulder to bolster me at my thighs. “I’m going to move down into the water and push you up and out. You should get ready to jump from my hands at the same time. Push yourself off.”
I let out a slow breath as he grasped at my feet. He slipped into the water until it was up to his shoulders.
I bent my knees slightly, waiting.
“Ready?”
“No,” I said in a tiny voice. I shut my eyes and squealed. “Do it.”
He grunted as he lifted, shoving me up to boost me into the air.
“God damn it, Silas,” North yelled as I put my full energy into jumping from Silas’s hands.
I was flying. I somersaulted, flipping over until I hit the water with my knees, almost upright.
I surfaced and I could hear Gabriel hooting. The others laughed. North tried to give me an angry eyeball but his mouth was grinning.
Gabriel backed away from the others and stepped to the edge of the pool. He jumped, doing a full front flip and shallow dive, zooming under the water for me.
I scrambled to get behind Silas thinking Gabriel was after me again. Gabriel surfaced, nodded at Silas and they did that silent communication.
“Watch this,” Gabriel said. He positioned himself like I had done in Silas’s hands. In a flash he was up in the air, light as a feather, flipped twice and landed smoothly into the middle of the pool.
My mouth was open, impressed by the acrobatics.
“I can do better,” Luke shouted. “Let’s do it at the same time, Sang. Gabriel, you push her in the air.”
“Shit, make them stop, Kota,” North said.
“I think there’s enough of us around to make sure they aren’t going to drown,” Kota said calmly.
North huffed but slipped into the water. He eyed me intently and swam for me.
His wide tapered shoulders parted the water in a wave. The line of coarse hair starting from his black bathing suit and ending above his belly had me hypnotized.
He hooked an arm out, and grabbed at my waist to drag me with him in the water until we were next to Silas. “If anyone’s going to, I’ll do it. Make sure you don’t break your head.”
North boosted me in his hands like Silas had done. Again I sucked in my stomach as North’s warm breath teased my belly button. Silas lifted his hands again for Luke. Luke grabbed Silas’s shoulders and hauled himself out of the water.
“Ready?” North asked. His dark eyes focused on my face.
I squealed a little. “Okay.”
North counted off with Silas and I was flung into the air. Luke did a double flip and I managed simply to twist and flip almost completely over. I crashed into the water, bobbing up and laughing.
North swam up to me, catching me by the hips. My arms instinctively wrapped around his neck and he held me against his body. “You okay?”
I started to nod, trying to assure him I was fine, but my eyes caught on something over his head.
A face was looking in at us over the fence.
North caught where I was looking. North pulled me down again into the water, turning to block me from view of whoever it was and covering the side of my head with his big hand to pull me closer to him.
Gabriel shot out of the water and raced toward the fence. The face disappeared. Gabriel caught the edge of the fence and scaled it, hanging off of the top to look over. His head twisted to watch whoever it was and he dropped down again, walking back toward the pool.
“It was Danielle,” he said. “She ran off.”
North grunted near my ear and his arm tightened around my hips. “I’m getting really tired of her.”
Kota was insistent that we not worry about Danielle. I wondered why she was spying on us or how she knew we were there. Was Marie with her? Would she tell our mom?
Despite my questions, everyone obeyed Kota. It wasn’t mentioned again.
It was easy to lose track of time swimming with the others. Silas, North and Nathan took turns flipping us and each other. Victor and Kota chose to stay out of the water most of the time, watching us with their feet dangling into the pool. On occasion they gave instructions to us on how to do it better or offered a challenge.
When I was exhausted, I swam up next to Kota, pulling myself up to sit next to him. Without his glasses, his green eyes sparked.
“Hi,” he said, the friendly smile warm and inviting. “Having fun?”
I nodded, breathless. “I can’t flip as high as the others.”
“It’s practice,” he said. “You have to work at it.”
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I laughed, shaking my head. “When am I ever going to get to practice?”
He brought his face close until his forehead was touching mine. “You ask nicely.”
I blushed. “Are you going to swim?”
“I thought you were flipping.”
“I haven’t raced you yet,” I said. “I’ve been flipping so much I’m dizzy. Let’s just swim.”
He chuckled. “Are you sure you want to race me?”
Victor nudge Kota’s arm. “It’s a trap. If you win, you get a favor or something and she totally cheats.”
“Shhh,” I said. “Don’t tattle.”
Victor smirked back at me. “You’re lucky I haven’t won yet.”
“Let’s go,” I said. “You can’t win if you don’t race.” I splashed into the water again, reaching a hand out for his.
His fire eyes ignited. His hand drifted out toward mine. I grabbed it and tugged lightly. He slipped into the water.
I glanced over at Kota. “Ready?” I stretched my free hand out to him.
His smile was strange to me and I didn’t quite understand it. He clutched my hand, his fingers enveloping mine. He pushed himself off into the water and kept hold on to my hand.
I was holding both of their hands at the same time. I laughed, trying to deflect when I felt awkward. Friends touch, I kept repeating in my head.
We positioned ourselves at one end of the pool. Gabriel and the others backed out of the way, understanding what we were going to do and giving us room.
I was in the middle, Kota to my left and Victor to my right. From what I remembered, Victor was slower than the others. I was questioning how fast Kota was. I bent my knees against the side of the pool and readied myself.
“On your mark,” Nathan shouted over the buzz of voices surrounding him.
I shot off before he finished what he was saying. I accidentally started laughing at the same time, which wasted a whole bunch of air. It felt so wrong to be cheating against Kota.
Kota started to pass me and out of desperation, I grabbed at his leg, trying to pull him backward in the water as Nathan had done to me before. I meant to distract him long enough to breeze past him. I wasn’t as strong as Nathan and my effort only caused Kota to look back at me, confused. He turned in mid-stroke. He swam after me, picked me up in his arms and lifted out of the water.
