He gave a nonchalant shrug, a trace of a smirk tugging at his mouth. “Nothing. Didn’t peg you for bashful.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m not. It’s just… different.”
He let it drop, drifting a little closer but not pushing. “Fair enough. Change of topic. It’s my birthday on Sunday.”
“Oh, is it?” I said, surprised. “Big plans?”
He snorted softly. “Not really. I’ll be twenty-two. Might come back here, actually.”
Something about that made me smile. “Not a bad tradition.”
I swam a slow circle. “So, how’d you find this place?”
He slicked his hair back, water trickling down his neck. “One of the orchard jobs. Wandered off on a break and ended up here...” He went quiet for a second, watching me,then nodded toward my strokes. “You swim better than I figured.”
I arched an eyebrow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He shrugged. “You grew up in a jungle. I figured you’d be climbing trees, not swimming in lakes.”
“Shows what you know,” I shot back, letting a faint smile tug at my lips. “We had water.”Well, some. Most was unswimmable.
He gave another shrug, half turning to float on his back. “Good. Makes this less awkward if you don’t drown.”
I splashed a little water in his direction, half tempted to dunk him.
“Are you sure we’re actually allowed to hang around here?” I asked, continuing to swim. “Seems kind of low security for something they sell. What if we started pocketing fruit?”
He didn’t answer. I realized his ears were under water.
Suppressing a sigh, I swam closer, arms cutting through the cool water. Hayden jerked upright at my approach, and for a second we were face to face, only a few feet apart. The water between us felt thin, hardly enough to count as real distance. I caught the way his eyes flicked down, a sharp flash of blue tracing the shape of my body underwater before he snapped his gaze back up, a bit too quickly. For half a heartbeat, neither of us said anything. I felt the heat rise in my cheeks, the kind of awkward, electric awareness that had nothing to do with the sun or the swim. It was so at odds with how much of the last few hours had been spent scraping by, parched and exhausted. Here, for a second, everything narrowed to the space between his gaze and mine—uncertain, a little charged, the world holding its breath.
Hayden cleared his throat, as if to cover it, water dripping down his face. I managed a small, self-conscious laugh andglanced away, suddenly preoccupied with smoothing my wet hair back. But in the corner of my eye, something caught: a thick, purplish scar slashing across Hayden’s upper chest. My gaze snapped back to him before I could stop it. There were other scars too, smaller and older, faded against his skin, but that big one looked recent. Probably not more than a couple of months old. It stood out, raw and impossible to ignore.
Hayden’s eyes flicked down, tracking my stare.
“That? Oh, it’s nothing,” he muttered, suddenly closed off. He ducked under the water and surfaced several feet farther off.
“Um, nothing?” I wasn’t blind. I’d seen my share of scars in the jungle—none quite like that. “Did you get it on a job?” I asked.
He shook his head, not meeting my eyes. “Not exactly. Did something stupid.”
“What do you mean, stu?—?”
But he ducked beneath the surface again, leaving my question floating unanswered.
Annoyance prickled through me, but I let it go. For now. If there was anything I’d gleaned about Hayden, it was that he was his own island, complete with his own weather system. One minute seeming close to open, next minute completely shuttered.Are all men like this?
When he finally resurfaced, I tried my earlier question instead, still unsettled by what I’d seen.
“So we’re really allowed to be in the valley like this?”
Hayden nodded, swiping water from his face with one hand. “As far as I know. No rules against it. We didn’t hop any fences, it’s all open from the station.” He paused, voice dropping lower. “As for taking anything? I wouldn’t. And as your employment officer, I’d definitely advise youagainst it.”
The way he said it—light, but not completely—made me pause. There was a seriousness in his gaze, like a warning half-wrapped in a joke.
“As my employment officer,” I repeated, rolling the words on my tongue as I observed him. “Is this something employment officers do: go swimming in their underwear with the employees?”
I was glad to see his smirk flicker back. “Only upon request.”
