I was all the way up to my hips when the temperature registered, and I couldn’t help myself; I let out a Wilhelm Scream-style screech.I definitely should have gone for the sporty swimsuit, I thought amidst my pain. The water was like icy daggers against my skin, and as I forced myself in deeper, my teeth actually started chattering. Jack was cackling at me from the middle of the river, where he was fully treading water – all six-foot-whatever of him.
As I lowered myself further in, I easily imagined meeting a similar fate to a different Jack, picturing my body sinking into the cold water like Leo’s whilst the real Jack watched from the surface on a definitely-big-enough-for-both-of-us door.
“Just breathe,” real Jack said, meeting me halfway as I shakily paddled out to him. It was too deep for me to stand, but I saw him lift up in a way that told me he could still touch the bottom. He grabbed my arms and began rubbing up and down, which had the unfortunate effect of bobbing me up and down in the water. I was far too cold to think of personal boundaries, so I reached my hands out to stabilise myself against his chest. Eventually my teeth stopped chattering, and my breath regulated a bit – just enough for me to be embarrassed at how I was clinging to Jack like a child learning to blow bubbles in the water.
“I’m s-sorry,” I said, and the embarrassment had the fortunate side effect of warming me even more.
“You’re fine,” he said, his voice deep and soothing. “Just keep holding onto me, and we’ll go in a little bit deeper so your arms can adjust. Is that okay?”
He waited for me to nod before taking a long, slow step backwards, and sinking just a couple of inches further into the water. Then he paused.
“Just checking, you can actually swim, right?”
I rolled my eyes, already feeling a bit better. “Yes, Jack, I can swim. Don’t worry, no mouth-to-mouth needed today.”
He laughed a bit, but I was pretty sure I detected a slight flush passing across his tanned face.
Because the water was so clear, I could see a refracted version of both our bodies below. They were close – probably too close. But I actually couldn’t push myself away very easily, since I was now upstream from him, and the gentle current was pushing me towards him as he stood grounded on the riverbed. If I let go of him, I could have swum backwards slightly and created a bit more space. But for the sake of both warmth and stability, I wasn’t ready to do that just yet, so I let the current push us together until we were almost touching.
“You’re up early,” he said.
“Didn’t close the curtains all the way.”
He nodded in sympathy.
“You, too,” I said.
“Yep, every morning. I could stay up until five, and I’d still be up at half six.”
“Lucky you. I have to drag myself out of bed kicking and screaming most mornings.”
He chuckled, and I felt the sound reverberate through him beneath my hands. “Who do you kick if you’re the one doing the dragging?”
I shrugged. “Mostly Cara. Looks like I’ll have to get a cat for all my kicking needs.”
He let out a perfunctory laugh – more of a bark, almost. “You’re funny,” he said.
“Thanks, I practise all my jokes in the mirror.”
I closed my eyes and focused on the feeling of the water moving around me, which I was surprised to find no longer stung me the way it had a few moments ago. My head no longer throbbed, either. I had been right; the swim was doing wonders for my hangover.
“Better?” Jack asked. When I nodded, he reached up and put his hands under mine, lifting them away from his shoulders. I tried not to be embarrassed about the fact that he was literally removing me from him.
I swam into the middle of the river and did little laps back and forth, getting more and more acclimatised to the cold water as I did. When I closed my eyes and leaned back, holding onto one of the rocks breaking the surface, all I had was feeling: the movement of the river around me, the sun on my face, and the contrast between the chill on my back and the warmth on my front.
And then, just as I began to feel as relaxed as I ever had, I felt something brush against my thigh.
“Nopenopenope,” I said, my tone pitching upward as I repeated the word, immediately pushing myself away from the spot I’d been floating in and swimming back to the riverbank.
“Did something happen?” Jack asked, a bit of alarm in his voice.
“Something touched me,” I said, scrambling up to sit on a rock just on the water’s edge and drawing my knees to my chest. Jack laughed.
“It’s a river, Morgan. Of course there’s stuff in there. Fish, kelp, probably a few types of water spiders…”
I shook my head. “Yeah, that’s all a big nope from me, thanks.”
“Honestly, what did you expect?” he asked as he came to sit next to me on the rock. It was small, and we were close enough that our shoulders brushed against one another. I leaned into it.
