His eyebrow lifts slightly. It’s his one tiny movement, and I feel questioned and judged by it at the same time.
“I’m sorry,” I say, and immediately hate that I said it. “I mean -- thank you for grabbing me, but you scared me.”
“You scared me first.”
He is younger than I expect a man like him to be. Not boyish. Just young enough that my pulse should know better. His words aren’t flirtatious. But something about the way he says them makes warmth spread low in my belly… which iswildly inappropriate. I almost fell. He saved me from my own temporary insanity. This is not the time for belly warmth.
“I didn’t realize this spot was unsafe,” I say.
“It is if you don’t know it.”
“And you do?”
His eyes hold mine. “Yes.”
Answering with that one word only. His tone isn’t bragging. It’s filled with certainty.
I glance past him toward the group across the cove. “They’re jumping.”
“From the safe ledge.”
I look back at the water below me. He steps closer, not crowding me exactly, but close enough that I feel the size of him again. He points down toward the dark water.
“See that shadow line?”
I squint. “Sort of.”
“Rock shelf. Comes out farther than it looks. You jump from here, you might clear it if you push hard enough.”
“Might?”
“Might isn’t good enough.”
Well, I know by now that “might” isn’t good enough. How many years did I live onmight?Mighttravel next summer.Mightfeel better after the school year ends.Mightwake up one day and find the life I chose had become enough.
I fold my arms over my chest, suddenly defensive because I am thinking too much and he is seeing too much.
“Well, lucky for both of us, I wasn’t jumping.”
His mouth twitches. It isn’t a full smile. He’s holding back disbelief at all my protests.
“No,” he says. “Lucky for both of us, I came around the bend when I did.”
I narrow my eyes. “Do you always sneak up on strangers and tell them what to do?”
“Only when they’re about to break themselves.”
“I was not about to break myself.”
He looks at me for a long, steady second.
Then his gaze drops to my sandals.
“Not in those, you weren’t.”
I glance down and immediately regret it. My escaped toe is still making a public appearance. I pull that foot behind the other one. The first attractive man to put his hands on me in a very long time, and he has now witnessed one of my troll toes.
“I should go,” I say.
