Page 59 of Jackrabbit

“You don't say,” Beau drawled as he lowered himself to the edge of the pool and put his feet and lower legs in.

The cold was immediately soothing, crisp and biting against his hot skin. He was watching the pines swaying when a jet of water hit him square in the chest, shockingly cold. Colt stared at him with nothing but his eyes and the top of his head breaking the surface.

“You look like a hippo.” Beau leaned back on his palms.

Colt was smiling when he rose up again. “Nah. Maybe a whale.”

“Don't you dare,” Beau warned.

Too late. Colt was already under, swimming down to the bottom of the pool. Then he kicked up, broke the surface with a noise that sounded like a dying cat, and crashed back down sideways. The splash was huge, cresting up over the shore and soaking Beau up to his chest.

“You little—” Beau leaned down to grab Colt out of the water, hands searching through the wake left by that jump.

Colt burst out of the surface in a spray of water and grabbed Beau around his shoulders right before he braced his feet against the rocks and threw himself backwards. The water crashed over Beau’s head in a shock of cold that was extra intense after the way he'd been sitting in the sun. His sunglasses fell off and floated away as Colt let him go and escaped, and Beau’s feet hit the rocky bottom.

“Christ,” he choked as he spit out his mouthful of water and pushed his hair back out of his face.

Where'd that shit go? Beau spun around, his shirt pasted to his body, the breeze almost frigid now. No sign of him except the ripple where he'd gone under to Beau's left.

He was still searching when hands wrapped around his ankles and yanked, and he dropped back into the water on his back. When he broke the surface again, Colt was a few feet away, twirling Beau's sunglasses in his hand and grinning like a fool.

“Mhmm.” Beau reached down to grasp the hem of his soaked tank top. He pulled it over his head and balled it up before tossing it onto the shore. “C'mere, boy.”

The sunglasses hung forgotten in Colt’s hand, and he was staring at Beau with wide eyes and pink cheeks. Perfect. Beau used the moment to launch himself through the water like a torpedo. Colt yelped and scrambled backward, but his frozen moment had cost him. Beau dropped down on him and crushed him into the water, Colt’s limbs flailing everywhere. The sunglasses fluttered away, and Beau pushed off of Colt to grab them as they tried to sink.

Before Beau could swim them back to shore, Colt shot up out of the water and grabbed Beau’s shoulders. Beau’s feet didn’t reach the bottom anymore, and he slipped under the water. Twisting, he grabbed Colt around the waist, arms slipping along slick skin, and pulled Colt under, too. His sunglasses sank into the rocks as Colt wiggled and slid along Beau’s body until he was on Beau’s back.

When Beau was pulling himself out of the water a few feet closer to the shore where he had footing, Colt had both legs wrapped around his middle.

“Go, Willy, Go!” Colt yelled.

Beau’s cheeks hurt from smiling, his hair was dripping into his eyes, and he was cold everywhere except for where Colt was pressed along his back. “Did you just call me a whale?”

“Yes, now get back in the water where you belong.” As he spoke, Colt tried to pull Beau backward, grunting as he used all his strength. Beau had expected it, though, and had his feet firmly planted, core tight. Colt groaned and draped himself along Beau's back with his chin on Beau's head. “I take it back, you're not a whale. You're a moose.”

Then Colt scrambled up and tried to push Beau forward instead, which was his mistake. Beau snatched Colt’s ankle the second his legs loosened their grip and tipped him back into the water with an echoing splash.

Colt didn't come up right away, but Beau knew his tricks now. He tracked Colt’s movements underwater, and by the time Colt launched himself up, Beau was already moving. He bent his legs and wrapped both hands around Colt’s waist, warm and soft under Beau's calluses. He followed Colt's momentum and used it to throw him bodily across the pool into the deep end.

A shriek that turned squeaky ripped out of Colt as he flew, rebounding off the rocks, rippling off the water, and startling a flock of birds into the air in a series of honks and chatter. He came up sputtering and coughing, a thick water weed slapped across his face, and he tried to glare through it. A laugh burst out of Beau’s chest like it had been dying to get out.

“You sounded like one of those rubber chickens,” Beau breathed as laughter shook his foundation, the kind of laughter that wasn't going to stop. The kind that cleansed.

***

Beau's laugh washed over Colt, rusty and raw and real, and Colt couldn't move. Beau had smile lines around his mouth, crow's feet that deepened as his laugh did, and he was beautiful. Just fucking stunning as he lost his shit over Colt being an idiot like it was something he liked, something that made him happy.

Colt flushed, heat crawling up his chest to his neck as Beau wiped tears from his eyes, and he was being so goddamn obvious. He did not give a flying fuck.

He’d done that.

Had pushed, and poked, and been his most chaotic self, and Beau looked like he hadn’t laughed like this in years. And Colt was slipping. Dangerous, dangerous territory, watching a man who could hardly admit to being his friend laugh and feeling like his heart was being strangled.

Beau’s laughs turned to chuckles, and Colt pulled the waterweed off his face. It plopped into the water, and he schooled his expression into something a little less pathetic before dropping back down to cool his warm skin in the lake. Then—because he was restless and kind of wanted to see Beau laugh again—he swam up to Beau and popped up in front of him, cupping a handful of water and tossing it over Beau’s head as he broke the surface.

“Throw me again.” Colt flopped onto his back and floated, squinting to see Beau against the bright sky. “Unless doing it the first time hurt your back. Or your hips? Do you have a life alert button I should know about, or—”

Thick, strong arms wrapped around him—one behind his back, the other under his knees—and then Colt yelped as Beau let him fly. He hit the water hard, and when he came up, he was laughing again. Beau tackled him, and he sucked water up his nose as he went under.