Page 30 of Stuck With the Smokejumper

None of it stopped anyone from being at the lake today.

I've had a day to recover from Saturday, and I have. Mostly. The physical part was easy. The other part is proving slower to shake. There's still a small, persistent part of my brain that keeps circling back to the couch, falling asleep against Beck's shoulder for the better part of an hour. The fact he never woke me. He could have. He had every opportunity. Instead he sat there, apparently content to be furniture, until I woke up on my own.

The cat excuse doesn't really hold up. I remember what happened after I stood. He moved her to the couch and got up, like sitting there had not been about the cat at all. I decide not to think about that too hard. Which is, of course, what I'm doing.

We settle into our usual spot. Towels, coolers, an unreasonable amount of sunscreen, and enough snacks to survive a small siege.

Tessa's already eyeing the rope swing. “We are not doing round two of last time,” she tells Nolan.

“I didn't say anything.”

“You were thinking it.”

He was. Everyone knows he was.

Beck settles onto a towel near Reid, already part of the landscape. A week and a half ago he was a guest sleeping on our floor. Now nobody treats him like one. Nobody asks if he wants to help with the coolers. He just does. Nobody explains where the sunscreen is. He already knows.

Everyone spends the first hour floating on tubes and splashing each other. Cassidy brings up whether Reid is allowed to dunk people without warning. He is not, according to everyone but Reid. I drift near Tessa for a while, half listening to her complain about her shoulders, half watching Beck across the water where he's got Nolan in a headlock over some joke I missed. I like the sound of him laughing. I like watching him fit into the crew.

Eventually Nolan climbs out, shakes water off like a dog, and announces his intentions to the group. “I'm redeeming myself.”

“Oh, good,” Tessa says. “We were worried you'd forgotten.”

“I haven't forgotten. I've been thinking about it. I have a plan.”

His plan, once he explains it, involves releasing earlier than last time, which prompts immediate and conflicting advice from everyone.

“Release later,” Reid says.

“No. Earlier,” Cassidy says.

“Don't think about it,” Trevor offers.

“That seems like the opposite of a plan,” Nolan says.

“Ignore Reid,” I add. “That's the one piece of advice you actually need.”

Nolan finally tells everyone to be quiet, takes the rope, backs up, and runs.

This time, he lets go.

It's not spectacular. It's not going to win a competition. But he releases clean, drops feetfirst, and comes up grinning like he's won something enormous.

“Six,” Dani calls.

“SIX?” Nolan responds.

“Solid form. Minimal splash. Room for improvement.”

“I redeemed myself, and you're giving me a six?”

“Seven,” Beck offers generously.

“Thank you, Beck.”

“You're still four points behind Ivy's personal best.”

“I don't care about Ivy's personal best.”