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“Sounds like a party.” I feel nervous. I feel so excited and I feel so nervous. I’m saying stupid things. “People must be thinking so many things right now. You’re raising a whole lot of questions, the longer you float here holding me in this pool.”
“I’m also getting hard.”
I stare at him. “That’s … unfortunate.”
“And you’re my only shield against anyone seeing.” He shrugs and smirks at me. “I guess I can’t help it, when I got such a cute guy like you pressed up against my naked body.”
“You’re not naked.”
“Might as well be. D’you see this tiny thing I’m in?”
“We’d probably better stay in the water awhile longer, then.” I incline my head toward him and add, “Unless you’re ready for everyone in Spruce to know something about you.”
“You look hot all soaking wet.”
I laugh. This whole situation could have me in hysterics if I let myself continue to think about it. “I don’t know how you manage to—how you make feel so—”
“I wanna kiss you so bad.”
“This feels like the exciting first date I never had back in high school.” I can’t even put it into words. “This feels like everything I missed out on, all wrapped up into one crazy night.”
Chad lifts an eyebrow. “You sayin’ a first date consists of you gettin’ cannon-balled into a swimming pool?”
The night breeze feels cool against my wet skin and hair. “It could have. I’ll never know.”
I don’t know why I’m not more angry about my shoes.
Or my wet shirt. Or my wet pants … and underwear.
I’m like the cat, furiously terrified of the bathtub, then being forced to succumb to its discomforting wetness.
“Well, if you can’t get soft while holding me,” I tell him, “then either we have to let go, or we’re doomed to sit here in the middle of the pool until Cassie Evans herself comes and kicks us out of it.”
“Then you’d better go,” he says.
But he doesn’t let go.
I lift an eyebrow. “You’re not making this easy.”
“Maybe I don’t want this moment to end.” His eyes turn as soft as the water around us, small sprays of light playing across his face and mine. “Maybe I don’t want this night to end.”
“It’s far from over yet,” I point out.
Chad gives me a sad little smile. “Far from,” he agrees.
Even if he doesn’t believe it.
“I’m getting out of this pool,” I tell him, “and giving you space under that water to … let your little situation go away, alright?”
“There ain’t nothin’ little about my situation.”
I give him a look. “I’m getting out of this pool.”
“You already said that.”
“Just let go.”
“I’ll never let go, Jack. I’ll never let go.”
I snort. “Lord in Heaven, we are not quoting movies right now. Let go before I pop a boner.”
With a soft, dry chuckle, I finally slip out from his hold, then drift to the edge of the pool, where I help myself out of it. Chad’s eyes are on me the whole time, his mouth stuck in a lopsided sort of smile, like he’s remembering something beautiful.
My clothes feel heavy as they drip on the cobblestone. I’m met with towels from Vanessa, who apparently watched the whole thing and couldn’t stop laughing. “The pair of you were certainly the last surprise I was expecting to see tonight. Really, though, I’ve got to hear the full story of this. I feel like there’s so much more to it than you’re letting on!”
With a glance over my shoulder, watching Chad as he watches me walk away, I mutter, “So much more.”
In a matter of a half hour, I’m showered and wearing a simple t-shirt and a pair of shorts from Vanessa’s brother Fabian’s closet. We are apparently the same size, since his clothes fit me perfectly. My shoes, shirt, pants, and socks were promptly taken off to the laundry room for drying, and one of the hired butler-people bring me another drink from the bar, as if that’s what I need.
When I rejoin the party, I don’t find Chad anywhere at first. I meander from one grouping to another, noticing that the party has thinned out quite a bit over the past half hour since Chad’s big cannonball. I see Tanner and Billy snuggling together in the game room, looking rather sleepy and finished. I don’t see Mindy or the girls anywhere, so I figure they’ve taken off. I stand corrected when I see Nadia and Fabian fervently making out in the shadows at the side of the pool house—no surprise there. With my hair flat now after the pool incident washed out the style, and my whole outfit changed into something tragically ‘everyday’ from Fabian’s closet, I wonder if anyone even recognizes me.
Just when I’m giving up hope, I finally locate Chad sitting on a bench some distance away from the pool. It’s hidden slightly by a grove of thin, pruned trees, lit by a pair of decorative lanterns that hang from them.
