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“It’s too hot. I think we need to call it a day,” I suggest.
Her eyes dart to the water.
“I know how we can cool off,” she says as she kicks off her shoes.
“Want to join me for a quick swim?”
I watch in fascination as she shrugs out of her coveralls. Standing before me in only her thin white tank, which she pulls over her head and drops beside her other clothing.
Unashamed, completely naked, and with a glint of a dare in her eyes, she spins and takes off sprinting toward the river.
“You coming?” she asks, looking back over her shoulder.
I grab the collar of my T-shirt and snatch it off. Then, I unbutton my jeans as I start moving toward her.
By the time I reach the water’s edge, she has jumped in. I kick off my boots and socks, drop my pants, and wade in.
The water is icy, and it feels amazing, lapping at my hot skin.
Maxi rolls to her back and kicks her feet until she is about six feet from the shore. Then, she spreads her arms and begins to float.
“Ah, isn’t this heaven?” she muses.
I glance around, trying to focus my eyes on anything other than her breasts hovering above the water.
“If it’s not, it’s damn close,” I answer.
“The sound of the river is soothing. I could float out here all night,” she says.
“My brothers and I used to spend the night on the water. Of course, we were in a boat,” I tell her.
“I bet that was fun. My sister and I never had the chance to do anything.”
“Why not?”
“My father was a paranoid asshat. He was afraid if he let us out of his sight, we’d run our mouths about what went on in our home. So, we didn’t get to hang out with friends or spend the summers with our grandparents. We spent them locked up in a trailer park on the outskirts of the city, bored out of our minds.”
“That sounds … awful,” I mutter.
“It was. I know how people walk around, wishing they could go back in time. Like,I wish I were a kid again. I wish I were sixteen or eighteen or twenty-one again.”
“Yeah,” I reply.
“Not me. If I had to go back and live those years over again, I’d rather not be born, but being here, I get it. If this was where I spent my childhood, I’d want to do it over again too.”
Her confession makes my heart ache. I don’t know exactly what she experienced in the past, but those few sentences make me wish I had known her then, so I could have made her smile.
“There’s nothing any of us can do about the past, but we have complete control of the here and now. So, if you want to spend the night in a boat, I think we can make that happen.”
Her eyes pop open, and she raises her head to look at me.
“Right now, I just want to eat hot dogs with you and your family.”
“Then, let’s go, gorgeous. I need to feed you.”
She turns over and swims back toward me.
We don’t have towels, so we just shake off as much water as we can, pull on our dry clothes, and pile in the truck.
