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“Because laws apply to science. Luck isn’t science.”
She thinks about that for a minute, her forehead creasing and her eyes narrowing in concentration. “I think you might actually be right about that.”
“May be right?” I scoff, holding in the deep laugh that wants to escape because she’s just so freaking adorable. “Here are the laws of Lennox. I’m always right about the things that matter.” I laugh when she sticks her tongue out at me. “Nothing bad will happen. For example, a wasp will not come and land in your hair and get stuck, you won’t freak out, and our boat won’t tip.”
“What?” Cass shrieks. She doesn’t take that as a joke—I wasn’t serious—and immediately starts batting and swatting at her hair.
I lean in and capture her hands before she can tip us over for real. The boat is rocking as it is. “Whoa. That was a joke.” I can’t resist brushing my lips over the end of her nose.
She shrieks, tears away from me, bends over, and scoops up a handful of water to throw right into my face. At least, I think that’s where she’s going to be aiming. The sides of the boat are obviously higher than she anticipated, and when she goes for that handful of water, she nearly topples over. She screams, and I grab her on instinct to steady her, but that means leaning back in the other direction, which I do. A little too hard. Despite my best efforts, I can feel myself going over. I let go of Cass’ waist, so I don’t pull her with me. I grab the boat with my hands after, but I’m worried about tipping it over like that, so I just let go.
And fall.
Straight into the water, butt first.
Shoes, jeans, wallet, phone, and all.
I come up spluttering, wiping water from my eyes. It tastes salty. God, why does it taste salty? I can’t touch the bottom, even though I thought this channel would be pretty shallow. I tread water while Cass anxiously peers at me over the edge of the boat.
“Oh my god,” she breathes. “Oh my god. I knew it. I just freaking knew it.”
“Knew it?” I swim like a fish, moving onto my back and pretending to enjoy myself while I backstroke in the sun. “Knew what? This isn’t a bad thing. I needed a bath anyway. It was hot. This is a relief.”
“Can you please get back on the boat?”
“I think I should just swim to shore. If I try to get back on the boat, you might end up in here with me, and if we tip the boat, I think we’d get in trouble with the people frowning at us over there.” It’s true. The guys who run this thing don’t look pleased. “Can you peddle over there?”
Cass flexes her legs, tries the peddles, and the boat moves forward a little. “I think so.”
“Should I race you then?”
“You’re really not mad?” she asks in disbelief.
“Mad? No way. This is the most fun I’ve had in a very long time.” Despite the soaking my phone and wallet just got—one of the many of both of those that I own—I really mean that. “We might have been duped into ending up here, but I’m glad we did. Really, really glad.”
Seeing Cass’ smile is worth taking a bath in this dubious water. It looks good, but why the salt? It’s not salt water. Ugh. I’m a little bit frightened, actually. But it’s all worth it. “I could go home and change, and we could get pie.”
“I didn’t drive myself here,” Cass admits. “I was too scared to do it, so I took a cab. If you wanted to drive us, we could pick up some pie on the way?”
Driving my car while soaking wet through some drive-thru in search of cherry pie with Cass smiling and happy beside me? Sounds like heaven. “You bet.”
I backstroke my way to the shore, and for the first time since I got to San Diego, I revel in how good the sun feels above me and how glad I am to be here right now instead of anywhere else in the world.
CHAPTER 10
Lennox
I should have known Granny wouldn’t let sleeping dogs lie. Sleeping dogs meaning me, and lie being the whole I’m not going to show up with your brothers and create a lot of super fun chaos and get super involved in your love life to make sure things work out because you’re probably going to mess things up if left to your own devices thing.
I’m up at five on Monday morning. It’s been a bit of a challenge to get used to not being awake during the night and sleeping during the day, which was pretty much our normal routine before because Granny likes to keep strange hours. I’ve learned to enjoy getting up early so I have some time to myself before I have to open up the pawnshop at nine. I like to workout in the super small gym I have set up in the closet-like space of a spare bedroom in this place, savor a cup of coffee, then shower and head out.
