“Longer than three days,” he said.
While she tried not to hear the longing in his voice.
“Exactly. So are you going to get out?”
He gave her a look that was even worse than the glorious happiness.
This one had an eyebrow raise in it, and a head tilt, and oh good Christ, a lip bite.
No, god no, she couldn’t deal with the lip bite.
“Actually, I was kind of thinking you might want to get in.”
“Oh…oh no. No I don’t even have my bathing suit with me.”
“That’s cool. Just jump in as you are.”
He waved a hand at her like, “Hey come on in, the water’s fine.”
But the water was not fine. It had him in it, making adorable faces.
“Are you kidding? Come on. I’m not doing that.”
“Okay. Want to give me a hand then?”
“I’m pretty sure you can get out on your own.”
“No, honestly, I just need like a little help.”
She hesitated, considering. On the one hand, this was a classic way to drag someone into the water. But on the other…surely he would never do that now? He looked like he would never do that now. He was being so cute and cool it seemed almost churlish to refuse.
So she took his offered hand.
And immediately regretted it.
He didn’t yank hard. But then again he didn’t need to. One fairly firm pull was all it took to send her plummeting headfirst into the water, and once there things started to go really wrong. She was not a strong swimmer under normal circumstances, but these were not normal at all. These were terrifying and unexpected circumstances. She wasn’t prepared for a face full of water, or to dive to the bottom while fully dressed. Now she was choking and blind, with two tons of wool and denim weighing her down.
She kicked, and got absolutely nowhere.
She struck out with her right arm, and got tangled in her sleeve.
At which point she really began to panic.
Maybe this had been his plan all along—earn her trust and then murder her in a swimming pool. “Her clothes dragged her down, Officer, there was nothing I could do,” she thought, and almost lost it completely. That tight feeling was starting to happen, in her chest. Her arms just weren’t cutting through the water. It was entirely possible that she might die like this.
And then she felt his hands on her, strong, strong, strong. So strong he hauled her clean out of the water, then almost right over his head. She had to grab on to him just to stop herself going, when all she really wanted to do was murder him right back. She wanted to scream at him for doing that, but instead wound up with an arm tight around his shoulders and the other around his waist.
She was glad though, in the end.
If she had screamed and punched him, she wouldn’t have gotten the full extent of his apology. She might have heard him saying sorry twenty times in that frightened tone, but she would have missed the hand spread over her back. She would never have known what it was like to feel him stroking the back of her head in these little frantic motions—as though he knew he had to fix things super fast. He had to prove the whole thing was just a joke, before she escaped him forever.
And he succeeded, too. He succeeded because of this: “I just forgot I wasn’t always your friend.”
That was where they were now—on such good terms that he could pull a prank on her and assume that she would laugh. Their past had almost been erased for him, to the point where she was just his buddy and he was just her buddy and that was—good god, she didn’t know what that was. Soothing, her mind informed her.
Though it was possible that was just the feel of his hand on her back.
He was rubbing her in these soft, slow circles, so good she almost forgot they weren’t always friends, too. The only thing in her head was how nice it felt, to just give in to this. Every tensed muscle unwound and every nerve in her stopped fizzing, until finally she was just a boneless weight against him. Her cheek was against his shoulder and her arms were draped around his, everything so still and quiet suddenly that she could have almost kind of…kind of…
“Are you…are you falling asleep?”
“I was just nearly killed. I’m entitled to a rest.”
“Hey, I wasn’t complaining. Sleeping on me seems way better than never wanting to speak to me again. Or trying to kill me in return. I mean, you are fully capable of doing it now.”
“I was going to get you in a headlock.”
“Yeah?”
“But then I got comfy.”
“Is that what I am? Comfortable?”
There was amusement in his voice.
Good amusement. Warm amusement.
Plus, he was still stroking her back and her hair.
“Like a big couch.”
“Never thought being called a couch would make me feel so good.”