“Does it really? Make you feel good, I mean?”
“Nothing has ever made me feel better,” he said, then seemed to hesitate. As though whatever he was going to say next might cost him. And when he started speaking, haltingly, she could understand why. “Know how many times I wished I could have done this for you after the bluff? Must have been a hundred. A thousand. A million.”
It cost her, just to hear it.
“Well, you almost killed me again. But you saved me this time. You saved me,” she said, intending it as a half joke to lighten things a little. Only somehow, it didn’t work at all. Her voice came out brittle and broken, and when she was done he didn’t reply. He didn’t so much as whisper a word.
He just bunched her hair into his fist, like some kind of weird reflex.
Then pressed his face against her temple. Squeezed her hard in his big arms.
And he did it all for a long, long time. So long she could feel her throat starting to tighten. Her eyes starting to sting. This is what regret feels like when someone puts it in the form of an embrace, she thought, then suddenly that stinging sensation was twenty times worse. If she didn’t say something soon, she was going to lose it. Though even more frightening was the idea that he might.
“Tate? Are you okay?”
“Uh, yeah. Yeah, why? Did it seem like I wasn’t okay? Because I totally am. I wasn’t crying or anything. I’m way too manly and macho to cry about something so stupid,” he said, but she could tell he didn’t really mean stupid at all. She could hear the secret words behind it: something that means the world to me. And when she pulled back, she thought she could see it in his face, too. Just a little around the eyes, red rimmed, and in his tensing jaw.
Though she didn’t really get the full impact until she gave in to the urge to kiss him. Not on the lips, of course. Just on the cheek, to say thank you. The way a buddy might, definitely like a buddy—only it didn’t go like that at all. As she leaned in she saw the shift in his expression, from moved somehow to something else. His eyes closed and an arrow appeared between his brow, like it pained him.
Like it bruised him, to be touched so tenderly by someone.
He wasn’t used to it, she thought, but it was more than that, too. Different from that—and especially when she made contact. She pressed her lips to his cheek, feather light and barely moving, and heard a sigh escape his lips. So soft it was hardly there, but god it seemed loud to her. All of this seemed loud. Every sensation and feeling was heightened, from the tingle in her lips where they had touched him, to the way he looked at her as she drew back.
His gaze was hooded now, the blue between the lids a blurry line.
And those lips of his, so softly parted…
It made her think he wanted to kiss her cheek in return. In fact she thought he might have, if she hadn’t pushed off from him at that exact moment. She had to shed her shoes to do it, but she managed it. She swam back through the quiet waters, trying to grin and look casual as her heart battered against her breastbone.
Trying to sound casual, too, despite everything.
“You know, now you’ve got me in here we should probably try to have fun.”
“That would be a great plan, if you weren’t still in the clothes that almost drowned you.”
“I already ditched the sneakers.”
“Ditch the sweater and jeans and I’ll feel better about it.”
“If I do that I’ll basically be in my underwear,” she said, even though she could already see the logic of what he was saying. Her legs felt coated in lead weights. The sweater was getting heavier by the second. It was just a commonsense suggestion, yet somehow it didn’t feel that way.
And doubly so when he shook his head.
He just did it so awkwardly, like the physical equivalent of someone stuttering.
“I wasn’t…I’m not going to look at anything.”
“I know that. Of course I know that.”
“So then what’s the big deal?”
“No big deal, I guess.”
“I mean I’m half naked.”
He stood up, as though the point needed emphasizing.
But by god, it really did not at all. She already knew that he had those heavy pectoral muscles.
And the things she had no idea about were best kept a secret. She didn’t want to see his surprisingly narrow hips, or know that the strip of hair that trailed down to his bathing suit was darker than the hair on his head. All it did was make her stomach feel suddenly full of hot silver.
She had to look away before it spread to other places.
“I know. I was just wedged against your half nakedness.”
“And it wasn’t weird.”
“Weird isn’t the word I would have used.”
“What, then? Come on you can tell me. We’re friends here.”
“If you think I’m going to say amazing you are sorely mistaken.”