Chad looks all around him, taking in the faces of everyone else for a moment. “I made this guy’s life hell back in school. This guy right here, this amazing, awesome guy, Lance Goodwin. Y’all know him. Y’all love him. And I wasted my teen years humiliating him. So it’s only fair that I humble myself to him and bare it all. So what do you guys think? You be the jury.” He spreads his hands, as if dramatically presenting his body—and the hot pink banana hammock of his junk in that jockstrap, and his exposed buns—to our whole class. “Did I go far enough? Am I forgiven for being an asshole? Do y’all forgive me?” Then he faces me again, a crooked smile on his face. “You’re really the only opinion that matters. Do you forgive me?”
It’s my face that’s going red now.
Didn’t I already forgive you? I might ask. Is this really necessary?
Someone in the crowd shouts, “Forgive him!” Someone else demands Chad give them all a dance, which inspires an eruption of laughter. I hear Mindy shout something from behind us. I hear Tanner or Kirk exclaim, “Don’t forgive him! Let him stand there for a while ‘til you decide!” followed by more laughter.
Chad and I stare at each other, ignoring the heckling. I don’t know what’s going on here between us.
Except that I think it has less to do with me forgiving him.
And a lot more with him forgiving himself.
So I give him the lamest shrug in the world followed by a, “Sure, I forgive you, why not.”
That’s all Chad needs to hear.
His face brightens up. “Good. ‘Cause you sure ain’t about to forgive what I’m gonna do next.”
My face tightens. “Uh, what?”
The next thing I know, Chad scoops me up into his arms, and through a crowd of cheering and shouting, he charges through the game room, plunges out the back door, and beelines for the pool.
“No!” I shout out, squirming in his arms. “No! No, no, no!”
“YES!” Chad shouts back.
Then he leaps into the air, cannonballs, and the pair of us go crashing into the water, casting a splattering tidal wave at all the spectators around the pool.
For a blissful, out-of-body moment, it’s just us beneath the surface of the water, all the noise of the party whirling in my ears and far away. It’s just him holding me and me holding him, as we live in a submerged, secret world.
Then we break the surface together as one, and the world crashes back into my ears. He holds me against his body with the biggest, toothiest grin stretched over his face. My outfit is drenched from neck to shoes. Liquid diamonds drip from his hair and cause his eyes to sparkle greedily as he stares into mine.
“You’re fucking nuts!” I shout at him over the laughter and noise of everyone gathering around us at the pool. I’m not sure whether I want to yell or laugh or cry.
He grins. “I just wanna give you a fuckin’ weekend you’ll take back with you and remember the rest of your life, Goodwin.”
I get so lost in his eyes every time I look at them.
It’s hypnotic, how he stares back at me, so fully, so intensely.
“You just ruined my shoes,” I let him know.
“Oops,” he says back.
“And you’d better be glad I took off my vest and bowtie earlier because those are dry-clean only.”
“Your purse is in my truck now,” he grunts. “I stole it off of you while you were busy watchin’ Cody and Trey tinkle at the piano. It’s how I got the jock.”
I glare at him. “It isn’t a purse.”
“Fits like a glove, by the way. This pink lil’ jock.”
“Lovely. You look like a Jock Princess in it.” I splash water at his face with frustration. He barely flinches, giving me a cocky grin in response. “Ugh! I don’t know whether to hit you for doin’ this to me or forgive you like you want!”
“Maybe both,” he suggests.
I stare him down. People are still drunkenly shouting at us and laughing, maybe some of them video recording this still, but none of it distracts me from Chad’s eyes.
I’m inexplicably arrested by them.
Held prisoner in his arms, floating in the center of a big pool, as wet as a dog in the rain.
And trapped in his passionate gaze.
“Maybe both,” I finally agree quietly.
Chad smirks, satisfied. Then, his voice low and buried in the noise all around us, he murmurs, “You know, if I was just a bit braver, I might kiss you right now.”
Those words do a lot of things to my heart, which is already racing from the excitement of being dunked in the pool. “Yeah?”
“Oh, yeah. I mean, look at us. You’ve got me almost naked. I’ve got you soaking wet and in my arms.”