I wriggled my still-bare ass in his face, and he landed a smack on my cheek. Dear Lord, he’d never done that back in the day. I squirmed on his shoulder, but finally managed to dunk him again.
We kept it up, just like we used to, except now there were more dangerous brushes, touches, pinches.
My heart had never been so full even as I told myself, see Fallon, maybe things can go back to the way they were.
Friends. We’d be friends.
Rafe only wanted to fuck me when it was required by the Trials. The rest of the time we’d be this. Old friends who teased each other.
Good God, the past really was a long time gone. He didn’t even remember the emails. I was the only one who’d probably made such a big deal of our friendship back then anyway. To him, I’d probably been a fun companion, and like I always thought, a friendly form of rebellion against his too-stifled life.
Now? Now we could be friends again.
I’d just be careful this time to keep my shields up, always. Rafe Jackson could never hurt me again as long as I never let him in too deep in the first place.
We were both laughing and gasping for air when it was dèjá vu. I held onto his shoulders for leverage so I didn’t have to doggie paddle to stay up in the water and he’d frozen.
We stared into each other’s eyes, faces inches away from one another.
Just like that night all those years ago when we were studying in his bedroom.
I didn’t wait for it to get awkward this time, though. I’d learned my lesson. I just grinned at him. His eyes widened and I thought maybe his breath hitched, but no, he was probably just short of breath like me from being dunked so many times.
Well, no rest for the wicked.
Using his shoulder as leverage, I dunked him again. Right before he went down, though, he flung his arms around my waist and dragged me with him into the dark, cold water.
It rushed around us, all noise disappearing as we plunged under the surface again, warm bodies in the cold lake, clinging to one another as for just a tiny, stolen moment, the rest of the world disappeared.
9
Rafe
“Well, if we ever wondered what house arrest feels like, we know now,” I said as I walked out of the bathroom in nothing but a towel after my shower.
Maybe I should be more bashful and get dressed behind closed doors, but after days of living within these four walls, we were damn near a married couple at this point. Both Montgomery and Sully had warned me that the Trials were going to be brutal, but neither one of them really told me how the 109 were going to tick by at a speed that could drive someone mad. The fucked-up situation messed with your head.
The Trials were awful, and yet… at least it got us out of this room and actually doing something. And I had to admit that Fallon handled each disturbing thing thrown our way with a courage and strength I hadn’t anticipated.
“It’s finally stopped raining,” she said as she flipped through a magazine, appearing as bored as I felt. “Maybe we should go for a walk or something.”
“Yeah, maybe we should,” I said, walking to the dresser to pull out a pair of pants. “Beau started his Initiation last night. We’re overlapping our time while here. Maybe we’ll see him and his belle. It’ll be nice to see a familiar face.”
I was desperate for some actual conversation. Fallon was never the best at communication, always a little shy, but she had usually opened up with me.
But not anymore. The girl was a closed book, and no matter how hard I tried to talk to her, she always found a way to shut down the conversation if it even came close to being about her. I knew very little about her beyond what I knew from when we were kids.
She kept repeating that the past was the past, which I got, but at the same time, I wanted more. I felt she sat on so much more but didn’t feel like she could share with me. The fact that I no longer was the person she could confide in, saddened me.
I had once been that man, and time had stolen it away.
“How many of you are doing the Initiation?” she asked, still looking down at the magazine, a leg casually hung over the arm of a chair, and her hair hanging in her eyes like always. She was such a beautiful mess.
“My group is six, but they put all the Initiates in clusters by age, so more are coming, and many have been before me. Out of my six, Montgomery and Sully are done. Beau just started. Emmett and Walker are next.”