He swipes the red ball cap off his head, drops it on the seat, and runs a hand through his brown hair. It was that motion that confirmed his identity, not his face, not his body, but that one push of his hand through thick chestnut-colored hair.
My stomach seizes and my heart skips. “Levi?”
I still don’t quite believe it. I’m not prepared to face him. Not in the least.
“I’m touched you remember my name.” He lifts one bare foot to the lip of the deck, leans forward, and braces his forearm on his thigh. “You’re looking good, Laiyla. I guess that jet-setting lifestyle suits you.”
I can’t tell if he’s serious or sarcastic, and I’m instantly self-conscious, as if one of the managers I oversee has caught me at the gym in my messy-hair, don’t-care, off-work status. I automatically inventory what I’m wearing—black-and-white skort that looks like a miniskirt with a little ruffle, a white cropped halter fitted to my breasts, and untied black patent leather combat-style ankle-high boots. Realizing that I’m presentable shaves off an edge of stress.
But holy hell. I mean, ho-ly hell. I can’t form a thought, let alone words. He’s…he’s… My heart turns over, and longing the likes of which I’ve only ever known with one man swamps me.
The rush of emotions flips a switch in my brain, signaling danger. I shut down and kick-start logic. This is how I deal with my parents. This is how I function at work. This is how I get through my goddamned life, and it’s now going to be how I deal with my past too.
“Nobody thought you’d come back, not even after Otto passed.” He swipes the ball cap from the seat and tugs it back into place. “There’s been a betting pool going, everyone trying to guess when you’d show and what you’d do with this place.”
“What was your bet?”
“That you’d never come back. You just cost me twenty bucks.”
I smirk. “You always were a loser.”
His face breaks into a smile that steals my breath. I’m pleased he can still take a joke, but I’m not happy to hear he bet again
st me. He might have every right, but it still feels like a prick move.
“Doesn’t look like much has changed around here,” I say. “You’re still hanging out with a fishing pole in one hand, a beer in the other.”
He laughs, a quick, surprised bark that trills straight down my body and lands in my stomach. “You can still give as good as you get. You probably should back off that dock if you’re not up for a swim. Not much around here is holding together.”
Walking off the dock at his instruction feels like some kind of retreat, so I stay put and cross my arms, but as he drifts closer, any wittier retorts I might have thought up evaporate. His face is a more mature version of the one I’d once found too beautiful to belong to a boy. The tattoo on his shoulder is something intricate and mechanical that I don’t understand. But what really draws my attention is the built chest with a dusting of crisp dark hair, the tautly rounded biceps, the ripped abs. Abs I didn’t think existed outside bodybuilders and models. Certainly the like nothing I’ve ever seen personally.
“What are you doing back?” he asks.
I blink and force my gaze off his body and back to his face. But, much to my own annoyance, the sun feels too hot, my skin too flushed, my barely-there libido kicking into gear. And now that he’s closer, I see shadows of the boy I sometimes still dream about. I recognize the light blue eyes that used to talk to me without words.
The smile he’s wearing, though, I’ve never seen that. It’s…hard to explain. Cocky and dismissive. Arrogant and annoyed.
I’m annoyed too—at how my body is reacting to someone I haven’t seen in over a decade. “What difference does it make?” I ask, my tone snarky and aloof. “Or did you bet on that too—”
My last word is cut off when the dock under my feet falls away, and I drop like a rock. I barely have time to get out a sound before I plunge beneath the surface.
2
Levi
“Well, shit.” The words roll out of me on a wave of laughter.
Once I start, I can’t stop, and I’m doubled over when her head pops above the surface again. “What the hell”—she sucks air—“is wrong with you?”
My gut muscles release, and it takes me a second to catch my breath. “Damn, that’s the funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time.” I straighten with a smile that just won’t quit. “I warned you, but, then, you never did listen.”
She treads water in a circle, looking for an exit, but I can see there’s no easy way for her to get out of the water short of swimming several hundred yards to a shallower section of the lake.
I toss out the ski rope. “Grab on. I’ll tow you to the beach.”
“You couldn’t even give me a hand?”
“Wouldn’t want to drop my beer.” I sit and stretch out my legs and prop them on the side of the boat, ankles crossed. I take a long pull from the bottle, watching the best entertainment I’ve had since my partner and best friend since kindergarten, Mitch Fielding, fell into a sink hole near one of our developments and was stuck there for hours. “You sure don’t need my help. You’ve always had mermaid in your DNA.”