Layla

I break the surface two seconds before she does. We’re facing each other, ready to start the kiss over again. We link together, back into the same position we were in. Our mouths seek each other out, but as soon as I taste the chlorine on her lips, we’re interrupted by chants.

I can hear Garrett over several of the others, all cheering our kiss on from where they’re seated. Layla glances behind her and flips them off.

She separates herself from me and pushes to the side of the pool. “Let’s go,” she says, pulling herself out of the water. She isn’t graceful about it. She pushes up out of the deep end, five feet from the ladder, and has to roll onto the concrete to make it out of the pool. It’s clumsy and perfect. I follow her, and a few seconds later, we’re both running around to the side of the house where it’s darker and more private. The grass is both cold and soft beneath my feet. Like ice . . . but melted.

I guess that would just make it water. But it doesn’t feel like water. It feels like melted ice. Drugs make things hard to explain.

Layla grabs my hand and falls onto the melted ice-grass, pulling me down with her, on top of her. I hold myself up with my elbows so she can breathe, and I stare at her for a moment. She’s got freckles. Not very many, and they’re spread out over the bridge of her nose. A few on her cheeks. I lift my hand and trace them. “Why are you so pretty?”

She laughs. Rightfully so. That was cheesy.

She flips me onto my back, and then she pulls her dress up her thighs so she can straddle me. Her thighs suction to my sides because we’re both sopping wet. I rest my hands on her hips and soak up the intensity of this high.

“Do you know why they call this place the Corazón del País?” she asks.

I don’t know, so I just shake my head and hope it’s a long story so I can hear her talk more than she has. I could listen to her voice all night. In fact, there’s a room inside the bed and breakfast they call the Grand Room, and it’s lined with hundreds of books on every wall. She could read to me all night.

“It translates to Heart of the Country,” she says. There’s excitement in her eyes and voice when she talks. “This location—this very piece of property you’re lying on—is the literal geographical center of the contiguous United States.”

Maybe it’s because I’m very aware of my heartbeat right now, but that doesn’t make sense. “Why would they call it that? The heart isn’t really the center of the body. The stomach is.”

She laughs her sharp, quick laugh again. “True. But Estomago del País doesn’t sound as pretty.”

Fuck. “You speak French?”

“Pretty sure that’s Spanish.”

“Either way, it was hot.”

“I only took one year in high school,” she says. “I have no hidden talents. What you see is what you get.”

“I doubt that.” I roll her off me and pin her wrists to the grass as I roll on top of her. “You’re a talented dancer.”

She laughs. I kiss her.

We kiss for the next several minutes.

We more than kiss. We touch. We move. We moan.

Everything is way too much—like I’m teetering on the edge of death. My heart just might literally explode in my chest. I’m starting to wonder if we should keep doing this. Drugs coupled with making out with Layla is one thing too much. I can’t let her stay wrapped around me for another second, or I’ll pass the fuck out from everything I’m feeling. It’s like every nerve ending grew a nerve ending. I feel everything with double the magnitude.

“I have to stop,” I whisper, unwrapping her legs from around me. “What the hell are we on? I can’t breathe.” I roll onto my back, gasping for air.

“You mean what did my sister give you?”

“The bride is your sister?”

“Yeah, her name is Aspen. She’s three years older than me.” Layla lifts herself up onto her elbow. “Why? Do you like it?”

I nod. “Yes. I love it.”

“It’s intense, right?”

“Fuck yes.”

“Aspen gives it to me every time I drink too much.” She leans in until her mouth is against my ear. “It’s called aspirin.” When she pulls back, the confusion on my face makes her grin. “Did you think you were high?”

Why else would I be feeling like this?

I sit up. “That wasn’t an aspirin.”

She falls onto her back in a fit of laughter, making a cross over her chest. “Swear to God. You took an aspirin.” She’s laughing so hard she has to fight to catch her breath. When she finally does, she sighs and it’s delightful, and did I just fucking say delightful?