The boat is stopped, but I turn the ignition all the way off before I climb out of the pilot’s seat and head toward him. I pick him up easily—he may be long but he’s also super lanky—throw him over my shoulder. “Hold your breath,” I warn, then jump off the back of the boat without waiting to see if he follows directions. It’s exactly what I would have done a year ago, before the accident, and though there’s a tiny part of me that questions if it’s really okay, I tamp it down. Except for the paralysis, he’s all healed up. In as good a shape as any other fourteen-year-old boy. So to hell with it. He deserves to have fun, too.
I hold onto him until we surface, making sure he can tread water using just his arms—which he does just fine despite the fact that he’s still laughing. Only then do I glance at Ash, expecting him to bitch me out. Which is fine. I know how he is and I’m prepared for it. Except when our eyes meet, his are filled with something that looks an awful lot like—shame.
I shoot him a questioning look, but he just shakes his head. Mouths “thank you,” then moves over to dunk his brother a second time.
Cam joins us after a couple minutes, and even though I know it’s totally masochistic, I can’t stop myself from swimming up behind her. From putting my hands on the silky skin of her waist.
“Hey, don’t—” she says with a laugh, twisting around to see which one of us is going to dunk her.
But dunking her is the last thing on my mind—even if I did start out with that as a vague plan—and when her surprised eyes meet mine, I don’t push down until she’s underwater. I don’t pull away, though, either. Instead I stay right where I am, hands lightly resting above her hips, thumbs gently stroking at the hard, flat plane of her abs.
Her green eyes are huge as she watches me watching her, and then she smiles a little tremulously. “Hi.” It’s almost a whisper.
“Hi,” I say back. It’s the first word I’ve said to her in weeks that hasn’t at least been partially for show.
I start to say more—even though I don’t have a clue what words are about to come tumbling out of my mouth—but before I can, Tansy grabs onto her shoulders and shoves her down, hard.
We’re both so surprised that we just let it happen, no struggle at all. And by the time Cam surfaces, several feet away, that one moment between us—whatever it was—is lost.
We stay out there for a while longer, swimming and fucking around. It’s the best time I’ve had in a while—the most relaxed, certainly—and I kind of want it to go on forever. But, even as I mess around, I’m keeping an eye on Logan and I can tell, despite his game smile, that he’s getting tired.
I don’t want to make a big deal of it, and I sure as hell don’t want Ash to catch on because he’ll make a gigantic deal about it even if he tries to be subtle. That’ll just get Logan’s back up, and the day will go to hell pretty quick from there—which will suck, because they’ve both been trying so hard to think first and get pissed later that I don’t want to see it all go up in flames.
So, I quietly make my way over to Logan, bump him with my shoulder. He gets the offer of support without me saying anything else, wrapping his skinny arms around my neck from behind.
“Want a ride back to the boat?” I ask him, not wanting to take the choice out of his hands. If he just wants to hang here for a few minutes and get his breath back, I’m good with that too.
But he quickly nods, says “sure,” and I know he must be even more tired than I thought.
I start swimming, and it turns out Ash must have been paying attention after all, because within seconds he’s to my left, pacing us. Maybe he really is getting the hang of giving his brother some breathing room.
I make it back to the boat in a couple of minutes and by the time I climb up and Ash and I push/pull Logan out of the water, everyone else is right behind us. Leaving Logan in Ash and Tansy’s capable hands, I slide back into the pilot’s seat and—after hooking my phone up to play music through the boat’s radio—start the engine back up.
“You want to board?” I ask Z, when he slides into the seat beside me.
“Nah, I’m good for now. Why don’t you take us back to the marina while I get the food out?”
I nod, and after checking once more to make sure everyone’s onboard, I start to move. Z leaves me to it after a couple minutes, and a quick glance over my shoulder finds him unpacking the coolers full of food and drinks we loaded up early this morning.
We’re halfway across the lake when Cam slides into the seat next to mine. “Brought you something,” she says, holding out a cold orange soda. My favorite.
“Thanks,” I say, grabbing hold of it. Wow, we’ve managed to exchange six whole unsupervised words at this point. It’s got to be a record for the month.
“What are we listening to?” she asks after a couple of uncomfortable minutes pass in silence. “It’s cool.”
“Imagine Dragons’s new album.”
“Really? It sounds so different from their first one.”
I nod, because it’s true. And because I’ve never been great at small talk with people I care about.
When she realizes I’m not going to run with her conversation opener, Cam sighs heavily. “Are we seriously going to do this forever?” she demands. “Because it’s getting really old and boring and uncomfortable and I hate it.”
I’m a ridiculously bad liar—part of the reason we’re in this mess—so I don’t bother pretending I don’t know what she’s talking about. “What do you want me to say, Cam?”
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“Anything! Everything! You’re my best friend, dude. I miss talking to you.”