“He’s always doing that. His nickname is Cannonball. Don’t worry, that part of the river goes really deep.”
I barely heard Kate’s words. Relief didn’t come until about ten seconds later when Ace finally broke through the water. His deep laughter filled the air, over and above the whooping and clapping of his two friends and the cheers from the other girls.
“Come on. Let me introduce you to everyone.”
I allowed Kate to lead me toward the group of teens seated at the riverbank. We made the introductions, and I could feel Carol Anne eye me up and down. Though she smiled at me, her eyes were dismissive as they trailed over my shoulder.
“Who’s this?”
Those two words sent a shiver down my spine.
I turned and came face to face with Ace Townsend. He was even more magnificent up close. The sun stood high in the sky behind me and reflected off his grey irises. An intriguing smile tugged at his pink lips.
Droplets of water fell from his brown hair and onto his chest, cascading their way down his abdomen. My mouth became as dry as Texas grass in August.
“This is Savannah,” Kate introduced me.
Ace’s gaze flickered over to Kate and then back to me.
“Savannah,” he said.
Another shiver coursed through my body.
“Ace, that was some cannonball. You should do it again,” a voice said from behind me. I recognized it as coming from Carol Anne.
But he continued to peer down at me. “Are you new here?” he asked.
I nodded.
“She lives down on Woodmill Road. Right next to Kate,” Carol Anne said.
If I’d been paying closer attention to her, I would’ve taken offense to the sneer in her tone as she said my street name. Like the people who lived on Woodmill Road were the annoying gum that gets stuck to the bottom of your shoe.
But the only thing capturing my attention was Ace.
“You’re new to Harlington?” he asked.
I nodded.
His smile widened, and he folded his arms over his chest. “So, what do you think of Harlington so far?” He asked as if my opinion mattered.
I glanced out toward the river, breaking eye contact because it was too hard to think with him looking at me like that. The image of him swinging high in the air and jumping in the water to not come up for such a long time replayed in my mind.
He’d done it on purpose. To scare everyone, as a joke.
Then I said the only thing that came to mind.
“I think it was pretty stupid to submerge yourself underwater just to play a prank on everyone.”
I sucked in a breath when I heard someone gasping behind me. At times, I tended to get snarky when I felt out of place.
“Who does she think she is?” Carol Anne demanded behind me.
“You don’t like tricks?” Ace asked with a lifted eyebrow.
“I don’t like playing about death.” The muscles in my stomach tightened. “Life is already scary and dangerous enough.”
I hadn’t meant to say that last part out loud. My mother’s recent death had left such a hole in my heart that I found myself blurting out things that I often wanted to keep quiet.
