“I am!” Topher exclaimed, his face red with effort, though he was laughing too hard to be of any real help.
“Weren’t you, like, some big rowing star at Brown? Shouldn’t you bekillingthis?” I teased, barely keeping a straight face as the swan boat wobbled hopelessly off course.
Topher groaned, trying to steer with no success. “First of all, real rowing doesn’t involve giant plastic birds, okay? This is completely different!”
“Sure, keep telling yourself that.” We lurched forward, then backward, our coordination as awful as ever, and I could see the basket drifting farther and farther away. “We’re losing it! The sandwiches are floating to their doom!”
“Okay, okay, we’ve got this,” Topher said, but his voice shook with laughter. We finally managed to get close enough to the basket, and I leaned over, stretching out my arm to grab it.
“Careful, careful!” Topher warned, half-serious, half-laughing. “We don’t need to go down with the ship!”
I was just inches from the basket when—plop!—my hand slipped, and I tipped forward. Topher yanked me back into the boat just as I was about to swan dive into the lagoon, his strong arms wrapping around me as I landed ungracefully in his lap. For a second, we just stared at each other, my heart racing for reasons that had nothing to do with the near-drowning incident.
And then he kissed me.
Now, thatJeopardy!kiss? The one that had put every kiss from my past to shame? Well, this kiss put that kiss to shame in a way I didn’t even know was possible. This kiss was everything I hadn’t let myself think about. It was warm, slow, and steady, as if he had all the time in the world and no intention of letting me go anytime soon.
My brain short-circuited. Fireworks? Check. Butterflies? More like a tornado. I felt like I was floating, even though we were technically still stuck in the swan boat. If this is what kissing him was like, how had I not realized sooner that I was completely and utterly gone for him?
“Uh, guys? Your picnic basket is sinking!”
I blinked, dazed, pulling back just slightly to register the words coming from the swan boat we had collided with. I glanced over and, sure enough, there was our sad little picnic basket slowly disappearing beneath the water.
Topher glanced at it, too, and his eyes snapped back to me, his grin playful. “Do you care?”
I shook my head, biting back a smile. “Not even a little.”
“Good,” he said, pulling me closer again. “Because I’ve got other things on my mind.”
We watched as the basket bobbed one last time before sinking fully out of sight.
“RIP sandwiches,” I murmured, not bothering to move.
“Yeah, RIP,” Topher echoed, though his focus was back on me.
Honestly? Letting the picnic basket go was the easiest decision I’d ever made. There were more important things happening here.
17
If you’ve never experiencedemotional whiplash via a hospital-room UNO game, I highly recommend it.
One minute, Topher and I were whispering sweet nothings. The next, we were locked in a full-blown card war, grinning like lunatics and sabotaging each other with the kind of competitive glee that would make Olympic athletes nervous.
I slapped down a Draw Two with a dramatic flourish.
Topher’s jaw dropped. “You’re heartless.”
He drew two cards with a groan, but the gleam in his eyes said otherwise.
“It’s UNO,” I said, shrugging. “There are no survivors.”
Josephine, lounging on the hospital bed like a queen observing court drama, chuckled in approval. With a sly wink, she tossed down a Skip card, shooting the turn right back to me.
What had started as a simple distraction during Josephine’s checkup had quickly turned into an all-out battle. But the best part? The way Topher kept finding subtle ways to touch me—his fingers brushing mine when he handed over a card, his leg casually bumping against me as we sat side by side. Each little contact caused a spark, making it impossible to wipe the giddy smile off my face.
I leaned back, still lightheaded from the way Topher’s fingers had brushed mine for just a second longer than necessary. “It’s not my fault that some of us take competition seriously. It’s calledwinning, Topher. Maybe you’ve heard of it?”
He scoffed. “Oh, I know all about winning. What I didn’t realize is that apparently, we can’t playanythingwithout it becoming a battle for survival.”
