If I could close my eyes and magic myself straight to hell right now, I would.
But of course I can’t, because I’m already there. This—being naked in a quarry with my best friend’s notoriously private, broody, mysterious older brother, asking him if he wantskids—is for sure one of the circles of hell.
“You don’t have to answer that. Oh my god, I’m so sorry. What a weird thing to say. And rude too. I know better than to just ask someone if they want kids. It’s so personal and not at all my business, and I’m?—”
“I do.”
I suck in a breath so fast I nearly choke on quarry water.
“You do?”
“Yeah,” he says. “I mean, it’s hard to imagine right now, what with, you know, all the legal shit. So a lot of other things would have to fall into place first—and I’m not counting on it, to be honest—but I think I could be a good dad. I’d like to try.”
“I think you’d be agreatdad,” I answer, a thing I can say to him while we’re in this liminal space, alone in a quarry on a fake date. If all of this is just pretend, that means none of it counts. None of it’s real. I can say anything out here, floating beneath the moonlight.
The quarry is like Vegas. What I say out here stays out here.
That’s how this works, right?
I’m spiraling again, ready to barf out another embarrassingword salad, when I feel something cold and slimy slip against my foot. My mind immediately sayssnake.
And I scream. So loud it echoes off the water and bounces around the limestone walls of the quarry like surround sound. So loud that whoever honked a mile away probably just heard me.
If there weren’t cops coming before, they might be coming now.
Dan immediately cuts through the water until he’s right in front of me. He reaches for my shoulders.
“What happened? Are you okay?”
I’m panting, trying to decide if it was a figment of my imagination, or maybe just a fish. It could have been a fish, right? Are there fish in quarries? Because I know there can be snakes. Big, scary, fat snakes that slither out of the woods and disappear beneath the water, only to rise up from the bottom and sink their fangs into your flesh andoh my god I need to get out of here.
“I-I felt s-something against m-m-my foot,” I manage to stutter, but Dan is already pulling me toward the dock. He’s got an arm hooked around me like a lifeguard, his muscles flexing as he pulls us through the water. I could probably swim myself, but that would mean not being pressed against Dan’s warm body, and suddenly that is taking up far more of my mental real estate than the possibility of a snake.
When we get to the dock, he places my hands on the spongy wooden ladder, making sure I’m holding on. Then he reaches down into the water, his hand ghosting down my calf until he reaches my ankle. He circles it with his large hand, gently tugging up until I let him pull my foot above the water line.
“Did something bite you?” he asks as he studies it, his fingers coasting over my skin, looking for a wound.
“No, I just touched something slimy,” I say, shivering. I still can’t catch my breath, but it’s not because I’m worried about snakes anymore. Now it’s because Dan is holding my ankle in his hand.
Dan is touching me, and I’m naked. And he’s naked. We’reboth still hidden by the water, but there’s no longer any distance between us.
“Don’t scare me like that,” he says, looking up to meet my eyes. He reaches out and brushes a wet curl away from my cheek, his thumb tracing a path down my jaw.I lean into his touch, my eyes fluttering shut. He grips the ladder just behind my head. His breath, shuddering but steady, is warm on my cheek.
“I want to kiss you,” he says.
This is not real.
I so want this to be real.
For a moment I can’t say anything, lost in the fear that maybe I’m dreaming. Or hallucinating. That beyond this being a fake date, I’ve gone and made up this whole moment. It’s all too perfect. There’s no way this could actually be happening to me.
“But this is just pretend,” I whisper, and I’m not entirely sure if I’m asking him for confirmation or trying to convince myself.
Dan gives the slightest shake of his head. My heart skitters in my chest.
“Carson, the only pretending I’m doing is pretending I don’t want you.”
“Since when?”
