The seconds turned into years. I wasn’t trying to peek, but I couldn’t help but make sure the man was leaving. He certainly took his time drying off, even checking his phone for messages, bending and twisting every which way before sliding on a pair of cargo cutoff army shorts that looked straight from the ‘90s.
He turned to us, waving. “Have fun, you two!”
“Nice to meet you!” Logan called cheerfully, as the man exited his stage.
We gave it a hearty ten seconds to make sure he had gone before we both lost it. Logan leaned forward, his high-pitched, wheezy laughter making me laugh even as my hands covered my face in horror.
“So much naked,” Logan said.
“So much…everything,” I gasped, looking around the pool like it was a petri dish full of herpes. “If he is living off the land, does that make this his bathtub?”
“Au naturel.”
I groaned, and peered into the water. “How hot does this run? Does it kill…naked things?”
“I’m sure there has been worse done in this pool.” He grinned over at me, putting his arm back around my shoulder and pulling me close again. I found no fault with this plan and leaned my head on his chest.
“Question for you,” Logan said.
“Yeah?”
“The backside. I have to know…who wore it better? Me or him?”
I slapped my hand against the water, spraying him while he attempted to block my attack.
“What? I figured you were the best person to ask.”
I pulled away just enough to launch myself at him, using the momentum from my body weight and the strength of my humongous biceps to push him into the water. It took Logan all of two seconds before he had untangled himself from my attempts at a light drowning and tossed me into the deep end.
I came out of the water wiping my eyes, pushing back my hair, and seeking revenge. Logan stood waiting for me calmly, arms folded, his construction biceps carved out of stone as his eyes trailed down my entire body and back up again. I forced myself to keep moving toward him, to see this to the end. Somehow, Logan Marten would get dunked in this pool before we left. When I was only one foot away, his hands reached down and fingered the waistband of his shorts, and when he began to tug them downward, I stopped abruptly.
“What are you doing?”
“I feel like I’m overdressed now.”
He grinned, and before I could react, he slid an arm around my waist, pulling me to him, effectively changing the feel of our game. But revenge was still very much on my mind. I acted like I was closing in for a hug but pushed him backward instead. This time, he fell, but he took me down with him. Water crashed over my head for the second time in thirty seconds. We scrambled up for air, the movement of the water pulling us back down. I was laughing too hard to stand. Then, his hands were helping me up, gripped lightly under my elbow. Then, they were turning me, tugging me closer. On my shoulders and in my neck and in my hair. The heat from his body warmed my skin as he closed the last of the gap between us. Then, I couldn’t feel his hands anymore. His lips had taken over.
* * *
Voicesin the woods broke us apart. Warm light filtered through the trees. The sunset would probably be making its spectacular appearance soon. We both stumbled to our spot looking out over the mountain view. My lips felt swollen in the best way. I glanced at Logan when we sat down, and he smiled at me while his hand snaked through his hair.
A group of women broke through the clearing. There were about five of them, in their late twenties to mid-thirties, all loud talkers and wearing bathing suits and tennis shoes. By the time they had made their way to us, Logan and I sat casually, our hands to ourselves, with a couple of inches between us. I was trying to keep my heart from leaping out of my chest. Logan had just kissed me. We’d long since fulfilled any requirements for Jake’s ridiculous bet, but he was still kissing me. And his kiss felt like something. It wasn’t the type of kiss you give somebody when you were planning to trade them in for a truck in a few days.
“Logan?”
We turned to see Jen, the waitress who worked for Chad, step into the pool, wearing the tiniest green-and-white-striped bikini I had ever seen. Her long, auburn hair was in a high ponytail, freckles dotted all over her face and neck beautifully, and her cleavage was…busty and perfect. She waded over toward Logan, and her eyes brightened when she saw me.
“Hey, Blondie. How’d you drag him up this mountain? He told me he wasn’t into hiking.”
I swallowed, immediately feeling the mood shift at Jen’s presence. It could have been the way Logan’s body stiffened beside me as she approached.
“Wait, are you guys together?” Her eyes flitted back and forth between us.
There was an awkward pause. Logan and I shared a glance, but neither of us said anything. Who asks that? Logan opened his mouth to say something, but I beat him to it. “No, we’re just…here.”
We’re just here?I meant to say that we were on a date, but then I remembered not wanting anybody from Eugene to know I was seeing Logan in any capacity. In the last-second scramble inside my brain, ‘We’re just here,’ leaked out.
Logan relaxed, and I wondered what he was going to say. Could I have said anything else? It was true. We were on a date. Just a date, like he had told Naked Pete, but somehow that didn’t seem like quite enough.Well, we just kissed, Jen. Definitely on the verge of a full-blown make-out session before your troop got here. And we’ve been flirting the past couple weeks like it’s our job, but there is also a huge bet on the line, and we really haven’t talked about our feelings yet.Too complicated. Maybe a date was all we could have said.
