I reminded myself that no one lived there. We weren’t breaking into anything. People pool-hopped all the time. And it was fine for me and Daniel to hang out as friends.
I stepped up next to him and took his outstretched hand. “On three?”
His smile was a thing of beauty. “One.”
“Two.” I squeezed his hand back.
We jumped together on three.
CHAPTER 19
Daniel didn’t let go of me when we hit the water. We sank down together. The darkness was so complete that our hands, our fingers, our skin, were the only things that existed.
The tips of my toes brushed the bottom and I pushed off, breaking the connection with Daniel. There was a brief moment of tangled limbs as we bobbed against each other trying to tread water while we were too close.
The water that wrapped around me was warm, like bathtub warm, from baking in the sun all day, but it felt so good. Everything with Daniel felt good.
“I didn’t think you were going to make it with those short legs of yours.” Daniel dipped below the surface and his fingers encircled my ankle before I was yanked down with him.
I pushed up and splashed water in his face. “Short legs? I haven’t been short since the fifth grade.”
“When was that? Last year?” He swam to the side and pushed himself up to sit on the edge.
“The age jokes are getting old,” I said. “Just like you.”
He stood up. “Wanna jump again?”
It was so dark I could make out only his outline, but I could see the hand he extended, and again I took it. He pulled me up so fast that I stumbled against him. All of him. It was one of those moments where I desperately wanted him to tease me about being young, because I felt young. My heart raced and, pressed against him, I felt his heart lurch under my fingers.
And I panicked.
And I pushed him backward into the pool.
He surfaced and spun around. When his eyes found me his smile had a predatory edge to it that sent a thrill straight through to my toes. “You are so dead.”
“You looked hot.”
Daniel’s smile grew. “So you pushed me away? You may have gotten that backward.”
“Hot as in warm,” I said, glad it was too dark for him to see the blush I felt rush up my cheeks.
He took a few leisurely strokes toward me. “Go on. Jump. You look…warm.”
I laughed in a way that betrayed how nervous he was making me. “Not with you waiting to attack me the moment I hit the water.”
“What makes you think I’m going to attack you?” He swam closer.
“Aren’t you?”
Instead of answering, he reached the pool’s edge and climbed out with a speed that had me leaping backward, excited and scared in an exhilaratingly mixed-up way. Daniel caught me with an arm around my waist and another under my knees. Before I could freak out about him holding me, he twisted and launched me into the pool.
Hitting the water stung and I spluttered as I surfaced. But the pool and surrounding deck were empty. I spun around.
Nothing.
The pool light was off and I suddenly felt irrationally afraid of what I couldn’t see in the dark water. Arms snaked around me from behind and I was lifted up, up, nearly all the way out of the water and tossed across the pool.
When my heart started beating again, I came up laughing and choking a little. The chlorine stung my eyes and my throat. I started for him.
