“I absolutely did not.”
“You were already pushing off when I turned.”
“That's called being fast. You wouldn't know.” He shoved water at me. It hit me square in the face and I retaliated without thinking and suddenly we were both acting like idiots, splashing each other.
It felt good. It felt easy in a way that nothing between us had felt easy in years.
Troy drifted closer at some point, close enough that I could see the water beading on his eyelashes and running down his jaw. He reached out and grabbed my shoulder to steady himself without thinking about it, the contact completely automatic, no weight behind it.
But I felt it. His hand warm against my skin despite the water. His fingers pressing in with casual familiarity that had no idea what it was doing to me. We were standing close enough that I could feel the current he made when he shifted, could see his chest rising and falling with each breath, could track the water sliding down his throat without even trying.
And for one terrible second I wanted to close the remaining distance and find out what would happen.
I pulled back too fast. Put space between us and turned away before whatever was on my face could be read.
“We're done,” I said. My voice came out rougher than I'd intended.
“What? We've barely been in an hour.”
“You've been in long enough. Don't push it.”
I hauled myself out of the pool and grabbed my towel without looking back. I could feel Troy watching me, could feel the confusion starting to sharpen into something more pointed, but I didn't turn around. I just headed for the locker room and tried to get my head back where it belonged.
I changed fast and was sitting on the bench pulling myself together when Troy came in dripping water everywhere and looking like he'd arrived at a verdict.
“So are you going to tell me what that was, or are we doing the part where you pretend nothing happened?”
“Nothing happened.”
“Right.” He dropped his towel over the door and looked at me with the flat assessment he used when he'd already decided someone was lying to him. “We were fine. We were actually fine, which, for us, is basically a miracle. And then you got out of the pool like the building was on fire.”
“I was done.”
“You were done.” He repeated it like he was examining the structural integrity. “That's what you're going with.”
“Get dressed, Troy.”
“You dragged me out here,” he said, and the edge in his voice had sharpened now. “You basically frog-marched me into a sixty-eight-year-old building and made me put on a stranger's swim trunks. And then the second we stop actively wanting to kill each other, you shut down and act like I crossed a line I can'teven see.” He crossed his arms. “What line, Declan? What did I do?”
“You didn't do anything.”
“Then what the hell is your problem?”
I didn't have an answer that wouldn't blow this wide open. So I stood up and grabbed my bag. “Get dressed. We're leaving.”
“Declan.”
“Just get dressed.”
He stared at me long enough to make the silence uncomfortable, which I suspected was the point. Then he turned away and started getting changed without another word, and the silence between us was different now. Heavier. All the progress we'd made in the water was sitting under the weight of whatever I'd just broken.
We left the club and got back in the truck without speaking. I pulled out of the lot and focused on the road because it was easier than looking at him.
We were halfway home when Troy broke the silence.
“I don't get you.”
“What's there to get?”
