What I don’t tell him is that after Caleb’s Oscar-winning performance with Jules on the stairs, the idea of beating the crap out of him with a foam noodle actually sounds pretty appealing.
“Fine,” Matthew sighs, definitely still skeptical. “Jim, there’s been a change in the program.”
We gather on the bow (look at me speaking trust-funder) as the boys prepare to start the first leg. Yara stands in the center with an airhorn, ready to kick us off.
Steven cracks his knuckles beside me.
“You’re going down, Matty boy.”
“The only thing going down on this deck is my flawlessly executed double backflip,” Matthew quips back. “You’d better hope your team can make up all the time you’re about to lose.”
“On your marks,” Yara counts down. “Get set…”
The airhorn goes off like a smoke alarm, startling me sobadly I smack my hands over my ears. But Matthew doesnot,despite his smack talk, kick Steven’s ass. As the horn sounds, the boys both launch themselves from the rail, their bodies spinning through the air and breaking through the turquoise water almost simultaneously. But, as expected, the one whodidn’tspike his morning coffee pulls ahead in the swim. Steven reaches the back deck ten long seconds before Matthew, giving Jules a clear headstart on the kayak race.
“Don’t worry, Stella,” Jim whispers to me as Matthew splashes towards us. “I’ll catch her on the back end.”
But Jim underestimates my sister’s speed. I guess all those pilates classes have paid off, because she rips it towards the red buoy that marks the turnaround point, her oversized life jacket doing nothing to reduce her velocity. As soon as Matthew sputters up to the deck, heaving as he smacks Jim’s foot to give him clearance to go, Jim is off after her, his stocky arms moving faster than I’d thought possible. Meanwhile, Arthur is down to his swim trunks and goggles, stretching on the dock like he’s about to run a marathon instead of drag behind a motorized diving scooter. I look away when he starts in on his jumping jacks, unable to control the laugh that wants to burst out of my mouth.
But my cheeks immediately deflate when I lock eyes with Caleb. He’s sitting up with Patricia, his face stony as ever as she whispers something to him. After the sharkcident, it felt like Caleb and I finally had some sort of truce. But now that he knows how I felt about him, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s borderline disgusted.
Why did I volunteer to do this, again?
As soon as Arthur and Harry set out on the seabobs, Caleb and I leap into the water to take our positions. The trampoline is about twelve feet wide, and in the center lie two corrugated green pool noodles. I climb onto the platform just before Caleb pulls himself up onto the surface, breaching the water andshaking out his hair like a model in a perfume ad. His muscles look even bigger slicked with sea water. If I’m going to knock him into the water first, I’m going to have to get creative.
Surprisingly, Arthur rips around the course and back to the trampoline before Harry even has the chance to touch the race buoy, giving me precious moments of lead time on my opponent. And I’m going to need every advantage I can get. As soon as Arthur smacks my hand, I drop to the ground and grab my pool noodle. These aren’t ordinary noodles—they’re as thick as palm trees and coated in shiny green rubber. Caleb smirks almost lazily at me as I lumber towards his weaponless body as if waiting for me to faceplant on the rippling black surface.
But as soon as I lift my noodle above my head, his nonchalant expression drops.
“Stella…“ he puts his hand up to block me, but I strike forcefully at his thighs. He leaps sideways as the noodle smacks against his skin, nearly knocking him off balance. No mercy will be shown today.
“Caleb,” I twirl the noodle playfully in the air. “I suggest you run.”
He darts back, using the sturdier edge to skirt around and get as far away from me as possible. But as fast as he is, there’s only so far he can go on the small trampoline. I lunge for him, reeling my noodle back and connecting with his ribs so hard there’s an audible smack. He stumbles sideways and I swing again, this time clocking him in the stomach.
“Harry, I could use you right about now!” he wheezes in his teammate’s direction. But Harry’s Seabob has stopped completely. He floats in the water beside it several yards away, trying to dislodge something from its jet propeller.
“Looks like your backup’s indisposed,” I taunt. “If you surrender now, I’ll go easy on you.”
“Not a chance.”
He lunges for me, bare fisted, and I drop backwards as hecollides with my pool noodle. The foam deflects the worst of the blow, but I still lose my balance and end up bouncing on my butt across the trampoline. I strike out from the ground with the noodle, catching the back of Caleb’s calves with a slap and hooking my hand around the other side, clotheslining him to the ground. He barely wastes a second on his knees before he leaps for me, trying to wrestle the noodle out of my hands.
“You can tap out whenever you’d like, you know,” he pants as he pins me to the rubber. “There’s no shame in losing.”
I push upwards, bumping him in the chest and rolling over until I’m straddling him with only the foam between us. I may be tall, but I’m not nearly strong enough to push Caleb around. If I’m on top, it’s only because he’s letting me be.
“Remember that when you’re swimming with the fishes,” I grit out.
I raise the noodle over my head, readying for the death blow, and make the mistake of locking eyes with Caleb. His blue eyes bore into me, leaving me as breathless as I was that first day on the beach. For a second, I’m frozen in action, paralyzed by the sudden awareness of his body heat beneath me; his stomach muscles straining between my thighs. The side of his mouth twitches and I can feel my arms lowering almost involuntarily. Beads of salt gather across his lips- lips that are far too close to mine.
For a second, everything around us seems to disappear. My thighs clench around the hard bones of his hips. His hands on my sides, hands that were pushing me away, suddenly feelintentional,his calloused thumbs pressing into the ridge of my ribs. In this moment I’mextremelygrateful for my covert female anatomy, because the way Caleb is looking at me, the self-control function in my brain suddenly short-circuits.
“Kill her, Caleb!” I hear my traitorous sister shout from the deck, and just like that the spell is broken. Caleb’s weapon of a smile twists into a grimace as he flings me over towards theedge like I’m nothing more than a dishrag. I flail with the noodle, but it does nothing to dislodge him as he shoves me towards the water. All I can do is reach out and cling to him with everything I have, attaching like a barnacle to his sun-warmed skin. Somehow, it works—the momentum of his shove takes us both toppling into the sea.
Salt water shoots up my nose as I push off of Caleb and up to the surface, our bodies a tangle of foam and limbs and sunscreen grease. I leave the noodle floating there in the foam and propel myself back towards the boat’s swim step. What is wrong with me? Why do I keep letting this man get in my head?
“Ten points to Ravenclaw,” Steven jokes as he pulls me out of the water. “That was quite the fight you put up.”
