“No,” I grumbled. I wanted to reach out and pull her to me before she officially closed whatever opening there could have been between us. But she was far nimbler than I was, and she easily side-stepped me with a sigh.
“Maybe after the summer’s over, if you move to the city. Maybe then I could get your number? That is, if you’re using a phone by then.”
I rolled my eyes. “I have a phone.”
“Good,” she said. “There’s a great bookstore just around the corner from me that I’d love to show you. Maybe buy you a coffee. Show you my favorite sights.”
The idea of the two of us living in the city and going out on the town thrilled me. So I forced a smile even as my gut clenched. “It’s a date.”
14
Gwen
Istood on the edge of the lake, staring at Sabine’s liberally sunscreened back at the far end of the docks. The clouds had finally blown past, and everyone instantly flocked to the water, which, bonus points, meant seeing my crush in basically nothing at all. I had no idea how I was going to walk past her without imploding. It would take scrubbing my eyeballs in rubbing alcohol to clear the vision of Sabine in that wet T-shirt from my mind.Fuck. Despite all my attempts to avoid her, I knew I was so screwed.
Maybe outdoorsy witches were my thing after all. Sabine had just popped up into my life and sneak-attacked me, the last sort of person I’d thought could pull on my heart strings. Something about camp just expedited all of the feelings, too. No phones, no distractions, just me constantly wildly aware of her proximity. I knew these sort of quick-burn friendships and romances well, falling for someone over the course of a school year, only tomove again. But this . . . this felt different than all of those whirlwind crushes.
How was I going to manage to avoid her? The camp wasn’t that big. If she turned around right now, for example, she’d see me awkwardly tottering around the shoreline.
This entire summer was going to be torture. Still, I was proud of myself for telling her that we needed to keep our distance. While it was true that I didn’t want Astrid ruining my summer, the real reason I took a step back—when I desperately wanted to take a step forward—was because of Sabine herself. She wanted to graduate into the coven proper, and she wouldn’t be able to if she was caught hooking up with a camper. And we’d come so close to tanking all of her plans with a single kiss. I couldn’t do that to her.
My hand snaked between my legs in the shower every night as I thought about that heated look in her eyes, that tight shirt, her wet hair, her hungry eyes . . .
She’d wanted to kiss me.
She’d wanted to domorethan kiss me, and damn it all to hell, I’d told her that I’d rather date a witch so she’d know I was open to it.
Why egg her on just to shut her down?
Shit, shit, shit.
I was going to burn up into a horny crisp before this summer was over.
And now she was on lifeguard duty at the lake in tight, little swim shorts and a racerback bikini top, fulfilling all of mySandlotfantasies.
“I’m going back to the cabin,” I muttered to Faith because I was about to combust.
She caught me by the elbow before I could turn in the opposite direction. “But you said you’d go out on the canoe with me. Please?”
Curse her and her puppy-dog eyes. Normally, I was immune to such blatant begging, but I had a soft spot for Faith. She hadn’t been my friend for long, and she probably wouldn’t be my friend once we left at the end of the summer, but she was kind to me, and the least I could do was get in a freaking canoe for her.
“Fine,” I relented. “Better than sitting here getting sand up my crack all day.”
“You are the most cheerful person in the world, you know that?”
I rolled my eyes. “I’ll get the life jackets; you get the paddles.”
She saluted me and headed off to the copse of trees by the boat shed where the paddles were kept.
I waddled my way onto the rocking dock, snagging two life jackets from the stand and wandering to where the canoes were tied up at the far end of the pier.
As I passed Sabine, she let out a whistle. “Look at you being a team player,” she said. “SCUW working its magic on you, Gwen?”
“I’m just going for a paddle, not volunteering to lead the camp in a sisterly song.”
“I give it a week,” she said with a wink.
She looked extra adorable in her floppy bucket hat and with a white stripe of zinc over her freckled nose.
