“So you’re saying you saw clothes and said, ‘Let’s see who’s naked?’ Wow, creeper.”
“First off, I’m not trying to spy on some random skinny-dipper. I knew it was you. I recognized your shoes.”Shit.That was what I got for having neon pink running shoes. “And second off, I’ve already seen you naked.”
A burning sensation ran through me as blood rushed to my cheeks. We’d avoided talking about this part of our past his entire stay, but now he’d thrown it out there, and it filled me with images of a younger us tangled together in the backs of cars and spare bedrooms at parties, desperate for any moment we could find. He’d brought me out of my shell in more ways than one.
Jamie took off his shoes. Then his shorts.
My eyes opened wide with surprise. “What are you doing?”
“Contemplating our place in this vast universe.” His shit-eating grin told me he wasn’t doing that.
I ignored the ludicrousness of that sentence. “You don’t need to be in yourboxersto do that, Jamie.”
“I can go if you really want me to—” He faked like he’d stop removing his shirt before looking to his right. Whatever he saw had him yanking the fabric over his head and grabbing both our clothes and shoes, discarding them on the rocks out of view before rushing to the ladder and dropping down.
“What?” I whispered quickly.
“I heard something.” He cringed as he felt the cool water and lifted his finger to his mouth. No words passed between us as we listened intently. Then I heard hooves. I lifted my head to confirm.
“It’s a deer, you dork.” I splashed him, laughing loudly.
He splashed me back before diving down and swimming away from me. Thank god, because I’d forgotten my sense of propriety and quickly remembered I didn’t need him seeing my naked extremities. It was going to be difficult. Doing that while treading water wasn’t easy.
I watched this handsome thirty-year-old enjoying himself like he was a teenager again, this time bathed in moonlight. Suddenly, an image of one of my favorite moments with him popped into my head. Six of us had broken into the pool one winter night when I was sixteen. The risk factor of being caught had been high back then, and even though it was my stomping ground, if we’d been found out, I would have gotten detentions at best, a suspension at worst. But it’d been worth it. He’d brought out the more adventurous side of me. That night, we’d swam together in our own little world, ignoring our friends and holding each other close as we drifted in chlorinated water.
I remember wishing we’d had it to ourselves, and here we were again.
He swam back. “What are you doing out here alone?”
“I do this most nights.” By myself. “There isn’t exactly a lap pool.”
“So you still swim?” He referred to my time on the swim team. Jamie looked down into deep waters, his breathing drowned out by the small breeze around us.
“Yeah, I still swim.” I nodded slowly. Every time he realized something about me that he remembered from back then, he went silent, as if he was going inside himself. It filled me with the same anxious need to make him feel better. It was a strangeurge. I hadn’t expected to feel that way for him again. He wasn’t mine to worry about anymore. “You have to stop doing this to yourself.”To us.
“I can’t help it. Every memory feels like it wasn’t—”
“That long ago, I know.” I shivered at the thought. When these feelings washed over me, they made it hard to remember that enough time had passed that I was over it. Over him.
Jamie nodded, biting his lip as he stared at the stars above us and then looked at me heartbreakingly. “I want to know more.” He didn’t raise his voice above a whisper.
“More?”
“About what you’ve been up to. I love goofing off, but it doesn’t negate the fact that there’s still so much I don’t know. A lot has changed over the last ten years.”
“Oh.”That.Of course, he was interested, and admittedly, I was just as intrigued by what he’d been up to since leaving me. “How about you go first?”
He didn’t press. He didn’t know how hard this would be for me to bare myself to him, give him a bit more of myself after years of dead air.
“Me? Well, I stuck with UCLA for undergrad. Moved back to Seattle for law school. Then I was immediately hired by the company I’m at now.”
“Wow.” It was impressive, really. I’d had plans, too, and I’d deviated from every single one of them, but he’d followed through like I was supposed to. “You did the thing.”
“I did the thing.” He nodded, but his expression didn’t demonstrate pride in his accomplishments. I couldn’t figure out what he was thinking, and I wanted to know so much more. “You already know I’m an uncle now. And I’m still living in Washington.”
There was a twinge of sadness there, as though he wondered if he’d made the wrong decision. It felt so unlike him. He wasalways the guy with his eye on the prize, much like I’d been back then, but now that his goal was within reach, it seemed like he was unhappy. Like he was missing something.
“And now you’re about to be promoted.”
