Then her head broke the surface, hair slicked back, laughing.
“Travers,” she called. “Were you scared?”
I was so gone for her.
That was going to be a problem.
I stripped fast and dove in.
The water was cooler than the air, clean and dark around me. I surfaced a few feet from her, and she splashed me immediately.
“Rude,” I said.
“You took long enough.”
“I was admiring the view.”
She splashed me again.
We swam under the moon like idiots.
She tried to dunk me.
Failed.
I let her think she almost succeeded.
She called me a liar.
I pulled her close by the waist, and her laughter faded into something softer.
Her arms went around my neck.
The water moved around us.
For a second, everything went still.
She looked younger like this. Not childish. Just unarmored. Hair wet. Face bare. Moonlight on her cheeks. No pageant smile. No campus polish. No fake girlfriend performance.
Just Isa.
Mine, some ugly greedy part of me thought.
Not mine,the better part corrected.
Not yet.
Maybe never.
A prickle crawled up the back of my neck.
My eyes lifted toward the house.
One of the upstairs balconies sat in shadow.
The curtain in one room moved.
Maybe from air conditioning.
