Page 51 of This is a Kissing Book

“We’re even now. Thanks for coming. You can go,” she says abruptly.

I drop her hand, feeling like I was just fired on account of the loss. We’d been having a good time. “Am I being dismissed?”

Her eyes widen. “I meant, assuming you want to leave, you can. I’m sure you have holiday plans. I’m sorry I dragged you into this. I probably owe you now.”

Before I can respond, Oly appears. “You should stay for the barbecue. We’ve got burgers, Nate’s famous macaroni salad, and the pool is open if you want to swim. There’s a clubhouse with showers, too.”

Nate adds, “Plus fireworks later. It’s the Fourth of July. We will light up the sky with our patriotism.”

Jules looks at me uncertainly. “But you don’t have to.”

I check my grandfather’s watch around my wrist. The smart thing would be to leave. Go home, review more spreadsheets, refortify the distance between Jules and me that’s been eroding bit by bit since that night on the rooftop.

“I’ll stay,” I hear myself say.

Jules’s smile is radiant. Because I almost can’t endure it, I pick her up, sling her over my shoulder, and march us toward the pool.

“Linc! Put me down!” she squeals, pounding koala fists against my back, but she’s laughing.

“Not happening,” I say, adjusting my grip as she wriggles.

Instead, I cannonball us both into the pool.

She splashes me and splutters.

When we surface, she looks murderous.

I feign innocence. “What? You were hot.”

She goes still as if wondering if she heard correctly.

Yeah, she’s hot. Any man would have to be blindfolded not to see that.

She nods as if deciding I didn’t mean anything about it and accepting the third-place trophy. “It is a warm day in July.”

I chuckle and splash her. “You know that isn’t what I meant.”

I catch a secret grin that she squirrels away like she wants to save it for cold weather.

We playfully wrestle before she swims to the deep end. I make chase, grabbing hold of her ankle and pulling her toward me. We pause at the pool’s edge, both out of breath.

Sudden awareness shoots through me as my pulse spikes. I’m holding her. Our bodies pressed together, warm and alive.

Voice rough, I take a risk and say, “You’re looking at me like that again.”

“Like what?”

“With sugar eyes.”

Her brow furrows. “Do enlighten me, sir.”

Her hair is wet and tousled, her cheeks flushed, and she’s looking up at me with those eyes that see through every wall I’ve built. Eyes that tell me she also thinks I’m hot.

“Like you like what you see,” I answer, committing to telling the truth like Honest Abe.

Her breath catches. The only sound is water lapping against the pool tiles and the distant hum of summer insects.

“Sugar eyes, huh?”