Page 9 of The Art of Drowning

As each day had passed, I had all but convinced myself that I’d hallucinated the whole thing. The near drowning. The way I’d saved him. The way I’d gotten to touch him and how it made my heart burst into a million butterflies. I’d done nothing but think about it ever since.

I was stretched out on my stomach on a lounge chair, a book resting on the ground below my face, and I’d been pretending to read it all morning. I’d intended to read it. The book wasn’t some elaborate ruse to make me look nonchalant; I was just bad at not thinking about Damien.

The patio door opened and I heard it slide shut again a second later. Awareness danced up my body. Was it hot out here or was it just me? Slowly, I rolled over, trying to move in a way that wouldn’t highlight my sudden erection. God, I hated my dick sometimes. It was like the moment Damien was around, it didn’t know how to act.

That made two of us, apparently, because I sat up and just sort of stared at him for a moment too long. Damein’s gaze darted away and color rose in his cheeks.

Shit. Was I being obvious? Or worse… was I being weird?

I wasn’t used to having crushes on people. Not really. Not like this. Not the kind of crush that made me want to touch them. That made me wonder what it would be like to run my fingers through their hair or to kiss them. I never wondered what someone’s mouth tasted like. Until Damien.

“Sam’s at work,” I said stupidly.

Damien blinked at me. “I know.” His voice was quiet, unsure, and entirely not himself. “You said…”

He motioned to the pool and my dick finally let my brain have some of its necessary blood flow back because I remembered my offer.

“Right. Swimming lessons.” I pushed myself to my feet and tried not to obsess over the fact that Damien and I were the same height. Well, he was a fraction of an inch taller than I was, but Sam had recently shot up several inches, making him taller than me now. Something he seemed to be secretly pleased with. I wondered if Damien would get taller than me too.

Needing the coolness of the water to stop my brain from overheating, I jumped in the deep end. After I surfaced, I swam to the shallow end and waited for Damien to get in the water.

“How much do you know?” I asked as he used the stairs to get in the pool.

“I can dog paddle. Sort of.”

Damien’s skin was pink but not from the sun. He couldn’t meet my gaze, clearly mortified by his lack of knowledge.

“We’ll start out with floating and treading water, okay?”

Damien nodded. “I’ve tried to float, but I’m better at sinking.”

“It can be tricky to get the hang of it. It’s like a trust fall but wetter.”

Damien let out a laugh. It was small and stifled, like he knew he was Sam’s friend and therefore wasn’t allowed to laugh at my jokes but couldn’t resist anyway.

“Let’s go with treading water first then. But you’ll have to go in a bit deeper.”

Damien looked at me with wide, worried eyes.

“We can stay near the edge today. Don’t worry.” To prove my point, I went to the edge of the pool and used it to pull myself along the side until I was in the deep end. It would be a little above his head at this level, but he’d be able to touch the bottom and sort of propel himself to the edge or to the shallows if he needed to.

Damien made his way over to me, and I tried to think of how to demonstrate. Pushing myself up on the side of the pool, I sat on the edge and started moving my arms to show him what to do.

“You need to move your arms back and forth like this, and at the same time that you’re doing that, you’ll want to kick your legs.”

Damien kept one hand on the edge, but started using the other arm to slice through the water. “Like this?”

“Yeah, like that. Now kick your legs. Not hard, you don’t need to like thrash and stuff. Treading water should be calm. Steady movements. And you want to keep your body upright, like you’re standing.”

I hopped in the water and showed Damien that it could be done. He still had a grip on the edge of the pool, though.

“You need to let go, D. You can do it. I’ll be right here to help if you need me.”

Damien looked at me, and I thought for sure that he wasn’t going to let go, but then he did. He let go, and he moved both his arms and kicked his feet, and when he realized he was doing it, he smiled at me. So big and so bright that it was like Damien became the sun.

“Well, this is easier than I thought.” Damien let out a laugh, relieved and embarrassed all at the same time.

“It uses a lot of energy, though,” I warned him. “It can be hard to do for extended periods of time, but it’s a good skill to have.”