The Honey-Don’t List by Christina Lauren

 

The pool is mostly empty at this hour. A group of rowdy teenage boys here for some kind of sports competition—judging from their matching duffel bags—are splashing and wrestling down at the other end, but it seems my red face and pathetic sniffling effectively signal they should keep their distance.

I’m not usually happier alone, but I am right now, vacillating between embarrassment over the way Melly talked to me and anger at myself for letting her. As crazy as it sounds, I’m genuinely sad about how tonight went down, because despite everything, I care about Melissa. She’s lost her temper with me before but never like that, never in front of other people, and always about the job, or out of frustration about things around her. In all the time I’ve worked for her, she’s never questioned my character or accused me of being disloyal.

I wipe my face again, wishing I were more furious and less hurt. Wishing I had stood up to her instead of letting her see me cry.

You and Russell humiliate the fuck out of me in front of two hundred people and now you want to shut me up with food?

Carey has just tried to take credit for my fucking life’s work …

I’d been so grateful when she’d finally made James leave, but she wasn’t finished.

I have given you so much, and this is how you repay me?

Melly, I would never—

Are you calling me a liar?

No—

Try that again, and I will replace you in a second. Do you understand? You’re not special, Carey. Don’t forget that.

Not special.

Rusty just stood there; his eyes were soft with pity, but he didn’t dare contradict her and risk getting something else thrown at his head.

SACRED HEALING, my ass.

And then there’s James. I want to thank him for trying to stand up for me, but I’m still too mortified that he had to witness that debacle to imagine ever talking to him again.

I pull the last Funyun out of the bag and glance over at the boys, envying their carefree youth and fighting the urge to rush over to tell them to study hard, to go to college, to do whatever they can to give themselves options. Make plans, and make backup plans. Network, and meet people, and don’t be afraid to try something new and fail at it—experience is everything. I want to tell them, more than anything, not to settle down in the first job they get.

One of the boys runs screaming toward the pool and does a cannonball so epic he soaks all of his friends and a good portion of the pool deck.

“I had my phone, you motherfucker!” another shouts. This is followed by a chorus of delighted cackling that echoes off the building. The pool area sits in a U-shaped courtyard created by the exterior walls of the hotel, with floors of windows that look down. I expect a set of drapes to slide open, or a parent or chaperone to appear with a stern warning to Behave Yourselves or Else, but it doesn’t happen.

Because they are clearly unsupervised, some form of boy wrestling ensues, complete with a few of the dirtiest words I’ve ever heard—and my dad worked construction, so I’ve heard them all. Splashes turn into waves that ripple to where my bare legs dangle in the water. The boys are slowly morphing from Kids on the Loose to Lord of the Flies, but the chaos out here is still preferable to facing whatever is going on inside.

My phone vibrates, and I look, reluctantly. I have a few missed calls from James. Nothing from Melly, but then, I don’t expect that until tomorrow. After a few hours to cool off—and with nobody else around to placate her—she’ll apologize in the morning, like she always does. I think.

But there is a message in my group chat with Peyton and Annabeth.

Annabeth

Checking in

I think about how to best reply here. Having to actually type the lie that everything is fine will make my head explode, but I can’t really describe what’s going on, either. Weirdly, the only person I think would truly understand is James.

And I can’t confide in him.

Carey

You know how parents tell you that if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all?

Annabeth

Uh-oh.

Peyton

Mine never said that.

Annabeth

Because Liz and Bill Gibley live for the gossip.

Peyton

It’s true. They do.

Annabeth

Going out on a limb and guessing that the book tour is not off to a solid start, C?

What an understatement.

“Hey.”

I’m so startled I nearly drop my phone in the pool, and look up to see James hovering over me. The sleeves of his dress shirt are rolled up, and it accentuates his forearms so nicely it’s enough to distract me from my morose mental bender.

“I didn’t want to interrupt your Funyunning.” He clears his throat, and I blink to focus, eyes scanning down his arms (he really does have very nice arms) to where he’s carrying a bag of Funyuns in one hand and a beer in the other. This makes him my current dream man.

With my own bag empty, my mouth waters immediately. From the Funyuns, not the forearms. I think. “Those for me?”

“I thought you might need them after …” He jerks his head back toward the hotel. “That. But I see you beat me to it.”

That.

Embarrassment washes over me again. Muttering a bleak thanks, I take the offered bag and look down; my hair slides forward, mercifully blocking his view of my flushed cheeks.

“Mind if I join you?”

I can think of at least twelve things I’d rather do than talk this out right now, but I motion to the ground next to me anyway. “Knock yourself out.”

He takes a moment to toe off his shoes and roll up the legs of his expensive pants before taking a seat next to me and gently lowering his feet into the water. He lets out a quiet, rumbling groan that sends a surge of goose bumps up my legs.

“It’s nice out here,” he says, surveying the patio and then the balconies overlooking where we sit. “My room has a view of the Hooters across the street.”

I laugh. “You’re probably the first straight man to ever say that and sound disappointed.”

“Never was a huge fan of the color orange.” When he grins wolfishly, I am reminded that he has lovely white teeth but very sharp—and oddly seductive—canines. They change his face from nerdy-serious to sexy-devious.

“A shame,” I agree.

Reaching into his pocket, he pulls out a bottle opener and pops off the cap of the beer before setting the bottle on the cement between us. I manage to wait all of two seconds before carefully picking it up and taking a long drink.

I watch the boys roughhousing on the opposite end of the pool. For as long as I can with James, I want to ignore the shrill-voiced, platinum-haired elephant in the proverbial room. I open the fresh bag to reach for a Funyun, and my crunch is comically loud in the awkward silence between us.

“Sorry,” I say around the bite. James laughs and takes the bag, reaching inside for a few and popping one in his mouth.

“You been out here this whole time?” he asks. Since you got your head chewed off, he means.

“I had a really awkward trip to the convenience store on the corner. Who knew sobbing at the checkout while buying junk food would make the cashier so uncomfortable. I’m sure he assumed I was on my period.” I pause, adding inexplicably, “—I’m not.”

I want to slide into the pool and submerge myself for eternity. James is understandably silent for a few beats. Finally, he gives a simple “Cool.”

One of the older boys finds two pool noodles hidden behind a clump of bushes, and he and another kid start whacking each other. When they team up and hit one of the boys so enthusiastically that he falls into the water like a sack of dirt, James looks nervously back toward the hotel.

“Should we go get an adult?”

But the boy pops back above water, grinning wildly.

“They’re just being dumb,” I say. “I’d be in there, too, but I’m not paying eighty-five dollars for a fishnet bikini in the gift shop.” After another particularly loud thwack from the other end of the pool, I glance at James. “Don’t you remember being like that?”

“Like that?” he asks, and picks up the bottle as if to ask Can I? I nod, and just like that, we’re sharing a beer. “Not even a little. Were you?”

“Not that specifically, but goofing around at the reservoir. Tubing down the Snake River with my brothers. Skinny-dipping with friends. There was a lot of skinny-dipping.”

He coughs, choking. I’ve never seen him make this face before, but I daresay he’s impressed. “Oh yeah?”

“We grew up kind of feral. My parents weren’t very attentive. My grandma used to call us ‘free-range kids.’ Summers meant leaving the house in the morning, and barely making it back before the sun went down. We had a lot of space around us, so it’s not like anyone was there to see.”

“I always forget you grew up in Wyoming. You’ve lived there your whole life?”

I reach for the beer and take a sip. “It was different then. Rural. More farms and houses, fewer multimillion-dollar compounds.”

“Did you grow up on a farm?”

“A small one. We’d leave the door open or something and my mom would shout, ‘Were y’all raised in a barn?’ Then we’d get our asses tanned by shouting back, ‘You would know!’ My dad did construction and carpentry around town and grew alfalfa. My mom has sold most of their land now, but we used to make forts and go muddin’ and cause all kinds of trouble in those fields—most of which my parents never found out about. It’s all subdivisions now.”

“Skippin’ rocks and playin’ in the old waterin’ hole,” he teases with a terrible hillbilly accent.

I give his shoulder a nudge and reach for the bag again. “You’re not that far off. I remember someone had a rope swing that hung over the river. It was plenty deep in most places, but some years the water level would be lower, and really shallow along the shore. Some of the more protective parents would cut down that rope every year, but before long someone else would have another one up. I still don’t know how nobody managed to kill themselves on it.”

“That sounds pretty great, actually. The diving part, not the dying.”

“It was. I miss those days. So much room to explore, so much time outside. It was still mostly pre-internet, even though it doesn’t feel that long ago.” I take another sip, washing a tight band of nostalgia down with it. “What about you?”

“I never had any skinny-dipping, I’ll tell you that right now.”

“A travesty.”

“I’m inclined to agree.”

I turn to look right at him. “Come on. You couldn’t always have been this buttoned up. Am I supposed to believe you just sprang up somewhere, fully Tom Forded and preloaded with a degree from MIT?”

“My sister can confirm.”

I study his profile and notice that he isn’t wearing his glasses. Because the universe is never fair about these things, his lashes are long, and dark, and curled. I am immediately envious. He takes a sip of the beer and then swipes a long finger across his upper lip.

James pats my back when I cough, and hands me the beer, careful to make sure I’ve got it before he lets it go.

Like he knows my grip is sometimes weak.

My stomach swoops low.

“You all right?” he asks.

“Fine,” I say, recovering with a sip. “Something didn’t go down right.” Composed again, I urge him to continue. “She’s older than you, right? Your sister?”

He looks surprised that I remembered, or maybe that I’m engaging in real conversation. “By four years. Old enough that I was more of a nuisance than a buddy.”

“My brothers are five and six years older, Rand and Kurt. Protective when needed, but if friends were around they were like, ‘That kid? Never seen her before.’”

He laughs, and it’s this scratchy, honeyed sound. Has he always laughed like that? Have I been in a Melly-induced stress haze this entire time, not noticing laughs and forearms, unaware of lashes, lips, and fingers?

“Jenn could be like that, too,” he says. “We’d go to this amusement park in Albuquerque—”

“Wait. You’re from New Mexico?” When he nods, I joke, “No one is actually from New Mexico.”

He laughs this off. “I am, I promise. We moved there when I was three, from Wisconsin. My mom grew up in New Mexico, and after she finished her residency in Madison, she set up her family practice in Albuquerque.”

“Sounds like a witness protection cover,” I tease.

“I wish my life was that exciting.” James’s grin is my new addiction. “Listen: My dad is in finance. I was the drum major in high school, and president of the chess club—I’m sure you have no problem believing that. We had a house and a dog and everything.”

I squint at him. “Sounds believable. I’ll allow it. You may continue to tell me about this amusement park.”

“It’s a big deal in our family,” he says, with adorable gravity. “My mom went there when she was growing up, so it’s like a rite of passage. It was my favorite place. There were rides and a water park and games—they even did a Food on a Stick Festival every year. I’d beg my parents to take us, and then when my sister was old enough to go with her friends, they’d make her take me with them.”

I remember my brothers’ whining whenever my mom sent them to drag me home or made them pick me up from school. They were never afraid to remind me how much I cramped their style. “I’m sure she loved that.”

“Yeah, I was a pain because I always wanted to go but I was terrified of the roller coasters.”

“Then what did you do there?”

“Watch everything, mostly,” he says. “Get as close as I could to the rides so I could try to figure out how they worked. I was fascinated by the idea that you could be flying down this track at sixty, seventy, maybe a hundred miles an hour in some cases, and there was no engine powering the car. You’re pulled to the top of the hill, but then it’s the conversion of potential energy to kinetic energy that gets you through the ride.”

“That is the most James McCann thing I think I’ve ever heard you say, and I’ve heard you talk for an hour about the principles behind seismic loading.” I pop another Funyun into my mouth. “I guess I look at a roller coaster and just see the potential for vomit. Or death. I never thought about how they work. But I can see how it’d be fascinating if you were a super nerd.” Pausing, I add, “I mean that as a compliment, by the way. Your brain is pretty great.”

James ducks his head and pretends to be interested in a chip in the cement. I take the opportunity to study the sharp line of his jaw. His face is so angular, made up of such extremes of soft lashes and hard features: cheekbones, jaw, the straight line of his nose.

“But wait,” I say, suddenly remembering what he was actually going to be doing this week before we were roped into babysitting the Tripps. “What about Florida? You were going to ride Everest with your nephews.”

“I’m not afraid of rides anymore. I started figuring out how it all worked, how each part had a specific purpose. Some wheels keep the ride smooth, some keep the coaster on the track, some help with lateral motion, and so on. Once I understood how it all came together, they didn’t seem as scary.”

“I’d think it’d be even scarier knowing how many things can go wrong.” I laugh. “I guess that explains why you’re the engineer and I’m the assistant. You think of things in such mechanical terms. I basically just book us at inconvenient hotels.”

He’s quiet for a few long breaths. “But that’s not actually right, either, is it?”

This catches me off guard, and I glance over at him. “What?”

“Despite what you might think about me, I know how hard your job is. Few people appreciate what it takes to be a great assistant.” He tilts his head, grimacing sweetly. “But I know that’s not the only thing you’re doing here.”

For a second, I’m completely lost. “What?”

“Rusty told me,” he says quietly.

His meaning slowly sinks in, and it feels like a weight is tied to all the air in my chest, pulling it down inside my lungs. “Rusty told you what?”

“That the designs have been yours. That the whole brand grew out of the work you did early on.” He pauses, watching me carefully. “And now.”

I’m afraid to try to breathe. “Rusty said that?”

“Yeah.”

I turn back to where the kids are packing up to head inside. “I don’t know why he’d say that.”

“Carey, come on. The concepts and the furniture? The entire brand? That was all you? It’s a miracle you’re doing literally everything and not falling down right now.”

My parents weren’t perfect, but they valued hard work. My dad routinely put in sixteen-hour days. My mom is a schoolteacher and she’s always worked long hours with too little pay and even less appreciation. They taught me that you work until the job is done, and you give it your all. Every time. They also taught me to be humble about it, but right now, hearing those words and the recognition I’ve secretly craved, a tiny beast flutters to life in my chest, clawing and scratching for more. But it’s also terrifying. James has only been here a few months. He isn’t as invested in the company’s survival. He doesn’t have as much to lose if it all comes tumbling down.

“It’s not really like that,” I say, my heart racing. What the fuck is Rusty thinking?

“Isn’t it? Because Rusty seemed pretty sure of himself. And that program you were working on? It wasn’t Mine-craft. You were configuring a layout, weren’t you?”

“Just playing around with some floor plan ideas.”

“Melissa’s reaction at the signing when Rusty asked you about the display … and the way you seem to know how all the furniture goes together and how to fix it …” He pauses. “I would never tell anyone, if that’s why you’re not telling me what’s going on.”

Panic wells up inside me like a tide rolling in. I’m not sure what to say. Do I deny it completely? Explain it away?

“Carey—” he starts.

I cut him off. “I mean, yes, the original window displays were mine.” I say this quietly, like Melly is standing over us, ready to pounce at any moment. “I did most of them. But I did it all under the Comb+Honey name. If I were a scientist and came up with a new chemical compound, would the formula belong to me or the company I work for?”

“I don’t know if that’s how something like this works.”

“I’ve worked for them since I was sixteen, James,” I say, desperate now. “I make good money, especially for someone with my experience—which is none. This is all I’ve done. I never went to college; I have no training, no degree. I’ve never had a promotion or a title change because I’ve never needed a title. I can’t go somewhere else and do what I do here, and even if I did it would be because I’ve worked in her store and on her jobs and on her show.”

“You could show someone what you can do, and tell them it’s been yours all along.”

The sad truth settles over me, and I glance out at the water. “She’d say she taught me everything I know. It would be her word against mine.” I look at him. “At least here I get to do what I love. How valuable am I to anyone if I can’t even claim what I do as my own?”

He frowns down at the pool, and I can tell he’s trying to come up with an argument, but after a few quiet moments, his shoulders fall. “God. That sucks.”

I bump his shoulder with mine. “Must be rough for an engineer. So many emotions.”

“You called me an engineer, not assistant. Twice, actually.”

I laugh.

“What’s the difference between an introverted engineer and an extroverted engineer?” he asks.

I look up, and his excitement at getting to tell me this joke makes my heart feel like a wild animal inside me. “What?”

“When the introverted engineer speaks to you,” James says, “he looks down at his shoes. When the extroverted engineer speaks to you, he looks down at your shoes.”

I burst out laughing, and he grins, so sweet and proud that I imagine myself melting on the pool deck.

“What are you doing here?” I gesture around us. “Take that show on the road. There’s your escape.”

“Yeah, see,” he says, sobering. “Not that I want to complain to you, but my work situation isn’t much better. Either I put Rooney, Lipton, and Squire down on my résumé and get everything that comes along with it, or I don’t and leave a four-year hole in my work history. I have an amazing portfolio, and projects with my name on them, but now all of it is tarnished under this cloud of scandal—me included. I thought this was my way out.”

“I’m sorry, James.”

Sometime while we’ve been talking the rowdy boys left, and now the entire patio is empty. Colored LEDs shimmer beneath the water’s surface and throw ripples of light on the trees overhead, on the sides of the hotel, even on our skin. I wonder if we could just stay out here all night. Maybe—oops—we could miss the bus in the morning.

“Can I ask you a question?” he says, and I turn at the change in his tone. Serious, almost nervous. “But you don’t have to answer.”

“Sure.”

“Both you and Rusty have mentioned insurance.” My breath halts, and he’s quick to clarify. “He didn’t tell me anything, just mentioned that even though Melissa can be awful, sometimes she helps you with your appointments.” He waits for me to pick it up, but I don’t, so he adds, “What appointments?”

The words land like stones in my chest. On instinct, I look down to where my hands lie relaxed and deceptively innocent in my lap. It’s weird to be asked about it. With a jolt, I realize I never have. Everyone in my life who ever noticed something was different about me—Peyton, Annabeth, even my brothers, eventually—waited until I explained on my own.

So maybe weird isn’t the right word. It’s nice to be asked. “I’m pretty good at hiding it most of the time,” I tell him, “but you’ve probably noticed that my fingers don’t always cooperate.”

“I did, but—well, we’ve been together a lot lately. There aren’t that many places to look,” he says with an apologetic smile. “I chew on my nails when I’m anxious. I just assumed you were a fidgeter.”

I laugh, and the tension slowly leaves me. It’s nice to be able to tell James what’s going on. Means I won’t have to sit on my hands quite so much around him. “It’s called dystonia. Focal dystonia in my case. Basically, when your brain tells a muscle to move, it’s also telling another muscle not to. With dystonia, both muscles around a joint will contract at the same time. It means my hands clench into fists and spasm—mostly my left hand, but occasionally my right. Sometimes my fingers flex and extend, and become generally uncooperative.”

“It’s worse in your left hand,” he says quietly. “That’s why I’ve seen you try to use your right sometimes even though you’re a lefty?”

I stare at him for a few seconds. He noticed all of that? I’m not sure if that means he’s curious or fascinated, but thankfully his attention feels warm, not clinical. “If I keep dropping my pencil, yeah.”

He winces. “Does it hurt?” His voice is so gentle, it’s almost painful.

“Sometimes.”

“What are the appointments for?”

“Botox,” I say, and throw him a dramatic pout. “It keeps the muscles from cramping. But I get it in my hands, obviously, so I don’t even get to be wrinkle-free from it.”

He lets out a quiet groan. “I’m sorry, Carey.”

“Eh,” I say, grinning, “I don’t have any wrinkles yet anyway.”

“I mean about all of it,” he says, awkwardly rushing to clarify.

Reflexively pushing past the sympathy, I say, “It’s fine. Melly can be terrible, but she’s been there for me when I needed it. She lets me design. She lets me make things. I don’t know another company that would let me do that with my level of experience.” I lie back on the cement and look up at the windows; more of them are dark now than there were before. I imagine looking for another job. Going to interviews. Having to explain to a new boss and coworkers that I won’t always be able to keep my hands still, that sometimes I can’t grip a phone or a pencil or do something as simple as fasten a button. I’ve only written a résumé once and I’m sure it was terrible. I laugh when I remember that, the one time I applied for another job, under “Previous Work Experience,” I included eleventh grade accounting class.

I put my hands over my face and groan. “Want to hear something crazy?”

“Always.”

“I actually started seeing a therapist because I needed someone to talk to, but then couldn’t tell her anything about work because of the way the NDA is worded. How fucked up is that? Okay. I’m going to shut up. I’m depressing both of us.”

“No, you’re not.” I hear James set the empty bottle on the cement. “But come on. Let’s do something.”

I open my eyes to see him towering over me.

“Like what? It’s not like we can go anywhere, and I don’t want to go inside. I have to save my money if I’m about to be unemployed.”

He slides his hands into his pockets, jiggling some change, and I notice his arms again. Tan, nicely toned, not too veiny. Just a smattering of hair. “Let’s swim.”

I snap my attention back to his face. “I already told you, I didn’t bring a suit.”

“When did that ever stop you before?” He starts to unbutton his shirt. His collarbones come into view and—okay, wait, he has my attention now.

I sit up, reaching out to stop him. “I’m not going skinny-dipping at a hotel pool!” I lean forward, hissing, “Are you insane?”

He shrugs out of his button-down to reveal a riveting stretch of bare chest and stomach underneath. I’ve never imagined James shirtless before.

I was not prepared. He’s not at all bulky, but he’s defined, with smooth, tan skin and muscles that lengthen and flex as he moves. My mouth waters again, this time not for the Funyuns.

“I’m not talking about getting naked,” he says, and I try to ignore the way all my nerve endings sit up and pay attention. He unfastens his belt and nods toward the pool. Have I ever noticed the sound of a belt before? Because right now the slide of leather and click of the buckle are bordering on obscene.

“You can go in wearing what you’ve got on,” he says. “Come on.”

“I didn’t bring that many clothes,” I whine.

He grins down at me. We both know I’m stalling.

With his belt unfastened, he bends and places his hands on his knees, bringing his eyes almost level with mine. He looks pointedly at my clothes. “They’ll dry.”

He holds out a hand.

Moments pass during which I contemplate all the ways this could end badly, before I think, But how badly, exactly? Someone sees us having a good time and swimming in our clothes? Is that really so terrible?

I take his hand—it’s really warm—and let him help me to my feet.

“Maybe take this off, though.” He points to my denim jacket, buttoned all the way to the top. I know it’s ridiculous, but I’m instantly anxious about being able to unfasten the buttons in front of him.

As if reading my mind, he takes a step closer. “Can I help?”

I nod, too flustered to insist that I can do it myself.

First of all, he knows this. Second … I just really want him to.

With steady fingers he reaches for the bottom button and coaxes it through the material. It’s so quiet I can actually hear the sound of the fabric sliding over metal, the water where it laps against the side of the pool. The way I’m holding my breath.

Breathe, Carey. You will definitely ruin the moment if you pass out, fall, and have to be dragged unconscious from the water.

He moves slowly but surely, from my waist, over my breasts, and to my neck. His eyes never stray from where his hands are working, but even in the dark I can see the way his cheeks are flushed. Does he notice how hard I’m breathing? I’m doing everything I can to not dwell on the fact that he’s shirtless and essentially helping undress me.

When he’s done, our eyes meet only briefly before he steps back, arms falling loosely at his sides.

“Thanks.” I don’t think I’ve ever been this turned on, and he only helped me unbutton a jacket. Lord help me when I see him wet.

Lost in this image, I startle when he finally pulls his belt free with a distracting snap. He sets it with his watch on one of the lounge chairs. I take mine off, too.

“You ready?” he says, recovered and grinning in a way I know I’ve never seen before, not even when I was teasing him about a tie he wore one day, and then my chair immediately broke in hilarious karmic retribution.

I nod my head. “No.”

He laughs and his Adam’s apple bobs in his throat and I’m reminded that there is bare skin below—

He unbuttons his pants and steps out of them, leaving him in only a pair of black boxers.

“On the count of three,” he says, and I’m rendered momentarily mute, unable to drag my eyes away from his legs and his hip bones and the small stretch of fabric in between. “One. Two—”

He never gets to three. I think of the afternoons on the river, the sun scorching in the sky but the feeling of glacial water on my skin. I remember the rush of gripping the rope and the freedom of letting go, trusting that the water would be deep enough, even though there was every chance in the world that it wouldn’t.

I race toward the edge and jump. My heart is in my throat as I’m swallowed by darkness, beating a hundred times a minute when I surface again.

I tread water, using my hands and feet to turn just as James’s shout cuts through the air. His cannonball creates a giant splash, and I laugh as he bursts up again.

“Cold!”

“You had your feet in it, this shouldn’t be a surprise,” I say, cracking up and scooping a handful of water to throw at him.

He chases me around and I swim away, squealing. He dives beneath the surface, his hand gently finding my ankle and skimming up my calf. I kick and flail, the filmy layers of my skirt billowing up around my legs in a pink cloud. I think I kick him in the face. When we finally come up for air we’re still laughing.

“I can’t believe I agreed to this,” I say. “You’re a bad influence.”

He reaches up to push back his hair. “Me? I’m the goody-goody here. I’ve never skinny-dipped in my life.”

“And you still haven’t,” I say, splashing him again and then screeching as I try to get away. He dives beneath the water, and it feels like I’m looking into a shimmering fun-house mirror, trying to figure out where he’ll pop up again.

I never find out because his arms loop around my waist and I’m pulled under and spun around; a grinning James appears right in front of me. Bubbles escape his mouth as he laughs, but his eyes go wide when I turn the tables and lunge for him. I chase him around the pool, but my hands only skim his legs. And then he stops, surprising me with how close we are, and my palms slide up his stomach and chest.

When we break the surface, I realize we’re right at the side of the pool. He spins me so I’m against the wall and his arms gently cage me in. I’ve never been this close to James McCann before.

I absolutely don’t mind.

We’re both breathless. Water clings to his lashes in little spikes, his cheeks are pink with exertion—or from my foot—and I have that weird disorienting feeling that we’ve never really seen each other before tonight.

His eyes are brown and twinkly; his grin is enormous. He licks his lips, and then bites the lower one. A surge of goose bumps slithers along my skin, and it has nothing to do with the temperature of the water.

I know the moment he really notices our position because the giddy smile slips from his mouth and melts into something serious. His eyes flicker across my face and down to my mouth, and he blinks once, twice.

“Sorry,” he whispers, and I feel his breath as it mixes with mine; the heat ghosts across my lips. He moves back, and on instinct I reach for his hips.

Seconds tick by, and the water laps against the side of the pool, jostling us together and apart. Together. I look at his mouth, wondering how I never noticed the bow of his top lip, the fullness of his bottom. His boxers sink low on his hips under the weight of the water and my thumbs press against the bare skin there, able to discern bone and muscle. My nipples are hard beneath the fabric of my shirt; my lace bra is useless against the temperature of the water. If I leaned in, even an inch, would he let me kiss him? Would he want me to? Do I?

I lick away a drop of water, and his eyes follow the movement before meeting mine again. He gives me a nod—so imperceptible I’d’ve missed it if we weren’t so close, chest to chest and breathing the same air. I have a room upstairs, a bed. So does he. It would be so simple to kiss him. There are barely inches between us.

But I’ve been single so long, I’m not sure how this is done anymore. I falter. Did he really nod? Is his expression more sympathy, less sexual intent?

My heart pounds inside my ribs, and I don’t know which of us decided to move first but then he’s there, and his mouth slides over mine, once, then again. He pulls away with a tiny kiss to the corner of my mouth, and we look at each other. We’re still at the point where the kiss could be blamed on the movement of the water, maybe. Or, ha ha, such a weird, exhausting night.

But then he leans forward again with a smile, and in the space of a gasp we’re kissing like we need to: lips and tongue and the occasional dirty drag of teeth. His hands move down to my waist, holding me to him, and when he presses forward, I lift my legs, weightless, wrapping them around him.

It’s been so long, but even still I don’t think anything has felt as good as Ja—

“Don’t get her pregnant!”

We jump apart, eyes darting upward to see a few of the boys from earlier standing in one of the open windows. I tug my tank top strap back up over my shoulder. James treads water a few feet away, eyes moving from the balcony and slowly back to my face, searching. Nothing sucks more than getting busted, and the tension of the moment has been totally punctured. I’m suddenly aware of how cold the water is, how late it’s grown.

But I’m also aware of what we just did, how he felt against me, and how much I liked it.

James gives the pubescent assholes a stiff salute as if to say Thanks for the tip, you little fuckers, and I climb out of the pool, grabbing the first towel I see.