Page 10 of I'm Gonna Get You Back
I shed my tank top down to my black sports bra and plunged deep into the cool water. When I emerged, I looked around for Reid in the lake, only to see him still hovering at the edge.
“Can you not swim or something?” I called out.
His expression flattened, a competitive edge to his voice. “Of course I can swim.”
“Then c’mon.”
He hesitated.
“Dare you.”
His eyes locked on mine as the first hint of fun entered his voice. “I take dares seriously.”
“So do I.”
The silence hung as he considered.
I turned to swim around like I couldn’t care less what he did. A moment later, I felt the splash when Reid hit the water behind me. I smiled to myself and ignored the hum of satisfaction I felt. After he roseout and shook his hair quickly, I said, “Besides, the eels only come out at night.”
I ruined the prank by cracking up at his horrified expression.
Reid narrowed his eyes at me and threw a mellow splash my way. “Mean.”
“But funny.” I grinned.
We floated in silence a few minutes before he swam back to the bank and pulled himself out. Water sloshed down the valley of his strong back, and I didn’t realize I was staring until he turned and caught me. I quickly flipped onto my own back, letting my eyes fall closed against the sunlight.
Reid’s voice cut through the quiet when he asked, “What made you push like that today?”
The question caught me off guard, and I straightened until my toes grazed the surface of a smooth, mossy rock below. Why did he care? Even if I wanted to talk about it—which I didn’t—it wasn’t like I could just open up about my own drunken mistakes, or Josh being a cheating bastard, or my parents’ crappy, confusing relationship to anyone, let alone some guy I had never exchanged so much as a glance with before that day.
“Do you even know my name?”
He blinked. “Clara Suarez. Senior. Racing PR twenty-four, twenty-seven.”
“You know our stats?”
He pushed his wet hair off his forehead and propped his arms across his bent knees. “I knowyourstats.”
“I can’t tell if that’s creepy or cool,” I said honestly.
He didn’t miss a beat when he said, “Definitely creepy.”
I burst out laughing, and his lips twisted again like he was trying not to.
“Do you knowmyname?” he asked.
“Everyone knows your name.” I swam backward, kicking my legs up again until my polished blue toenails popped out of the water.
When he didn’t respond, I looked over at him. His brow was furrowed, so I was pretty sure that was the wrong thing to say. At least I had successfully rerouted the conversation away from myself.
“Nice dodge, by the way.”
Or not. Most people didn’t notice when I avoided questions on purpose. It made my stomach flip that he did.
He looked over my head at the water when he said, “You need to train more consistently, or you’ll keep hurting yourself.”
That was, like, the fifth time he had tried to tell me something as if I didn’t already know.
