Page 36 of Diving In
“Christ, Kath, of course I find you attractive.” He lets out a slightly strangled laugh, and his ears start to flush even redder. “You’re beautiful. But I value our friendship more than anything. I don’t want to ruin it.”
I reach for his hand, threading my pinky through his without hesitation. “You won’t ruin anything.”
His brow furrows slightly. “You swear on the pirate’s code, KitKat?”
“I pinky promise,” I tell him.
He still looks a little disbelieving, but when I hold up our interlocked fingers, he sighs and shakes his head with a small, exasperated laugh.
“Just give me a moment to process,” he says. “It’s a lot. I need to think.”
He sits back and looks at the treeline, face scrunched up. It would be adorable if I didn’t suddenly feel very anxious. Sweaty anxious.
“We’re both leaving in eight weeks anyway,” I remind him after a few minutes of silence. “Then the Atlantic Ocean can absorb any awkwardness.”
He continues looking at the trees, alternating between clenching and unclenching his hands and then rubbing the back of his neck.
“Fuck.” He lets out a deep breath. “Fine. Let’s do this, but only if you’re one hundred per cent sure.”
“I’m sure.” I look hold out my hand, and we lock fingers again. It feels both incredibly comical and incredibly serious.
“Ugh, I’m never going to be able to swim this afternoon.” He flops back onto the picnic blanket with a sigh.
“What do you mean?”
“Because I’m going to be trying not to think about you the entire time,” he grumbles.
I cackle. “Oh, thisis going to be fun.”
He peeks at me from under his arm, expression deeply unimpressed. “Oh god,” he mutters. “You’re going to ruin me.”
Chapter 16
Eighteen years old
Sam
Contrary to my bleak prediction, I do have a good training session that afternoon. Though I did spend almost the entirety of the warm-up and cool-down thinking about Kath. And they were most certainly not the type of thoughts someone who is “just friends” should be having. Though I’ve always had a lot of not “just friends” thoughts about Kath. The problem is that now I’ve been given permission to have them, my brain has gone into overdrive.
Kath’s waiting in the car park when I finish.
“Good session, Champ?” She grins at me, turning the engine back on as I throw my stuff into the boot.
“Surprisingly good given our previous conversation.” I wink at her and she blushes. Huh? Maybe she isn’t quite as unruffled as she appeared earlier in the park. She brushes her hair back behind her ears and breaks my gaze, pointedly examining the car radio like it’s the most interesting thing she’s ever seen.
“Cool. Your dad left some stuff in the fridge for us. I was thinking we could watch a movie or something.”
“Sounds fun.” I change the music as we start the drive back home. Kath hums along, hopelessly out of tune as usual, and I let the summer breeze start to dry my hair with the window down.
“One day, we can do a road trip in the US,” I tell her and she nods along, starting to sing even louder.
“Do you need to stretch when we get back?” she asks.
“A bit. Not loads. I did a quick cool-down, but my right shoulder was playing up at the end of the session, I think I should just make sure I stretch everything out before my early swim tomorrow morning.”
We pull into my street, and she parks the car, hopping out and grabbing my stuff out the back.
“Start stretching. I’m just going to hang some of this up and pop the rest in the wash.”
