“Fun? Not my idea of fun.”
I wipe the water from my face and find just as much sand pasted to it. “What’s your idea of fun then?”
Torrin’s still shaking his head when he suddenly shouts, “This!”
He pulls me under the water with him. He lets me go right away, but I don’t want him to. I don’t want him to ever let go.
I splash him when he resurfaces a few feet away. “Did you just dunk me?”
He splashes back. “I just did.”
“You’ve heard of payback, right?” I move a little closer, ignoring the way I can feel my parents watching us from the beach.
“I’ve heard of it. Not really a big fan though.”
When I lunge at him and try to knock him under, he’s clearly bracing for it because all I do is smash into him. My wet body against his, our arms tangled together, our faces too close to not be aware of where each other’s mouths are . . .
“What’s this payback thing again?” He’s practically gloating, so I come at it from a different angle.
My eyes drop to his mouth and stay there until his lips part from his breaths coming faster. When my hand curves against the side of his face, sweeping down the line of his jaw, I feel his chest moving hard against mine. His arms tangle more tightly behind me because I’m slipping through them. When that doesn’t work, he hoists me higher, and his arms form a net beneath my backside.
I need to clear my head before I can’t remember what I’m doing.
My eyes lift to his and hold there. When he blinks, a drop of water rolls off his eyelashes. My hand slides lower until my thumb is touching the corner of his mouth.
“Torrin?” I whisper, my mouth lowering.
“Yeah?” His voice is rough, coming from low in his throat.
I move my mouth just outside his ear. “This . . . is . . .”—I burst free of his hold and slide his legs out from beneath him with my foot—“payback!”
He goes down with a surprised shout and an explosive splash. I’m laughing again, and so is he when he pops his head above the water.
“Well played, Childs.”
“Thank you very much,” I say with a bow, hoping he can’t see right through me the way I feel he can sometimes.
If he does, he’ll know. He’ll know I would have rather kissed him. I would rather still be kissing him. He’ll know that while I’m content to put most of the past behind me, there’s one part I want to pack and bring with me to the future.
Him.
I think he might see it though because I think I might see it in him too.
The sun catches his eyes just right when he looks at me. “You always had a way of taking the ground right out from beneath me.”
I GO OUT on my own the next day. I’m hoping that courage is like a muscle—the more you work it, the stronger it becomes. Yesterday, the beach. Today, the library.
Mom drops me off, but her car stays parked at the library, engine running, for five minutes after I go inside. I’ve been watching. I asked her to bring me to the library because it seems unthreatening and, other than a potential paper cut, safe. What I really want to do is go on a walk. For hours. For miles. I want to walk until my legs can’t go any farther.
I don’t just want to walk though. I want to walk alone. To think. To process. To clear my head and try to figure out some stuff. I knew there was no way she would agree to just drop me off at some corner and let me weave around the city though, so an afternoon at the library it is.
I’m wearing a ball cap, and I’ve braided my hair back so hopefully no one will recognize me. If they do and the reporters find out . . . I’m stuck. I can only escape as fast as my legs will take me.
The risk is worth the reward though.
When I realize Mom isn’t going to pull away the moment after I enter the library, I kill some time wandering around the lobby. Once Mom’s car finally leaves the parking lot, I decide to wait another minute just in case.
I take a last spin around the lobby, and an elderly man walks in, reading a paper. It catches my attention because of the big headline and photos taking up the whole front page. As the man rounds into the library, he drops the paper in the recycle bin and keeps going. I rush over and snatch it out of the bin. I shake the front page open, and I feel something pull a plug in my stomach as everything inside seems to drain away.
Father Torrin’s Torrid Love Affair
There’s one photo of us, and it’s from yesterday. How someone found us or recognized us or whatever ill fate had a hand in it, I don’t know, but somehow they managed to get just the right shot of us in the water where it looks like our lips are almost touching. We’re in the ocean up to our thighs; my legs are wound around him; his arms are tied below my backside.
My eyes are open. His are closed.
He thought I was going to kiss him. He really believed I was. But that’s not what makes me have to lean into the wall to hold myself up—it’s that he was ready to kiss me back. He would have if I’d moved just a little closer.
What am I supposed to make out of that? A moment of weakness? He’d never seemed so sure of himself as he did yesterday.
I slide the cell phone Mom picked up for me a few days ago from my pocket, find the last number in my memory, and hit Call.
He answers in the middle of the second ring. “Jade?”
I should have taken a minute to catch my breath before calling him because I can’t reply for a minute.
“What’s wrong?”