Page 36 of Escaping Wildfire

Jordan quickly jumped down, not wanting to be last, leaving just me and Gema. “Are you scared?”

“A little, but I can do it.” She looked at the water over the edge, and I could sense her nerves.

“What if we go together? That way we can share dinner duty.”

“You’d do that for me?”

“Yeah, what are friends for?”

“Come on slow pokes! We’ll be done swimming by the time you two get down here!” Cristian called up.

I looked over at Gema and held out my hand. “Together?” She placed her hand in mine, and I felt a small tingle at her touch. I’d never held a girl’s hand before, but her hand felt nice in mine, and it made me feel happy. “Ready? On three.” She nodded, and I counted. “One…two…three.”

We flew through the air and as we hit the water, we continued to hold hands as we swam back up. We broke the surface, and for a moment, Gema hung on to me as she got used to the cold.

“That was so much fun, I want to do it again!” She smiled up at me, and I couldn’t help but notice how cute she looked. I’ve always thought Gema was prettier than the other girls in the pack, but this was a whole different thought process. I was suddenly very aware of how close we were to each other, close enough that I could smell the watermelon chapstick she was wearing. I think I liked being this close to her, and I wanted to stay with her, but instead, I swam over to where the other guys were. Jordan narrowed his eyes at me as I got to him.

“What?” I asked, feigning innocence.

“What do you mean what?” He splashed water my way. “You’re being weird with Gema.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Whatever…guess you two get dinner duty for the rest of the week. Have fun washing dishes together.”

Cristian laughed as he swam up to us and splashed us, causing a splash fight to start between the three of us.

Gema stayed on the other side of the river, floating on her back. Every so often I would peek over at her to see what she was doing.

“Stop staring.”

“I’m not staring,” I called out getting frustrated, but Jordan just shoved my arm and laughed.

Gema popped back up and waved and smiled as she saw me looking over at her.

“You were totally staring.”

I turned my back on Gema so that Jordan would stop teasing, but it only made me painfully aware that all I wanted to do was turn around and keep looking at Gema.

“Hey, let’s go to the cave.” The cave was a small cave on the other side of the waterfall that we sometimes went to. We had found some neat crystals and fossils there over the years. “You two go, I’ll stay and make sure Gem is okay.”

“Awesome, thanks for watching out for my little sis. We’ll bring back anything cool we find.” Cristian called from the riverbank as Jordan laughed and shook his head at me.

I swam over to Gema who had gone back to floating and poked her stomach. She tensed and caught herself before she fell back. “The guys went to the cave.”

“Why didn’t you go with them?”

“I wanted to stay with you.”

“Oh.” Her cheeks flushed, and I couldn’t help but notice how cute she looked.

“You want to go up and jump again.”

“Yeah, let’s go!” Her eyes lit up as she swam to the edge of the water. “Come on!” She waved me over as she continued up the path.

“You want to go on your own this time or together again?”

She smiled at me before holding out her hand to me. “Together.”

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