Page 85 of Maybe You

I don’t believe him. Not even a little bit.

“Why don’t you then?”

“Destruction takes a?—”

“A lot of effort,” I finish for him with a roll of my eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Well, thank God you’re lazy, I guess.”

His lips pull into a smirk, but he doesn’t have anything else to say to that, it seems. Instead, he hooks his thumbs into the waistband of his sweats and starts pulling them down, eyes locked with mine in challenge. His underwear comes down with the pants, and then he’s naked, unapologetic and confident as ever.

He dives in headfirst, and I watch through the water as he glides forward along the bottom of the pool.

I hesitate and fidget, playing with the hem of my shirt.

Sutton’s head pops up after a minute or so, and he sends me a scorching look.

“Come on,” he calls. “You know you want to.”

I let out a deep sigh and pull the shirt over my head. The air is warm and humid, but with the way Sutton is looking at me, goose bumps of anticipation appear all over my skin.

“You’re a bad influence,” I grumble as I ball the shirt up and throw it on the bench on top of Sutton’s clothes.

“The worst,” he agrees, cheerful as ever, showing not a single sign of remorse.

I hesitate with the pants, which is annoying. My upper body is already out, and he’s seen me naked multiple times by now.

I lose the pants and get a heated look in return for my efforts.

“Jump in,” he says.

“You’re going to get me in trouble.”

He slaps the surface of the water, showering me with droplets.

“In,” he demands.

So I give up, raise my hands, and dive in. I emerge right next to him and blink water out of my eyes. He still has the same heated look on his face, the kind of naked hunger that makes things between us just a little bit scary.

I could get used to being looked at like that.

I push the thought aside firmly. There’s no need to make things messy inside my own head.

He moves closer, treading water.

My heart skips a beat at the intensity in his gaze.

Messy, messy, messy.

I slap my palm against his shoulder.

“Tag, you’re it,” I say before I dive under the surface. I haven’t swum in forever, but I learned as a kid after the smelling-the-flower-underwater incident. My sister freaked out and made sure to drag me to the local pool where they had swimming classes for the whole summer after that. But it’s been years since I’ve been in the water, on account of me being less than enthusiastic about the prospect of getting naked in front of a whole lot of people.

I figure I’m slower than Sutton for sure, but I also figure I have a head start, so I should be able to put some distance between the two of us.

A second later, fingers wrap around my ankle, and I’m being yanked backward. My limbs flail, and I splutter when I get to the surface. The first thing I see is Sutton’s smug grin. He quirks his brow and dives, and I swim after him.

Chasing him down takes a long time. He is faster, but I’m smarter. It takes a bit of time, but I finally have him cornered in the shallow end of the pool.

The water barely grazes his hips, which is very distracting, but I do my best to ignore it as I approach.

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