Page 84 of From Now On

Eve spins her finger more insistently.

I rotate so I’m facing shingles. She’s not seriously going to—the unmistakable rustle of fabric reaches my ears over the thud of my pounding heart.

Yeah, she is. She’s taking off her clothes and climbing in a hot tub while I’m standing ten feet away. Because we’refriends.

I’m friends with girls. Holt doesn’t have a women’s hockey team, but the women’s basketball team is often in the weight or cardio rooms before or after us. There are girls in my major or my classes who I’ll study with.

And none of those situations have given me any preparation for how to act now.

I can hear her padding across the pavers. Followed by a quietsloshas water’s displaced.

“Okay. You can turn around.”

I clench my jaw before glancing over my shoulder.

Eve’s in the hot tub. From here, all I can see is her dark head bobbing. But the T-shirt and shorts she was wearing as pajamas are draped over the arm of one of the Adirondack chairs surrounding the fire pit we roasted marshmallows in last night.

I have two options. Tell Eve I’m tired and head inside, or stay out here and torture myself.

“Are you, uh, coming in?” she asks. Her voice is tentative, unsure of the answer.

Most people would call me reliable. I’m not sure Eve would. The first time we met, I left. She doesn’t know the why. Doesn’t know about Sean. And if we’re going to befriends, I want her to know I’m a friend who sticks around.

“Yeah. I’m coming in.”

I watch my reply register on Eve’s face. She bites her bottom lip, but it doesn’t entirely hide her smile.

“Someone has to protect you from serial killers,” I add.

She laughs again. A happy sound I’m quickly becoming addicted to.

I shuck my T-shirt off, dropping it on the same chair her clothes are draped on.

There are a couple of stairs on one side of the hot tub to make it easier to climb into. I bypass them, hoisting myself up the side opposite Eve and sinking into the water.

Damn. I kinda get what Phillips has been going on about. I’ve never been in a hot tub before, and it’snice. Especially now, when everything around it is dark and still and quiet. The cool night air is the perfect contrast to the hot water, and the jets are massaging the knots in my shoulder. It’s still a little sore from surfing.

“Not bad, huh?” Eve asks.

“Not bad at all,” I agree, tilting my head back to study the sky.

Between the steam and the churning jets distorting the surface, I can’t see anything beneath the water. But yeah, that’s where I looked first. Focusing on the full moon seems safer.

“Sometimes I think about how the sky stays the same,” Eve comments.

I glance at her, and she’s mimicking my posture. Head back, eyes up. Her dark hair fans out around her shoulders.

“What do you mean?”

“Everyone who’s ever lived has existed beneath the same sun and the same moon. The sky stays the same, while the world around us changes. It’s weird to think about.”

“Art stays the same too,” I comment. “Once it’s created.”

Eve glances at me, and it feels like the invisible molecules in the air around us are shifting. Pulling us closer together.

“Yeah, it does,” she agrees. “Your stick figures are kicking around somewhere.”

I laugh, flicking my fingers against the water. “My parents’ attic, probably.”

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