Page 11 of Meeting Up with the Mason

“Who’s going to fire you? Your father? From a job you don’t have? After the client didn’t complain?” She tossed me the swim shorts. “I traveled all the way to Cape Cod, and I want to swim before I leave.”

I said, “If you’re going to do that, you might as well swim in the Atlantic.”

“We have the Atlantic in Savannah. We don’t have Johns Pond.”

I continued, “And, for the record, you don’t need me to swim in it.”

She pointed at me. “Now.”

I laughed. “I’m not allowed into your house.”

“Now!” she exclaimed, which left me laughing even harder.

“I am so dead,” I breathed to myself five minutes later as we drove to the beach in her car.

She grinned. “You are so hot. And you’re about to be so cool.”

I ran a hand through my hair. “There is exactly no way to respond to that, so I won’t try.”

She found a space in the lot. “We’ll swim for half an hour, until you’re all refreshed. After that, you can finish tamping the rocks or whatever, and I’ll stay out of your way. Just humor me.” She killed the engine and looked me in the eye. “The customer’s always right, and I’m the customer.”

Dad had so much to say about that—how if you needed something always to be right, it was the building code rather than the customers demanding you violate it. Code had nothing to say about a lunch-break swim, though. I followed her onto the pebbly sand, then averted my eyes as she removed her outer clothing. “You haven’t asked if I know how to swim.”

She turned to me, hands on hips, eyebrows raised. She looked great in an all-black one-piece swimsuit.

“Can you swim?”

“Yes,” I admitted.

“In,” she demanded, and marched me into the pond.

I went, unnerved by the sensation of stepping on aquatic plants, but then less so as I moved further in. She got waist-deep and finally dove forward, disappearing into the dark water.

I’d already cooled off getting this far. With a deep breath, I plunged after her.

Relief washed over my skin. I could feel heat flowing out of my body. Yes, the sun had been intense. This, though. This was pleasure. This was exactly what I’d needed.

I broke the surface and found Alyssa treading water a few yards ahead. Her cheeks were bright, her hair slicked back. “Was I right, or what?”

“I hate you because now I don’t want to work again.”

Laughing, she headed out deeper.

At the ropes, I caught up to her. She set a hand on one of the buoys and gazed over the pond. “I should have gone in yesterday, too.” She wrinkled her nose. “You walked me here, but you didn’t even hint it would be this nice. At home, the ocean would be pounding us.”

With a sigh, she spread out into a back float, fingers on the rope so she wouldn’t drift away. I dropped back underwater, opening my eyes as I descended to gauge the depth. At least fifteen feet. Silvery fish darted behind the boulder anchoring the buoy with a chain.

I returned to air. “I feel human again.”

She righted herself. “Thank you for trusting me.”

I kicked away from the rope and swam the length of the border, turning back at the corner. Alyssa had vanished, so I went underwater, scanning until I found her silhouette. We surfaced together, and then we swam for the opposite side, staying deep because there were fewer swimmers and fewer floatation devices.

She said, “We could duck past the ropes.”

I mock-gasped. “And make the lifeguard whistle at us? The horror.”

The current rushed against my legs as she swam past me again.

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