Page 25 of Our Hearts Knew Better

It wasn’t, but I was okay to keep both of them to myself when I got them.

Adam hollered as he charged into the sea, like a release of the weight he carried tonight, and I felt a jerk in my throat to do the same. Especially after his laughed shout of, “Come on!”

I ran toward him in my bra and my panties, not thinking, only doing, as my own holler unleashed, with a squeal attached as I splashed through the water to be silenced as I slipped under.

I came up with a gasp, fingering my hair from my eyes to see Adam watching me with a shine in his gaze, his bottom lip folded between his teeth.

It was a look that made running out here half-naked, too, worth it.

It was a look that reflected the words repeating in my head.You look great.

I dipped my face back beneath the surface to cool my cheeks. As they filled with water, I told myself I wouldn’t have to spit it at him if he’d take the heat off me himself.

He didn’t, so I did, spouting the mouthful his way that he dodged with a splash that turned into more splashes, back and forth between his hands and mine. More squeals from me, more laughter from both of us. So much water to the face, until I was pleading for mercy.

“Thank you,” Adam breathed as we fingered residue of our attacks from our faces. “This is good for me.”

“This is good for me too,” I said back, lulled by the little waves we were making, and perked by that shine back in his gaze, that feeling back, too, that made me want to dip down again.

I laughed out a diverting question instead. “But haven’t you done this with people before? This is…athingyou do…” Like with Nadia maybe—before the breakup. “Like with Levi.” His name was the one that came out.

Adam released a laugh, then filled his cheeks, releasing the water in a forceful stream off to the side. “Levi’s idea of fun is the Gilligan.”

I knew that Adam had been on the boat with Levi and his dad, but there was something in the words that made me question. “Haven’t you sailed with them?”

“Yeah. And it’s fun,” he said, with traces of that fun, bits of memories, in his words now. “But Levi’s never train dodged with me,” he emphasized, bringing us back around to me, stroking his hands closer to mine where we trod. “And he wouldn’t swim at night.”

“Yeah, but he’s still there when you need him,” I said low, my limbs weakening over my imaginary Clara. A best friend I didn’t have. “He’d do anything for you,” I added, now remembering Adam calling on him the night their world collided with mine.

Adam stared toward the blackness a moment before his voice dropped low too. “We’ve been through a lot.”

For another moment, the only sound between us was the motion of our bodies staying afloat. I gave him a small splash that washed away the clouds over his face. “I just meant, you don’t have to bringmeout here,” I said with a soft laugh.

He shot me the same side stare I’d given him about his skinny dipping. “You don’t wanna do all this alone.”

I didn’t want tolivealone and I would need more courage to walk solo every night, but I would’ve found it. Adam knew my want for company, and I had that from both him and Levi.

“And I’m your sneak out buddy, so yeah, I have to,” he added with a waggly browed grin that had my hand on another splash attack. “And you’re down for anything,” he teased with a forward stroke closer to me.

He was only a few inches away now and I spun around with a jolted laugh, focusing on the sway of my fingers.

“I’m just trying to…figure me out.” I was the clay I’d mold in ceramics class, experience being the fingers that would shape me into something that worked.

Was I down for anything? I was down for a lot of things. But anything?

I was starting to figure out it would depend who was asking.

“Well, that’s a constant thing. We’re always figuring out who we are.”

I eyed the ripples he was making blend with mine as he swam even closer, and I spun around again with my lips curved in challenge. “I’m trying to be a normal teenager then.”

Adam’s grinning and treading both spread wider. “You’ve come to the right guy to help with that.”

I chuckled, sprinkling him with another splash, and as he closed the space between us, another question popped from my mouth. “What was she like?”

“Who?”

It took me a couple seconds to find a name, my own question almost like whiplash. “Nadia.”

---