Page 35 of Slash & Burn

A laugh jumped out of me even as I felt unsure I could close the distance she was putting between us. “If I say something by Hemmingway, you’ll only roll your eyes.” She laughed, nodding as she treaded water. “And I can’t pick any of the biographies I like, cause they’re all sports related.”

“Okay, now I might pity you,” she said, twirling in place, her eyes up to the ceiling. “Please tell me you’ve read something respectable.”

I swallowed, pushing myself off the bottom of the pool into the deep end, feeling the safety of the floor float away. Moving my arms back and forth, I noticed the tension in my shoulder. The motion was putting just enough strain on it, but it didn’t hurt like when I’d tried with weights. The tiniest sliver of relief settled in my chest as I worked it back and forth in the water, regaining confidence in it with every stroke.

When I looked up, Jill was watching me, a bright smile on her face that helped settle my nerves even more.

“I liked this one book,” I started, trying to remember the name of it. “You’ll probably say it was still about sports, but it wasn’t. It was about a dog.” Jill swam in a circle around me as I tread carefully out into the deepest part of the pool. “It was about a race car driver.”

Jill laughed, her eyes sparkling. “The Art of Racing in the Rain?”

“That was it.”

I felt pretty proud of that one, especially seeing the nod of approval Jill gave me. But when I went to swim back toward her I was too close to the wall and I kicked it, hard. The shock of pain and surprise startled me, and my head slipped below the surface. Instantly my mind began to race. The darkness in the pool and not being able to touch the ground shot panic through me. I thrashed at the surface, as if my body had forgotten how to swim.

Slender arms came around me, as Jill yanked me back above the surface. I fought against her at first, but the sound of her saying my name made me freeze. I didn’t want to hurt her, so I let her close her arms around me, swimming us quickly back to the shallow end.

“I’ve got you,” she whispered as our feet met the bottom again.

As soon as we were back to where we could stand, I wrapped my arms around her. I buried my face into the crook of her shoulder, panting against her skin as the panic washed through me. Jill had cinched her arms around my neck, and I reached down to wrap her legs around my waist, sinking into the heavy warmth of her body closed around mine.

It had been a strong, quick shot of adrenaline, but it was fading fast with her in my arms, her heart beating against mine. She was silent but for the sound of her breathing, her fingers combing gently through my hair.

“Thank you,” I whispered, nuzzling tighter against her.

“It’s okay. You’re okay.”

The longer we stayed like that, floating just on the edge of the shallow end, the slower my breaths came and the softer my heart beat.

“Don’t let go, okay?” I asked, wanting to try something as I felt in control again.

“I never would,” she replied instantly, her voice so sure and unwavering it made my throat tight.

With Jill clasped to me, I toed back to the edge and then over it, treading water with one arm while the other held her close. My fear of being in the water again was only made worse by the idea of being around someone else while I did it. But even if I wasn’t comfortable or at ease in that moment, I wasn’t freaking out either. I had Jill in my arms, and it felt okay.

It felt better than okay. She hadn’t stopped touching me, her fingers in my hair, trailing along the top of my shoulder, down the valley of my spine. Jill was a grown woman, all the more evident by the feel of her breasts pressed tightly against me, the globe of her perfectly round ass just below my hand. But I still wasn’t sure if her touch was meant only as comfort. No matter how hard I was fighting it, my body sure as hell took it as more.

“You’re different than how I remember you,” I admitted, having thought a lot the last few weeks about the contrast in the Jill of my memories and the one folded around me. Her face was still tucked into my neck, so I couldn’t see her reaction to my words, but I could have sworn I felt her settle a little closer.

Her voice came out small and rough as her warm breath hit my skin. “Better or worse?”

“Neither,” I said, bristling at the implied criticism. “You were sweet and funny back then. You’re sweet and funny now, just in a different way.”

“I’m surprised you had much of an impression of me at all.”

At that I pulled back to look her in the eye. “How could I not have? We were friends for years.”

“No, you and Joey were friends. I was part of the set dressing, an extra who made the occasional cameo.”

It didn’t feel like that to me, but I couldn’t find any examples to prove that she’d been more than that. She might have been right. But after getting to see who she was up close since the start of the summer, it felt like a loss to have missed the chance to know her better back then.

“You might not have had a speaking part, but I still considered you a friend.”

Jill’s eyes dropped to my chin or my neck, someplace far away from meeting my gaze. “Yeah, same.”

Her cheeks turned pink and I was sure I felt her heart start to race. My legs were still kicking beneath us, but I guided us over to the side, resting my free arm on the thick cement edge so I could look at her better. Scenes from growing up played through my mind as I tried to sort out why she suddenly looked so nervous.

“What’s the matter?”

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