Page 74 of Blocked Score

We were under there for a long time, and Scarlett’s no athlete, after all. She might be tired. Exhausted. I need to make sure she gets to the edge of the pool, and the only way to do that is by holding her smooth, soft, warm body tight against mine while I glide us through the water.

Yeah, that’s what I tell myself.

She props her arm on the tiled edge of the pool to catch her breath. When I unloop my arm and float a couple inches away from her to create distance I can’t justify foregoing anymore, it feels like the temperature of the water plunges. For a couple seconds, without her touch, it feels like the heat that was just racing through my blood is replaced with ice water.

Scarlett’s cheeks are rosy with laughter and exertion. Stray strands of her hair cling to her face, and the sight of her wet black hair, creamy skin, and pink blush sends such a rush of blood below my beltline that I’d probably fall over if I were standing on solid ground.

Scarlett’s heavy breathing reminds me way too much of how she sounded in my bed a couple weeks ago, how she soundedwith her lips pressed to my ear while I rutted into her a year and a half ago.

Our gazes lock, and it’s like there’s a taut thread connecting our pupils, thrumming with tension in the air between us …

Until her eyes tick down and to the right. Her right. My left.

I have my arm propped against the side of the pool like she does, and thanks to the rush of endorphins and the disintegration of my inhibitions I just experienced underwater with her, I didn’t even think about keeping my tattoo hidden.

“Is that …?” Scarlett asks, her eyes latched to it.

“A tattoo? Yeah. My only one.” I try to play it off as cool. Nonchalant. Maybe she doesn’t even notice the association. Even though I can tell from the huskiness in my voice that nonchalant is the last thing I sound like right now.

Time stretches out as her gaze stays fixed on the tattoo on my ribs. She blinks. Then her eyes lift, locking with mine again.

“It’s the design I told you you should get.”

My heart leaps against my ribcage. An intense feeling I can’t describe rushes through my body, lifting goosebumps on my skin despite the humidity of the room.

It’s the exact tattoo Scarlett jokingly said I should get in bed that day: a penguin holding a pool cue. Such a silly design, right? But my breath still catches from the memories it calls up every time I look at it.

“You … remember?” I ask.

Something sharpens in her gaze. “Of course I remember.”

Her answer is so direct, so unvarnished. Each word chimes in my ears.

A tinge of self-consciousness plucks inside me. It’s not a feeling I’m used to. But now Scarlett knows that the summer we spent together was so important to me that I inked the memory of it into my skin.

“It’s just …” I let out a breath that was trapped in my throat. “That summer meant a lot to me.”

Something flashes in Scarlett’s eyes, a complex blend of emotions that I can’t parse. “It meant a lot to you?”

In her voice there’s surprise, incredulity, and … strangely, hurt. There’s clear hurt in the way she mirrored my words back to me.

“Well, yeah,” I answer. My eyes search her face. Her expression is like a complex sentence written in several different languages, emotion after emotion passing through her chestnut eyes.

“Itdid?” That last word comes out of her mouth like the point of a spear, coated in outrage. “Then … why?”

My brow pinches. “Why?”

She doesn’t answer, only continuing to drill into me with her gaze.

“Why what?” I repeat, inching closer to her.

Scarlett’s brow lowers over her eyes, her expression sharpening. “Then why didn’t you show up that day?”

Surprise clatters through me, the kind of surprise that makes you numb.

“Why didn’tIshow up?”

“I waited for hours,” she says, old pains painting her words, “and you never showed up. Then, when I went to your place, I saw you …”

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