Page 92 of Tides That Bind

I watch the way Harper’s pillow lips recoil into a line, and I have the urge to stroke her cheek, to coax them back to where they belong. Stepping forward, I almost do just that but instead keep my hand down.

“But,” I continue. “You have to show him how awesome your superpowers are.”

Stepping back, I pull off my shirt, tossing it onto the chair where Harper’s towel sits, and then I quickly turn, cannon-balling ungracefully into the pool.

When I break through the surface, Harper is soaked and perhaps not very amused, but I splash at her anyway.

“Get in, Tink. We’ve got work to do.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” I grit out through my teeth as I hold her wet, slippery ankles. “You’re a lot heavier than you look.”

“I’d bend down and hit you but I’d lose my balance,” Harper snarks. “This wasyouridea. Maybe you should hit the gym.”

She has a valid point.

“Okay.” Her body dips as she fills it with a full breath. “Ready?”

I see the depth marker at the side. “Hold on.” My toes scrape against the concrete floor as I slowly move back inch by inch. If Harper is going to flip backwards off my shoulders, she needs to land in the right spot.

“This is fine.”

“You need to land deep enough,” I rebut. The water reaches the bottom of my chest, and I keep going. “Can’t risk you getting hurt doing this voluntarily. Someone might see us as unfit to raise Lucas."

The moment the dark joke leaves my lips I recognize the Freudian slip.

Fromus…as if I have any claim over Lucas.

The idea is crazy. But then again, we are about to sue a police department for possession of adog.

Harper wobbles again. “Okay, okay, stop. You’re not standing straight.”

“No shit,” I mumble unenthused, as if I’m not the one balancing a woman on my shoulders while gaging the depth of the pool by my toes. I back up so I’m off the slope. “Alright. Ready?”

Once again I feel Harper take a deep breath.

“Listen, you’re right I’m out of shape and about to scrap this whole idea. You have about three more seconds. We do it now or we don’t do it at—"

My body is pushed down by her force and all I hear is a splash. I quickly turn around and by the time I do, Harper breaks through the pool’s surface with a huge smile.

“Did you do it?”

I didn’t really factor in how I wouldn’t exactly be able to see Harper pull off this stunt until now. But she takes two quick strokes closer to me and flings her arms around my neck and that tells me all I have to know.

I also, maybe hadn’t given enough thought to the fact thattandem surfing might put us in this situation—close, too close for my brain’s comfort, but somehow not close enough to please my body.

I’m tense, teetering between the fine line of shock and…what is this feeling? It’s like I’ve got it behind one side of a wall and I’m trying to peek over and see what it is.

I’m fucking happyagain.

Because of Harper.

I’ve drifted off the edge of the slope and I wrap one arm around her as I begin to tread water. “Was that cool?”

“So cool,” she whispers, her breath warms the skin of my neck. “The coolest.”

We both smile. And like her performance, I can’t see Harper’s grin. But I feel it against my neck and it might be the best thing I’ve felt in months.

It feels like peace, like healing, like a spark of light in a deep, dark well of endless loss. This closeness is totally unexpected, and totally…not all that right.

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