Page 93 of Girls Will Be Girls
He smiles. “You’re on a mission now, huh?” He swings his arm along the surface gently.
“Yes, sir.” I smile at him. “You know, if you can’t sleep, you can always come wake me.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.” I shrug, trying not to feel shy. “I can keep you company.”
“You don’t think me knocking on your door at 2 am sends the wrong message?” He smirks.
“Depends what the message is.” I dip my face under the surface up to my nose like I’m hiding from him to allow myself to keep being bold.
He smiles at me, swimming a little closer with his hand still in mine.
I pop my face out of the water. “What do you usually do when you can’t sleep?”
He floats a little again. “While I’ve been here, I’ve been hanging out with Willie quite a bit.”
“What?” I laugh.
“Yeah.” He grins. “He doesn’t stop working most nights until like four, so I spend a big chunk of my time talking with him, or if he’s busy, I help clean the bar.”
“Wait, what?” I repeat with another laugh.
Lou continues, just smiling at my shocked expression. “Or then I’ll do some work if I need to, or read, or recently I’ve been watching a lot of New Girl.”
“You have?”
“You were right, it’s really good.” He says.
It feels wrong that a boy watching a show because you mentioned it once, days ago, before you really even knew him, would make your stomach feel like a confetti bomb just went off, but it does.
He smirks at my blushing face. “But some nights I’m so exhausted I just lie in bed all night.”
I play with the surface of the water. “What do you think about all night when you lie there?”
He swims even closer to me, closing most of the distance between us and smirking at me.“Recently, I’ve been pretty embarrassingly and hopelessly obsessed with this girl I met.”
His words make my stomach flutter. It’s like when something devastating happens and your insides just drop into the pit of your stomach, but the other way around. They ping sharply, then flutter and rise high into my chest.
I will away the heat creeping up my body and try to slow down my racing heart beating against the water.
I drop my head to the side dramatically. “Casey?” I joke.
Lou’s face scrunches. “That would be funny if it weren’t so creepy.”
“What? She’s amazing.” I say.
“Yes.” He nods. “She’s also about thirteen years my junior.”
“Mm.” I nod. “I knew you were old.”
He splashes me in the face, making me close my eyes and drop my mouth open in amused shock. When I open my eyes again, Lou’s grinning at me so fiercely the corners of his eyes crinkle. Like he’s doing everything he can to keep his eyes open to watch what’s in front of him. Like, he’s so happy his face just can’t handle the emotion without every corner of it coming into play.
I think this is my favorite one of his smiles.
Buck:
I’m not kidding when I say you better have an acceptable outfit for tonight
