Page 44 of Into the Mountains
Shit. If I was prey, I’d be dead by now. My survival instincts are apparently non-existent.
I squeal as he makes a beeline for me. I don’t even bother trying to run away because both of us know this is a battle I won’t win. It’s an eye for an eye. Or a shove for a shove in this case.
He grabs me around my waist and throws me over his shoulder, arms gripping my thighs. I may have let him catch me, but I’m also not going to make it easy for him. My hands find hisribs and I dig my fingers into them which causes him to nearly drop me.
“Really? You’re going to resort to tickling me?”
“You’re the one who just slung me around your shoulder,” I yell back.
He laughs and it’s not the fake, polite laugh he usually lets out when he’s around me or the others. Always pretending even though I could tell he was wearing a mask. I knew because I’m so used to wearing one too. This laugh is full and deep and I can feel it reverberating in his chest.
He’s finally knee deep into the water, but he doesn’t toss me in like I expected him to. Instead, he grasps my legs with one arm and reaches up to my waist with the other and starts sliding me down. Slowly. Down his body, inch by inch until we are face to face with no space in between us. My legs have a mind of their own and wrap around his waist causing him to take a sharp inhale. The tension from the locker room has traveled with us and I want to pluck it from the air piece by piece, like cotton candy at one of the town festivals and let it dissolve in the water around us.
Water splashes a few feet away from us, but our gazes remain locked. The canoe slowly floats by, but I don’t think either of us really care.
“If you’re not going to kiss her, I’m going to come over there and smack you, boy!” A strangely familiar and out of place voice comes from the direction of the canoe and it takes me a second to figure out where I usually hear it.
“It’s about damn time!” The other woman calls and her voice is one that is usually surrounded by a strong coffee smell mixed with the pages of books.
Finally Elias and I look in their direction at the same time and he yells back to the two ladies we have come to adore morethan life itself. “And just what thehellare you two doing out here?”
“We take this trip every year,” Cordie calls back. They’re floating further away with the lazy movements of the oars.
“We’ll come your way for some s’mores in a bit. I’ll bring drinks,” Fran yells.
We’re laughing again at the absurdity of the moment. The idea that out of all the interruptions we could have gotten right at that second, it was two people that we least expected to see.
And now with our little bubble stabbed with a needle, I realize how tightly I have my legs wrapped around his waist. And that I still have the rest of my body plastered to his. Nothing would be able to physically get between us at the moment, but I’d also rather hold onto him than get thrown into the cold water. The initial burst of cold from his soaked clothes passed quickly because of his body heat, but the idea of being submerged into the water myself is not appealing.
“Can you…uh, take me back over there?” I ask, pointing toward the chair.
He reaches up to brush hair from my face and I almost believe he’s going to do it. Almost.
Until that stupid smirk re-enters his face and before I can react, he tilts us sideways and we are falling together. The chill of the water seeps into my bones as we go under. I untangle my limbs from him so I can stand, but a hand around my ankle doesn’t let me as I get pulled down again. We’ve moved further away from my spot next to the river, enough so that I can get my hands on his shoulders and push down until he’s submerged in the water, fully dunking him. When he resurfaces, it’s with a laugh as he pushes his hair back with one hand, steadying himself with the other.
“Did you seriously just dunk me?”
“Yes,” I giggle.
“Are you ten?”
“No, but I like to act like it sometimes,” I say as I try to move toward him to dunk him again. His hands wrap around my forearms as he pushes me away.
“Not a chance, princess.”
I scowl at him and try to push back, but he’s stronger than I am. I try to push against him again, but this time, instead of resisting, he lets me into his space, our faces inches away from each other. Heat radiates from his body as goosebumps raise all over mine. Without breaking eye contact with him, I say, “Race you to the next camp.” Yanking my arms away from him, I clumsily dive further into the river and start full on swimming.
“You are actually ten,” he calls before diving in behind me, joining in the race. I can hear him splashing behind me as he starts to close the distance, the competition we’ve always had between us reigniting once again because we just can’t seem to help ourselves. He gets close enough to wrap his hand around my ankle and pull me back towards him.
“Cheater!” I yell, lifting my head out of the water. He’s ahead of me now, switching his freestyle to a lazy breaststroke as he allows me to catch up to him.
“Sore loser.” His grin spreads all the way to his eyes as I splash him. Jerking back, he makes a failed attempt at covering his face. I don’t let up, continuing to splash him over and over until I’m close enough to try to pass him. The next campsite is a few feet away and it looks like it’s empty. The water is knee deep and an abandoned canoe sits at the riverbed.
His hand grasps mine and pulls me back to him before I can get far enough away. I squeal as I land back into the water next to him. My hands reach toward him to force him back, until I see the look in his eyes. The playfulness is gone and is replaced with something far more intense. His breathing is faster. Without thinking, I put my hand against his chest and feel his rapidheartbeat. My breathing matches his now and his eyes flick from mine to my lips.
Before I let myself question it or overthink it, I wrap my other hand around the back of his neck, pulling him to me and kiss him for the first time in fifteen years, the impact of my body jerking him back onto his right forearm. His other hand slides around my waist, closing the inches we had left between our bodies. Heat bleeds through my soaked clothes as our kiss deepens into something more than I am ready to face.
“You know, I’m actually surprised you listened, kid.” Cordie’s voice comes from the vicinity of the camp. We untangle ourselves quickly like we had any chance of hiding what we were just doing and suddenly I am thrust back into our teenage years, getting caught fooling around by an adult.
