Page 54 of Any Second Now
“Are you okay? Swim over to me. Wait, you know how to swim, don’t you?”
“Of course I know how to swim. And I’m wearing a life vest.” She sighs. “My soul kind of hurts, but I’m fine.”
I snort. “What happened? How did you end up in the water?”
“Something jumped.” Raleigh runs her hand down her face. “It was only a fish, and I realized that a split second too late because you decided to let go of my kayak right at that very moment and I leaned over to get away from the fish and then…”
“Wow. I guess you really don’t know how to kayak.”
“I told you!” Raleigh doggy paddles over to my kayak.
“Hey, just don’t lean on my kayak because it’ll ti?—”
A split second later, I’m underwater underneath my kayak. Forfuck’s sake, this wateriscold. I kick to the surface, making sure I don’t bonk my head.
I spit out water and swear loudly.
“I am so sorry! See? I do not do well with boats.” Raleigh treads closer to me. “Are you okay? Did you hit your head?”
“I’m fine, sailor. I was getting kind of hot anyway.” I shake my head to get water out of my eyes. “Did you do that on purpose??”
“No!” She bites her bottom lip and reaches for something next to me. “Here’s your hat.”
I pull it out of the lake and put it on my head, the equivalent of dumping a small bucket of water on myself.
Raleigh cracks up.
“At least we left our phones at the RV.” Raleigh glances to the shoreline, which does seem kind of far away now.
“It would’ve been great to get this on camera.” I tread water and for a second, I picture pulling her toward me and kissing her in this cold lake.
“No way.” She glances at her drifting kayak. “Do you think we can just swim back?”
“What?” I laugh. I gotta get this woman to shore. “No. Grab the kayak. Let’s get you back in.”
“How the fuck are we going to do that?” But she listens to me and pulls hers closer.
I swim to get both paddles and wedge them into my seat so they don’t float away.
“Turn around and grip your kayak. One hand on the front of the seat, one on the back. You’re going to pull yourself onto the seat stomach down, then do a little wiggling maneuver to get your feet back where they belong. Keep your balance or you’ll end up with the kayak on your head. Again.”
“I feel like this is going to be difficult,” she says, but does what I say.
“I’m going to help.” I glide right behind her.
“How are you going to help??”
“On the count of three.” I put my hands on Raleigh’s bare waist below her life vest. My hands on her skin in cold water is something else. I shake my head and focus. I’m supposed to be making up for being a creep last night, not continuing the performance. “One. Two. Three.”
On three I push her up by her waist and she pulls across the kayak. Her ass ends up at just about eye level for a second, before she wiggles around like I told her to.
She’s laughing so hard by the time she gets her butt back in the seat that I can’t help but join her.
“This is humiliating.” Raleigh takes a deep breath when she’s finally situated in the kayak. I slide one of the paddles over to her. “At least it should be. Wait, how areyougoing to get up there?”
But it takes me just a quick maneuver to swing myself back into my seat, keeping my paddle secured under one hand. I’ve done this a million times, although I always kayak in still lakes or other calm waters so as not to violate my Blizzard contract that prohibits me from any kind of extreme sports. So even though I live in Colorado, I haven’t skied since I was a teenager.
“Freaking professional athletes.” She shakes her head in mock disgust.
