Page 71 of When Wrecked Meets Ruined
She smirked. “In that case, we should stay here all night.”
Funny girl. I wrapped my hand around the back of her head and used my thumb to sweep away the black mascara under her eyes.
“That’s what happens when you throw a girl in the lake fully clothed. You could have warned me.”
“That would have ruined the element of surprise.”
“So that’s what the rest of this summer will be? One big surprise after another?”
“You want fun, and I aim to deliver.”
“You’re going to show me how to have fun, big guy?”
Big guy. I huffed out a laugh and ended up with a mouthful of water. I splashed her back, and we kept splashing each other like two big kids playing in a lake. It felt like we were trying to recoup our lost childhoods.
Before I came to Texas, I didn’t know how to swim. Jude taught me in the spring of my junior year. Claimed it was an essential life skill. It was embarrassing as fuck, having to be taught how to swim at seventeen. But he kept our lessons private and never told anyone.
Evie lunged for my shoulders and tried to push me under.
Good try, Bellamy.
I lifted her up and tossed her across the lake. But, not one to give up, she came at me again.
We played this game for a while until she got tired of being thrown around like a ragdoll and held up her hands in the time-out signal. “Okay, I give up.”
I should have known better than to trust her. I was floating on my back, looking up at the sky, and the next thing I knew, she pounced right on top of me. I sank like a stone.
Stupid me for letting my guard down. When my head emerged, I coughed up all the lake water I’d swallowed.
“You play dirty,” I accused when I finally got my breath back.
She laughed. Then she took one look at my face and started laughing again.
“You think trying to drown a man is funny?”
That made her laugh even harder. I wasn’t even mad about it. I don’t think I’d ever heard Evie laugh like this. Like a kid laughing over something stupid.
“This,” she said a few moments later after pulling herself together.
“This, what?”
“Just chilling in a lake and having fun without worrying about anything… just laughing at something stupid and having a water fight with a big man-baby….” She smiled. “This makes me happy.”
“I’m not a man-baby.” I cracked my knuckles. “Just stick withbig man,and nobody will get hurt.”
She laughed. Then the smile fell from her lips, and we moved closer.
“If you’re tired of treading water, I can hold you up,” I said.
“You think?”
“I won’t let you go under.”
We weren’t talking about the swim in the lake, and I couldn’t make that kind of guarantee, but I wanted it to be true. I wanted to be the man who kept her from drowning.
I didn’t push or ask again. That wasn’t how to play it with Evie. I just kept treading water and let her come to me. Which she did. With hesitation.
Evie wanted to trust me, but she wasn’t sure she could. I wanted to give her a reason to. I wanted to give her a million reasons.
