Page 33 of One Twisted Lie

“Oh, really?” he asks, tipping his head up just a tad as he pops one eye open. “What about the time you paid Henry Perry a thousand bucks to switch out my iced tea for vinegar during science freshman year?”

I laugh, remembering how pissed Carter was when he went to take a sip of his drink during Dr. Phillips’s lecture, only to spit it out all over her by accident. It was a hundred dollars well spent.

“Oh, how about the time I changed the date on you?” I chuckle as I wade deeper in the water. “Remember? I managed to get everyone to convince you it was Friday instead of Thursday, and you freaked out thinking you had missed your chem exam.”

“You dick! That one wasn’t funny!” he shouts, swimming over to me so he can punch my shoulder. “I nearly had a panic attack!”

“That’s what made it funny—” I can’t finish my sentence when he dunks me under the water, filling my mouth with chlorine and making my nose burn.

Fine. If he wants to play it that way, I can play it that way.

When he lets me up for air, I immediately take the opportunity to splash water into his face, catching him off guard with a loud curse. He retaliates by dunking me under again, our limbs tangling as we, unsuccessfully, try to wrestle in the water. What started out as grunting and a kind of true fight for dominance turns into something lighter. I laugh when he jumps up on my shoulders to push me down into the water. He does this funny high-pitch squeal when I grab his foot and yank him down. When we’re both exhausted and thoroughly beaten, we float side by side on our backs, our fingers a hairsbreadth away.

“Carter.”

“Yeah.”

“If you could have one thing in the world, what would it be?” I ask, sinking into the relaxation of this perfectly pure moment.

It takes him a second to answer. “I’d want to put out my own video game.”

“You mean the elusive video game you’re never going to let me play?” I chuckle, reaching out to pinch his side. “I’m starting to doubt it’s real.”

“It is real, you dick. It’s just…”

He sighs, deep and burdened. I can practically feel him tense beside me. I swim lazily toward him, pulling us and shaping us so his legs are wrapped around my waist and his face is buried in my neck. It’s a weirdly intimate pose where our roles are reversed. Typically, I’m the one clinging to him. I’m the needy bottom that has to be all over him all the time when we’re like this. This is different. I suddenly feel like I’m the one in charge like I have the comfort and the solution he needs.

It’s a nice, warm feeling, and I wonder if this is what it’s like for him when he takes care of me. I can see the appeal, and it’s something I could easily become addicted to.

“It’s just what?” I ask, rocking us side to side. “You definitely have enough money to make it happen. Why don’t you?”

“It’s just not in the plan,” he says with an edge to his voice that wasn’t there a second ago. “I have to…”

“Come on, babe,” I urge him gently, squeezing his ass under the water. “You can tell me.”

He looks like hewantsto, but there’s something holding him back. Truth is, where I would have mercilessly teased him before, allIwant to do right now is comfort him. The realization is both odd and exhilarating. At a certain point, whether he knew it or not, he could suddenly trust me.

At a certain point, whether I knew it or not,Icould be trusted.

“I don’t want to code anymore. Not like this,” he finally says. “They’ve ruined it for me. All I want to do is make games.”

He says this with a sense of shame he shouldn’t possess. I shake my head. “Do that then.”

He looks up at me and rolls his eyes behind his water-splattered glasses. “Like it’s that easy. Don’t you have things you do for your family? Even if you don’t want to?”

And it comes back like a car crash you just can’t take your eyes off of. That sticky, hot feeling in my chest feels a lot like guilt. There are things that I do for my family. Without question. Befriending Carter. Getting close to him. Making him trust me—

I stop myself. I can’t focus on my own traitorous notions, not when Carter is naked, dripping wet, in the middle of the school’s pool, pouring his fucking heart out to me. I’m a bastard because that—guilt—is not what I want to feel right now. So, all I say is, “Yeah. I guess.”

“If you could live anywhere, where would you be?”

I take his redirection with silent gratitude. “Good question. There aren’t many places I haven’t been.” Honestly, I can only think of maybe a dozen. Thanks to my father’s business travel, I’ve been everywhere. All over Europe, parts of Asia, regions of South America, and even Africa.

“Amsterdam,” I finally say. “That could be cool. You’ve been?”

He smiles. “Hell yeah. We went again during the summer. Weed used to be legal. They have a dope scene.”

“The people are nice as hell. There are so many bikes.”

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