Chapter 5: The Pool

By two in the afternoon I had read that message forty times in my head.

Ask her.

Nobody asked me anything.

Drake and Dean strung lights along the back fence for the party.

Finley carried a cooler across the lawn.

I put on my red bikini, because I wanted to see what would happen.

I walked out to the pool with a book I had no plan to read.

Dean missed a rung on his ladder and swore.

Drake caught the end of the lights and did not look at me once.

I lowered myself into the deep end, where the water came up to my ribs.

It was cool and clear and loud with the filter, and I let it close over my shoulders and shut my eyes.

Something brushed my leg.

I opened my eyes, and Gabe came up out of the water two feet from me, hair plastered flat, grinning and breathless.

"Hi," he said.

"Hi."

"I was swimming. Laps. I'm very into laps."

"I can see that."

He drifted closer.

The sun was in my eyes, and the water was warm on top and cold underneath.

He stopped so near that I could count the freckles on his nose.

"Callie," he said, much lower. "I need to tell you something."

"Okay."

"Don't be mad."

Under the water, a hand settled on my hip.

It was big, and warm, and shaking a little.

It slid around my thigh, hooked the side of my bikini bottoms, and went in underneath.

I sucked in a breath.

Up on the lawn Drake was pulling a string of lights tight, ten yards away, with his back to us.

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