Never Sweeter(29)

And then a hand went over hers.

“Don’t. Don’t hate yourself. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying someone being nice to you,” she said, and oh it was such a relief to hear. To see her friend’s face, all full of concern and acceptance.

Only that wasn’t all.

There was more, said half laughing but no less troubling for it.

“I mean, it’s not like you’re going to fall in love with him. Right?” Lydia said.

And all she could do was nod.

Anything else was impossible, once those goosebumps bit down hard.





Chapter 12


She almost turned back around at the door to the gym. Of course she knew rationally that this was not the scene of so many high school crimes. It was larger, and airier, and the seating that surrounded the floor space was more impressive. It looked like an arena in thereyet still she hesitated. She thought of Tate, in one of those ridiculously revealing singlets, practicing his moves sweatily on some equally burly guy, and she hesitated. And when she finally did go in, she tried to keep her gaze casual and mostly focused on things above eye level: the clock on the wall, the scoreboard, the glass windows of Coach Parker’s office.

Not that she needed to.

He wasn’t in there. A sweaty and kind of strained-looking Chad informed her that Tate had broken earlywhatever that meant. He’s in the pool, Chad said, and was so nice and friendly about it she didn’t think twice about following his pointing finger. She just went through the double doors that led out onto the grassy bank that separated the two buildings, and carried on to the pool.

Though once inside she realized what she had thought: that he would be in there with a bunch of other people.

Instead of just him swimming lazy laps on his own, in an eerily hushed and far too dimly lit sort of space. It made her want to check if the lights had been replaced by candles. She stopped before she got to the edge of the pool because her shoes seemed to make such a noise against the tilethough it didn’t matter that she did. He still heard her. He turned before she got anywhere close to the edge of the pool, something like hey, Chad on his lips.

Then he saw it was her.

He saw, and oh god the look on his face. It was like watching the light break through clouds made of atomic ash. Suddenly, she understood exactly why she had come. She knew why she’d ignored Lydia’s warnings after not hearing from him in three days. Everything was as clear as that gloriously happy look on his face.

And it only got clearer when he spoke again.

“Hey, you came to find me,” he said, as though that was the most exciting thing he could possibly imagine. It even made him start to swim over to her, cutting through the water so smoothly and cleanly it made that hot feeling happen again. Then he got to her and did something that made it worse. He stopped at the edge of the pool, one hand reaching eagerly out of the water.

And he just touched one of her shoes with a single finger.

No, no, that was wrong. He rubbed over the tip of her shoe with one finger, in a way that should have meant almost nothing. It wasn’t a sexy gesture. It was the sort of thing people who had been friends forever did, all tender and cute and intimate.

Though it seemed that this was enough.

She had to fold her arms to stop the shivers.

“That was pretty cool of you.”

“Well, I just thought we should get back to work.”

“Oh right, yeah. Work. Totally.”

“I mean it’s been three days.”

“Longer than three days,” he said.

While she tried not to hear the longing in his voice.

“Exactly. So are you going to get out?”

He gave her a look that was even worse than the glorious happiness.

This one had an eyebrow raise in it, and a head tilt, and oh good Christ, a lip bite.

No, god no, she couldn’t deal with the lip bite.

“Actually, I was kind of thinking you might want to get in.”

“Oh…oh no. No I don’t even have my bathing suit with me.”

“That’s cool. Just jump in as you are.”

He waved a hand at her like, “Hey come on in, the water’s fine.”

But the water was not fine. It had him in it, making adorable faces.

“Are you kidding? Come on. I’m not doing that.”

“Okay. Want to give me a hand then?”

“I’m pretty sure you can get out on your own.”

“No, honestly, I just need like a little help.”

She hesitated, considering. On the one hand, this was a classic way to drag someone into the water. But on the other…surely he would never do that now? He looked like he would never do that now. He was being so cute and cool it seemed almost churlish to refuse.

So she took his offered hand.