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“Thanks,” I tell him. “He wasn’t nice. I mean, he seemed okay at the restaurant—maybe a little pervy, but that’s pretty much par for the course. He made me really uncomfortable this morning in the kitchen.”
“Well, what did he do?” he asks as he pulls back onto the main road. “What did he say?”
I go through the conversation in my head, and I can’t pick out any specific thing that bothered me—nothing I could say aloud that would make sense of my assessment.
“It wasn’t really what he said—it was how he said it. If you were there, you wouldn’t have liked it.”
“Mmm…great,” he says. I watch his jaw flex as he turns the truck down a side road that winds up the east side of the lake.
“So…where are we going?” I ask.
“You’ll see. We’re almost there.”
I grab his hand and lean back in my seat, letting the late morning sun warm my skin as we drive through the alpine forest. My right hand hangs out the window, dancing in the breeze.
We finally turn into a driveway and park the car in front of a cabin next to the water—but not like the ones we live in. It’s an expansive two-story structure with a balcony wrapping around the entire second floor. A private dock leads out to the lake, complete with lounge chairs.
I step out of the truck and close the door behind me, eyes wide and mouth gaping as I take in the most expansive home I’ve ever seen in real life.
“Wow…I had no idea this was here.”
“I didn’t either—not until they contracted us to work on their backyard. Wait until you see it. There’s an outdoor kitchen and shower, a hot tub, and a fire pit with nothing but forest behind it. It’s exactly what I want for myself someday.”
Ty grabs a couple of fishing poles and a beer cooler and carries them out to the dock while I stand there in awe.
I want this, too.
I run down to the dock and leap onto his back, wrapping my limbs around him, then I lean down and kiss his neck.
“I love it.”
“I love you,” he says.
I lower myself onto my feet and pull my dress over my head, leaving me standing in just my pink string bikini. “Let’s get in the water. And then the hot tub, then the shower.”
“It’s not hot enough to get in the lake yet.”
“I’ll make it worth your while, baby,” I tell him.
I kiss him on the lips before I turn and walk back to the grass to get a running start.
Before I get to the edge, he yells, “Amelia, don’t! I don’t think it’s deep enough to dive here!”
But I’m already in motion. I dive into the blue-green waters, the chill on my skin taking my breath away as I’m submerged. Luckily, it was deep enough, but that gives me an idea. Instead of coming back up, I turn in the water and swim under the dock. I break the surface slowly and carefully, then wait.
About thirty seconds go by before he sets the pole and the hook he was tying on aside and walks to the dock’s edge.
“Mel?” he calls out cautiously, then louder, his voice filled with panic. “MEL!?”
“Fuck!” He quickly pulls off his boots, then his socks, then his jeans, and jumps into the water in his boxers and t-shirt. “Mellie!” he yells as he breaks the surface.
I watch him for a few minutes as he alternates between searching beneath the surface and screaming for me when he comes up. Then, I hold my breath, lower myself back into the water, and let my body float out from under the dock face-down.
A shrill scream at a decibel that I wouldn’t have thought possible escapes him as he swims toward me. He throws me over his shoulder and kicks to the shore; I keep my eyes closed and my breathing shallow as he drags me onto the grass and rolls me onto my back.
“Mel!?” he shouts, his voice filled with urgency as he shakes me. “Mel! Wake up, Mel. Oh god, please wake up.”
He tilts my chin back and pinches my nose, preparing to start CPR, but before his mouth meets mine, I spit lake water back in his face and smile. “Gotcha.”
