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Looking back, I recognize my naivete for what it truly was.
Stupidity. Blindness.
The signs were there. Not during my high school years. After that. That’s when the subtle change happened. Like on that summer a year ago.
“Rylan.” I waved her ringing phone at her. “I think you should get this.”
She stopped right in the middle of the pool.
Ry and Marcus were competing to see who’d finish their forty laps first. Whereas Marcus had the advantage of his muscle power and longer limbs, Ry had ferocity and the drive to win.
She was beating his ass that day. I could tell because I couldn’t keep my eyes off them.
Or more like, off him. Each stroke of his arm in and out of the pool water was pure art. His lips opened for air like he was parting them to kiss a lover. Then there was the water cascading on his back muscles.
Looking anywhere but him was borderline sacrilege.
“It’s Milo?” She waded closer to the edge of the pool, talking in hushed tones so her dad wouldn’t overhear her excitement over a boy.
Not that Marcus had ever cared about Milo sniffing around his daughter. The one time he’d growled at Milo was when he’d come too close to me. Back then, I’d figured Marcus simply saw his daughter in love and made sure Milo stayed faithful.
Back then, I’d been wrong.
I nodded my head emphatically, my smile matching Ry’s.
“Eeep!” she shrieked, dragging herself out of the pool. Water dripped on her one-piece pink swimsuit. A strand of her dark hair fell out of her tight bun and clung to her forehead. She was a mess. A cute mess. “One…”
Before answering Milo’s phone calls, Rylan had always counted to three.
“Ry, don’t tell me you’re letting me win.” Marcus stood in the deep water, pushing his thick hair back up his head.
He looked at my best friend while I looked at him. At those serious black eyes twinkling in the sun, a rare hint of mischief shining through them.
“Two…” Ry whispered, wrapping a towel around herself while whipping back to look at her dad. “I’m just letting you rest so you’ll have a fair chance, old man.”
He shook his head. I had to press a hand to my mouth, suppressing a chuckle.
Rylan winked at me. “Three.”
She snatched the phone from my hand and speed-walked inside, and I followed her with my gaze.
I wasn’t the only one doing the following.
Without even seeing it, I sensed Marcus’s attention on me. Hot and heavy. Making my heart swoop. Surely, that didn’t mean anything, but still. I prayed hard for it to mean everything.
Fighting the urge to spin and watch him watching me was hard. I did, though, turning ever so slowly. Counting down like Ry.
Three… Two… One.
His playful expression vanished once our gazes collided. He was close to me. So close. He leaned his forearms on the ledge of the pool, head tilted up. The veins in his arms were accentuated beneath the sunlight, his muscles carved in stone.
Marcus’s focus rested on me and not in a soothing kind of way. My skin prickled with awareness. With each passing second, I became more aware of how much skin I was baring to him. My floral bikini hid practically nothing.
I never realized just how much until that day. I loved it.
“What about you, Leighton?” He broke the silence first, his timbre voice low. More husky. “You think I’m old too?”
“No.” I licked my lips, which were suddenly really, really dry.
