Page 75 of Here We Go Again

THEO

By the time I shower and throw on my swim trunks, Becca has lost her coverup and is lying out on a deck chair, face tilted toward the sun. Her hair is piled on top of her head, her eyes covered with sunglasses, and it’s hard for me to tear my eyes away.

Mostly because she’s beautiful.

But also because she’s here. Right there.

To see her like this, to know I can go out there and sit down beside her, fills me with a heady sort of awareness. I want to soak her in, enjoy every second of her being here. But I also don’t want to screw anything up. Say too much. Be too much. Overwhelm her with just how much I’m feeling.

I step back from the kitchen door, where I’ve basically been staring, and grab a couple of water bottles from the fridge. Determined to play it cool, I toss my towel over my shoulder, slip my sunglasses on, then make my way out to the deck chair beside her.

Wordlessly, I hand her a water bottle, and she takes it, halfway sitting up on her elbows. She opens it and takes a long drink.

In the near sweltering heat, condensation has already formed on the outside of the fridge-chilled water, and I watch as it drips off the bottle and lands on her stomach. The drops slide down toward her belly button, and I force my eyes back to her face.

“Thanks,” she says, spinning the cap back on. “This heat is brutal.”

“Reminds me of Texas. Want to swim?” I ask. “Cool off a little?”

“Definitely. But I was also thinking about going down to the beach to snorkel.”

“The pool is probably cooler than the ocean.”

“Yes, but there aren’t fish in the pool,” she says, and I grin.

“Fair enough. Do we have gear for snorkeling?”

She nods. “My mom said we did. Something about a shelf in the garage, but I haven’t gone looking for it yet.”

“I’ll see what I can find,” I say as I stand. “Unless you’d rather not have the company.”

She lifts her sunglasses. “Did you just invite yourself on my snorkeling adventure?”

“I mean, for safety reasons, I think it’s better if we’re together.”

She looks out toward the gently lapping water of the gulf. It looks clear and gentle and easy to swim in. She’d be perfectly fine on her own, and the look on her face tells me she knows it.

“Well, I definitely don’t want to jeopardize my safety,” she says with a flirty smile. “So I guess you’ll have to come with me.”

Ten minutes later, I’m back by the pool with an assortment of masks, fins, and snorkels I found in the garage. “I have no idea how well any of this is going to work,” I say. “Some of it looks a little worn, but we can definitely try it out.”

“I’m sure it’ll work,” Becca says as she stands up. “I don’t need fancy.” She grabs her bag from the patio table next to the house and rummages through it, finding a tube of sunscreen.

“Can you get my back for me?” she casually asks, holding up the tube like this is the kind of thing we do for each other all the time.

She lowers herself onto the lounger, making room for me to sit down behind her.

I squeeze a little of the sunscreen onto my palm, then rub my hands together, heating it before spreading it across Becca’s back. Her skin is warm and soft, and she seems to melt a little as I work, her shoulders relaxing as she leans back.

Without really thinking about it, I tug her straps down her arms so I can get the skin underneath, but then her breath hitches, and I pause. I did this for her a thousand times when we were together. My family had a pool in our backyard, and Becca and I were in it all summer long. She always made me get under her straps just to make sure.

But that was then, and this is now, and that gesture might have felt way too familiar.

“Sorry,” I say as I slide her straps back into place. “Muscle memory kicked in.”

“No, it’s fine,” she says. “Thanks for being thorough.”

“You made me do this so many times back then,” I say as I slide my palms over the tops of her shoulders.