Page 93 of Shatter

I stop.

I glare at him.

He grins, wide and wicked, a grin I didn't know his face could make, and I smack him in the chest.

He shrugs out of his cut and hangs it over the handlebars, smoothing the leather flat with one palm.

It doesn't touch the ground.

Then he pulls a folded wool blanket out of the other saddlebag and snaps it open over the grass near the bank.

Shoes first.

Then I peel off the hoodie and my T-shirt and step out of my jeans.

I'm standing on the bank in a cheap black bra and underwear from a Walmart three-pack, with my scar and my two-colored hair and the morning sun on my skin.

He's watching me.

I don't cover up.

I've spent all my life making myself small, and this morning I don't want to.

I turn around and run and jump in.

The cold punches the air out of me.

I come up gasping, my scalp screaming, every inch of skin prickling at once, and I hear him laughing on the bank.

"Sixty-eight degrees?" My teeth are already chattering. "That's a lie. That's a filthy lie!"

He strips down to his boxers and dives in smooth, barely a splash.

He surfaces right in front of me, water streaming off his hair, and flicks a handful of it into my face.

I shriek and shove him under.

He comes up sputtering while I'm already swimming away, and he catches my ankle.

We wrestle in the clear water.

Splashing, laughing, my hair plastered across my face, his arms coming around my waist and my legs kicking him in the thigh.

Then I stop kicking.

I wrap my legs around his waist instead.

He goes still, treading water, holding me up by the hips.

The laughter dies out of both of us.

His hands stay on my hips.

His eyes stay on my face.

This close, I can see water beaded on his lashes, and the pale gray of his eyes has gone dark all the way through.

I lean in and kiss him.