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No one else seems to be paying us any attention, or I guess maybe it’s me who’s not paying them attention. Oakley is demanding all of mine.

Right now, the score is tied at nineteen. Whoever gets to twenty first wins.

“You scared?” he asks, a playfully cocky grin on his face, one he hasn’t shot my direction in a long time. He did before, and then, other than his few calls I couldn’t bring myself to answer, there was nothing after until college. I just went with antagonizing him because it was the only way I knew how to get his attention, trying to act like I never thought about what happened in the past.

“Nah. I got this—” Before the last word leaves my mouth, I try swatting the ball out of his hand. Oakley holds on to it, but I don’t let go either. When he pulls, I stumble closer to him, the two of us wrestling around in the water for the ball, neither willing to let go.

“Foul, motherfucker,” he grits out, and his annoyance makes me laugh.

“Jump ball.”

“Jump ball? Get the fuck outta here,” he replies, and I laugh, but then…then I notice something change in his expression, notice the way his eyes dart down my body. We’re close, skin to skin, and for a moment, I think that’s what’s grasped him in this moment, but then his free hand dips beneath the water, fingers squeezing at my hips and tickling me—a moment from the past slamming into me like a freight train.

“Tell me something about yourself that not everyone knows,” Oakley says, the two of us in the ocean, letting the waves wash over us.

“Hmm. Like what?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugs. “It can be anything. It doesn’t have to be something big.”

Doesn’t have to be something big, huh… “I’m ticklish as hell. Not many people know that, and I’d like to keep it that way.”

“No shit?” Oakley asks.

“No shit. Not everywhere, though, just in this one spot on my side. Grab me there, and you can get me to do anything you want.”

I can’t stop my body from reacting. I laugh, shake, and, as a result, my grip on the ball automatically loosens. Oakley pulls the ball from my hold, lifting his arm to shoot. Before I can recover, he gets the shot off. My back is to the basket, but I know by the way his pupils blow wide, his smile taking over his face, that it goes in.

“You cheat,” I argue.

“I play to win. Come on, Des, you know that.” He nudges me, making me realize how close we are again. Were we always, or did one of us move that way?

He stills.

I still.

Des.

He started calling me Des on our trip, but he hasn’t used that name for me since. “I can see your pulse beating in your throat.” My gaze is locked there. The words had no business coming out of my mouth, but they did, and all they’re doing now is making his pulse beat faster.

His breath catches.

Say something to piss him off. Say something to annoy him so he pulls away, because you sure as shit don’t have the power to.

“Sorry you have to cheat to win, Lockdown Mann. Better luck next time.”

He stiffens before immediately pulling back. I miss the feel of his hard, warm body, the scent of chlorine on his skin, but I sure as shit can’t get close to him like that. It makes me have all sorts of dirty, inappropriate thoughts.

“One more game,” he says, the frustration and need to prove himself in each syllable he speaks.

“Nah, I’m good.” I wink and then slip around him, heading for the pool stairs, when I would do anything to go back there and touch him, or hell, even just play another game with him, because something about being with Oakley has always been so fun.

But I don’t.

The second I rise out of the water, I notice Lucas sitting with Isla and the girls, helping them with makeup and watching me, forehead wrinkled, eyes knowing. Goddamn it. There’s no getting anything past him.

I grab a towel, then walk over and sit beside Hunter, who’s with his mom and Lucas’s.

“Ladies.” I give them both a grin, which they return before continuing their conversation.