her at Tate—”
“She was having fun!” Charlotte counters. “She kept smiling at him!”
“You wanted Sophia to ride with Tate so you could ride with Mason!” Emma retorts. “He’s my brother, Charlotte! You could have anyone! You flirting with Mason is weird—”
“Oh please,” Charlotte says, a faint redness glowing in her face. “I was not! And I didn’t know Tate would overreact!”
“It’s Tate!” Emma declares. “You dated him! Of course you knew he would—”
“It doesn’t matter what Tate or anyone else says,” I interrupt. “I wasn’t planning to tell everyone I’d gone out with Aksel!”
A thick silence drapes over the Art History classroom. Emma and Charlotte exchange glances. It’s like they’ve morphed from enemy combatants into allies again.
Charlotte tugs at a string on her sweater. “You weren’t going to tell us?”
“I didn’t think you would understand,” I explain.
“Understand what? Liking someone? Do you listen to anything we say, like—ever?”
I rub my cheeks with my palms. Wringing my hands, I pace back and forth. I breathe in through my nose and stare at them.
“I didn’t think you would understand what it was like to want to be with someone every moment, while at the same time be terrified of the moment it might disappear”—I snap my fingers—“instantly.”
“Are you oblivious?” Charlotte tosses her apple core across the room. It lands with a thump in the trash bin. “Aksel Fredricksen hasn’t taken a girl out in this entire town. If he’s taking you out, Sophia, I guarantee he’s not going to—poof!—disappear anytime soon.”
“I didn’t mean him.” I twist my finger through my necklace. “I meant me.”
CHAPTER 26
Front door is unlocked, Aksel texts me.
After I stay late completing a French assignment with Charlotte, I run up Eagle Pass to Aksel’s house. However, Aksel is nowhere in sight: he’s not in the library, kitchen, or great room. I notice nothing out of the ordinary except a coffee mug in the sink—Aksel doesn’t drink coffee.
Quickly, I descend the staircase to the ground floor. Beyond the gear room is a misty opaque surface—a swimming pool. A very grand swimming pool, framed by a high cedar-planked ceiling and plate glass windows overlooking the steep mountain summit.
Aksel is underwater at the far end. Sidestepping a heap of underwater diving equipment, I sit cross-legged on the pool deck and pull off my Dale of Norway headband.
“Thought I heard an intruder,” Aksel says, surfacing. He swims over. When he reaches me, he wraps his large hands around my ankles and stands up in the water, nearly pulling me in. I laugh, pushing back at his shoulders.
He shifts to place his arms on either side of me, elbows locked, holding himself upright. Heat spreads like wildfire across my chest until it constricts my airways, like I can’t breathe.
His hand is wet yet warm when he strokes my cheek. He outlines my lips with his thumb. He bends forward to kiss me, then stops, eyebrows knitting together.
He touches my chin with his forefinger, tilting my neck back.
“You do have a scar,” he says bluntly, tracing the delicate skin with his forefinger.
“It’s old,” I say quickly, my ears pink.
“I never noticed …,” he murmurs.
The scar is the length of my pinkie, a millimeter wide, and directly in the crease where my head meets my neck. “It was a car accident. A piece of glass.” I shrug. “It’s not a big deal.”
I draw my feet up and fold them into my chest.
He opens his mouth, then shuts it.
“You had a visitor?” I ask, trying to change the subject.
Aksel places his palms flat on the edge and hops out of the pool. “How’d you know?”
“The coffee mug in the sink.”
He stares at me, amused, half smiling. However, his smile fades as he looks darkly across the water. “He shouldn’t have come.” He grimaces.
“Who?”
“Martin,” Aksel sighs. “My grandfather. Guardian now.”
After a moment’s hesitation I say, “Why didn’t he stay? Did he want something?”
Aksel looks over his shoulder. I follow his gaze. On the cedar pool deck is an envelope with a letter halfway out. I stretch my arm back to retrieve it. On the top of the page is a blue embossed letterhead. I only have to read the first paragraph.
“You’ve been admitted,” I say faintly.
Aksel nods.
“Congratulations,” I force out. “So, you’re going?” I try to stifle the unexplained panic rising in my voice.
Aksel leans back, resting his weight on his elbows. His expression is contemplative.
“I’ve dreamed of becoming a SEAL since I was twelve—getting helo-ed into some Siberian inlet, sneaking underwater to some fortress, ambushing bad guys