call your parents?”
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
I’m 89.97 percent sure Tristan Wheeler was just flirting with me and I had to go and ruin it by talking about my parents?
Seriously, what was wrong with me?
Apparently I watch way too many legal dramas and not nearly enough normal teen dramas.
“I should go,” I said, starting toward the gate. I needed to get out of there before I could embarrass myself any further.
“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea,” Tristan said behind me. I froze, too afraid to turn around.
“I’m not sure I should let you out of my sight,” he continued. “I’m still highly suspicious. And if the police find something valuable missing, I’d like to claim the reward when I turn you in.”
The smile was impossible to stop. I turned around. “You’d turn me in?”
He dipped his feet back in the water. “I might. You definitely have ‘shady character’ written all over you.”
“And what about you?”
He blinked in surprise. “What about me?”
“You’re pretty suspicious-looking, too.”
He leaned back on his hands, looking highly amused.
“Exhibit A,” I began, “you’re out here alone. Exhibit B”—I gestured to the ice-cold water that his feet were submerged in—“you’re clearly a vampire.”
He broke into laughter. “A vampire?”
“That water has got to be close to freezing and you’ve barely even flinched. What other conclusion am I supposed to come to?”
He tilted his head, considering my question. “Come here.”
I balked. “What?”
He patted the cement beside him. “Come over here.”
My heart was galloping as I weighed my options. This was one of those moments, wasn’t it? When you feel like the rest of your life hinges on one decision, ten lousy footsteps, the lopsided-smiling invitation of a guy so hot he belongs in men’s underwear commercials.
The way I saw it, I had two options: I could go over there, take the kind of leap my heart had never dared take before. Or I could run toward that gate, hop in my car, drive back to my house, hide under the covers with Hippo, and pretend for the rest of my life that I wasn’t the biggest coward to ever walk the earth.
The decision was easy. My legs were the challenge. I had to bully them into walking. Scold them silently in my head until they finally moved. Until I was finally inching closer to him.
I sat down, keeping at least a foot of space between us. Then I looked at him, like I was waiting for him to tell me what the rest of my life would look like.
“Take off your shoes,” he commanded.
I leaned over and stared into the pool. “You’re crazy.”
“You asked me what other conclusion you were supposed to come to. I’m giving you another option.”
I sighed and removed my shoes, holding my hands over the toes of my socks to hide the unsightly hole. Why oh why didn’t I pick out cuter ones?
Maybe because I never, in a zillion quatillion years, thought I’d be sitting shoeless next to the cutest guy in our entire school.
“Socks, too,” he ordered.
“My feet will freeze. I have warm blood running through my veins. Unlike some people.”
There was that smile again. But he didn’t say anything. He just stared intently at my socks.
I slipped them off and stuffed them into my sneakers.
Then suddenly Tristan Wheeler’s hands were touching me. Well, technically they were touching my jeans as he leaned over and rolled the hems up to my knees. But his fingers brushed my legs more than once and I prayed to God the shivers I felt on the inside didn’t show on the outside. I was also extremely grateful I had shaved my legs that morning.
“Now,” he said, nudging my knee with the backside of his hand. “Stick your feet in.”
I shook my head. “No way.”
“Come on. Trust me.”
That’s when I looked up at him. That’s when our gazes crashed together. It would be the first of many explosive collisions complete with fire and smoke and an electric vibration of the air around us.
He didn’t look away.
He could have. We both could have.
But he held me tight with his eyes, like he was cushioning me, protecting me from the sheer slicing pain that would accompany the water as I slowly slid my bare legs into the pool.
But the pain never came.
The water was delicious. Warm and tingling and welcoming. I gasped in surprise.
“There,” he said, looking mighty proud of himself. “The other conclusion.”
“The pool is heated,” I whispered.
“The pool is heated.”
“You’re not a vampire.”
“I am most definitely not a vampire.”
THE