Say You Still Love Me(77)

“Not the way you’re probably thinking. Eric’s not serious about Avery. He’s just biding his time until Ashley decides he isn’t a fool.” Kyle chuckles. “That might be a while. I tried to help him out last year by hinting to her that he was into her, and then he pulled the same kind of shit, and Ashley wouldn’t give him a chance the rest of the summer. If she hears about him hooking up with Avery, he’ll screw his chances up a second year.” Kyle shakes his head.

It dawns on me. “Aww . . . You’re a hopeless romantic!” I tease.

“Shut up.” Kyle grins. “Right now I’m a horny guy with a hot, topless girl in front of me.”

The fact that I’m so close to him and naked save for my scrap-of-a-bottom is not lost on me. Despite the cool temperature of the water, my entire body is flushing with warmth. If Kyle is affected, he’s not letting on; at ease in the water, his breath is even and calm.

“You good?” he asks, as if reading my mind.

“Yeah.”

He hesitates. “So . . . Shane is going home next Saturday, for the night. He only lives, like, an hour away and he wants to see his girlfriend.” Kyle pulls his bottom lip between his teeth and holds it a moment before releasing it, a shy smile touching his lips. “I’ll have my cabin to myself for the night. In case you wanted to hang out there with me.”

My stomach flutters as I grasp what he’s really asking.

“For a few hours . . . or the night.” He swallows hard. “Whatever you feel like—”

“Okay,” I blurt out, not even pretending to play coy. “I mean, as long as Darian’s not going to nail us for breaking probation.”

“She said we had to be in our cabins for lights-out with our campers. There are no campers on Saturday night.” He says it so innocently. “It’s our night off to do whatever we want.”

Except “whatever we want” means squeezed together in the twin bunk. The two of us in a bed together, alone, all night long.

My breathing has turned ragged. Meanwhile, Kyle’s breathing hasn’t even wavered.

“You’re a strong swimmer,” I murmur, needing to change the conversation to something less heart palpitation–inducing.

“I should hope so. I did a couple years on my school’s swim team.” He grins when my eyebrows arch with surprise. “What?”

“Nothing. Just picturing you rocking those little swim shorts and cap.”

“Are you mocking me?”

“Never.”

He laughs. “I was actually supposed to do the Red Cross lifeguard training program last year.” He tosses that scrap of personal information out so casually.

I seize it. “You totally should! It’s a great part-time job. I have a friend who’s a lifeguard. She makes good money. For a teenager, anyway.” Money she doesn’t need. She’s doing it for her college application.

“Yeah . . . It’s like two hundred for the course I was looking at.” Kyle’s gaze shifts away. “May as well be two thousand.”

Two hundred dollars. Less than the cost of the running shoes I bought for this summer. I didn’t even blink at setting my credit card on the counter for that purchase. I try to wrap my mind around the idea of not being able to afford something, and I can’t. I can’t recall a time those words have ever left my parents’ mouths.

“But you’ll make more than that working here this summer,” I push, keeping my voice light and hopeful.

“I need that money to make it through the year. Clothes and shit like that.” His tongue darts out to toy with his lip ring.

“Well, I can lend you the—”

“No, Piper.” His tone is sharp. He adds, more softly, “That’s nice of you to offer, but . . . no.”

Uncomfortable silence falls over us, and I’m desperate to push it away. “How do you tread water like that? I mean, without using your arms?”

His soft sigh skates across my cheek. “Easy. It’s called the rotary kick.”

“Teach me.” Anything to get the conversation away from how different our lives are.

A slight smirk curls his lips. “Keep your arms still and imagine your legs are an egg beater.”

I try to mimic Kyle, freezing my arms and kicking my legs how I’d imagine an egg beater would rotate.

I start to sink.

Kyle’s hands grip either side of my waist, pulling me back up. “Try again,” he coaxes, keeping hold of me this time, our knees knocking against each other’s intermittently.

It takes me a few minutes to get the hang of it. “?’Kay, I think I’m doing it.”

“You are.” He smiles, but he doesn’t let go, pulling me in closer to kiss. I let my arms float on either side of me and I close my eyes, reveling in the feel of Kyle’s mouth against mine, in his shallow breaths, in the tip of his tongue as it first skates over the seam of my lips, and then into my mouth. He tastes like the spearmint gum he was chewing earlier, and not cigarettes. Though, if he did, I wouldn’t care.

Kyle’s hands begin to shift upward, ever so slowly, until his thumbs are nestled against the underside of my breasts. And then they’re on my breasts, tenderly, as if he’s memorizing their shape, his index fingers drawing small, teasing circles over my nipples.