The Way You Make Me Feel(45)

“Are you ten years old?” I screeched while Hamlet chuckled nervously. The words “doing it” being said with both of us so fresh in our dating made me feel queasy. I glanced at Hamlet to make sure he hadn’t fainted. He was just the color of a tomato, was all.

My usual pool time consisted of dozing off and reading gossip rags, but with Rose and Hamlet, they wanted to be in the pool. Playing games.

“Marco Polo? Are you serious?” I asked as I stood in the shallow end, on my tippy-toes to prevent the water from touching my torso.

“Yes! And also, it’s ninety degrees out, are you actually cold?” Rose asked, treading water in the deep end.

“This water is freezing!” I protested.

Hamlet swam over (shirtless Hamlet was always … well … just well) and stood up so that he was directly in front of me. Water poured off his shoulders, and I was so distracted that I didn’t even pay attention when he said, “Sorry about this.” A second later, he had hoisted me under the arms and dragged me out into the deeper part of the pool so that my body was now completely submerged.

I screeched, like a total wuss. But after three seconds, the water was warm and I stopped flailing.

“You are such a baby,” Rose scoffed before dipping under the water to do a little backflip, as if to highlight the difference between us.

Hamlet kept one hand supporting my back. My bare back. “You good?” he asked.

I nodded. “Yeah.” Then I touched his hip underwater, grazing it gently with my fingers. His eyes met mine, and this time his smile was slow.

“EH-HEM!” Rose splashed us.

We played Marco Polo with Hamlet as the seeker first. I hadn’t played since I was a kid, and it was hard to get into at the start. I tried to escape out of the pool a few times, but Rose dragged me back in. She was about one thousand times stronger than me in every way. But when Hamlet, as Marco, found me and grasped my shoulder, I screamed and felt that very real competitive thrill. After that, it was game on.

By the time our third round was finished, we were starving so we padded into Rose’s kitchen, dripping water on the tile floor. Rose pulled out cans of sparkling water, fruit, and cheese. “Admit it, you had fun, Clara.”

I grabbed an apple and bit into it. “It wasn’t the worst.”

Hamlet immediately went into helpful mode, pulling out a cutting board and knife to start slicing apples and pears. This pleased me. One of my pet peeves was people standing around asking, “Can I help?” when they were secretly hoping they could just watch TV in the other room. Like those bums Felix and Patrick.

Rose and Hamlet, on the other hand, were a flurry of activity. I joined them, grabbing some glasses and ice for the drinks.

“Clara, have you told Hamlet about the food truck competition?” Rose asked as she sliced a large hunk of cheese.

The sparkling water hissed as it hit the ice. “I’m not sure…”

“No, you haven’t! What is it?” he asked, his eyes on the fruit, careful in his deft and precise chopping.

“There’s a big food truck competition in August with a one hundred thousand dollar prize,” I answered.

His hand stilled as he looked up at me. “What?”

“I know, right?” Rose said. “So Clara, did you actually enter us?”

“Yup.”

Hamlet was so excited he abandoned his fruit and walked over to me. “This is so so cool. Adrian hadn’t mentioned it to me!”

Rose and I glanced at each other. I bit my lip. “Well, that’s because he doesn’t know.”

“Whoa, why not?” Hamlet asked, his voice immediately dropping an octave.

I took a sip of one of the drinks. “Because I want it to be a surprise! Plus, I don’t want him to stress. Worry about losing, you know?”

Rose said, “Well, I mean, there’s a chance you can lose when you do anything. He’s an adult. I’m sure he could handle the pressure.”

I exhaled in irritation. “It’s hard to explain to overachievers like you guys. Some people don’t have confidence running through their veins since birth.”

Rose frowned. “Yeah, that must be it. Not a highly effective combination of hard work and growing tough to failure.”

I stared at her. “Are you saying my dad doesn’t work hard?”

“No! I’m just saying that people who are ‘fearless’ have actually just failed a lot. It’s not some preternatural characteristic I was born with.” She looked for validation to Hamlet, who hesitated before nodding in agreement. “To me, that totally undermines all the work I’ve done to build this confidence.”

Normally this kind of lecture from Rose would have annoyed me—having to be so serious about everything. But I had to admit that I had grown to care about the truck and wanted to succeed in this one thing, too. And was willing to take that risk of failing for once. Ugh, had Rose Carver’s can-do-itness rubbed off on me?

I held up my hands. “Okay, okay. Remind me to never call you confident again.”

A deep voice interrupted us. “Well, if it isn’t a bunch of hardworking teenagers in the service industry!” Rose’s dad walked in with a grin. He was wearing a blue T-shirt, jeans, and glasses, his imposing height instantly filling up the sprawling kitchen.