Free Drowning in You by Rebecca Berto Page B

someone else? Is he inked just to look good? (If so it
absolutely works.)
    Somehow, I feel it’s deeper
than that because guys don’t go tattooing their arms with hearts,
even if they’re stabbed with thorns. And they don’t go writing
symbols or names on the skin for a crush. Maybe he’s a different
sort of person than I’ll ever get to know.
    “ He’ll live
though, right?”
    Dexter’s voice catches me. Did
it just quiver? I steal a glance but he’s squinting at the
reservoir, leaning over in a carefree way, rocking back, then
forth. Basically looking hotter than my imagination has ever served
me.
    I should say no, but I reply,
“He’s trying to.”
    In my peripheral vision,
Dexter’s fingers wiggle along the rounded top of the railing. They
were an inch farther from mine last time I looked.
    “ Isn’t that
the most important part, though?” Dexter asks. Then he tears his
face away, to me, but still clutching the railing so tightly his
tendons are sinewy under his snug-fitting shirt. Moments from
tears, I want to look in those eyes and collapse in
them.
    “ Isn’t what
matters that he’s willing to fight despite his chances, rather than
sooking and being a pain in the butt?”
    My self-control bursts into
hysterical laughter. I sound like a witch, a dirty witch, is what I
think, but I can’t stop these laughs. Not from where they rock my
body, too deep to find how they started. It’s weird that Dexter
uses “sook” like I do, weird that I’m looking for ways to associate
him with me.
    Dexter’s mouth turns up and he
nudges my shoulder again. When our breathy cackles slow to gasps
and then silence, it’s then that it registers his fingers are
tangled with mine. Too much time has passed since we sparked the
first touch, so now I’m caught between feeling like I should rip my
hand away, and never wanting the wind to blow too hard or the rain
to start or for time to pass so we don’t ever have to move an
inch.
    “ Your accent’s
weird,” I say. It’s the first and worst thing I think of, fumbling
for any sort of words in any combination to come out of my
mouth.
    “ I get that.
Mom and Dad were born in Australia, though.”
    That’s all Dexter says, and
although it’s not a complicated answer, I find myself unable to
look at him, instead tracing the contours of the water with my
gaze, still so confused as to how something this breathtaking was
here. All. This. Time.
    “ So you are,
or were, American?”
    “ Once upon a
time. I grew up in Chicago.” He pulls my hand tighter into his and
I glance over at him. He looks at our tangled fingers, the first of
us to acknowledge the heat swirling at where our skin meets. His
eyes wander over my fingers, wrist, arm.
    “ Okay,
so Dex . If you
call me that ridiculous ‘Charz’ name, then I get to call you Dex,”
I say, surprising myself at shortening his name. Is that the terms
we’re on? It feels too intimate.
    “ Great!” He
throws up a hand. “Great, my name is a joke.”
    “ I didn’t mean
it like that. I actually think it’s—” Do
not say that word! “—easy. That’s all. A
slightly weird but—”
    “ I was
joking—or at least trying to.” Softer, he mumbles, “It was beyond
lame.”
    In my embarrassment at having
him explain his joke—this should never, ever be done—I manage to
simply nod.
    “ I’m sorry if
I’m short,” he says.
    “ It’s
okay.”
    How did he step into my space
just like that? My heart picks up, and I’m too stunned to think of
something witty, sexy, or remotely cool to say. All I’m thinking of
is the proximity.
    “ Can we not
talk about me?”
    “ Oh…‘kay?”
    He breezes his fingers at the
ends of my hair hanging over my shoulder. Either it’s me or he’s
using my hair to tug me closer. Maybe it’s me. Thoughts of my knees
giving out fill my mind. Thoughts of him tightening his fist in my
hair and tipping my chin to the sky while he trails a flutter of
kisses down my neck.
    It sounds