Free The View from the Top by Hillary Frank Page B

afloat. “I don’t know,” he said. “Habit, I guess.”
    Anabelle dipped her hand in the water and spritzed Jonah in the face.
    What’s she doing? Lexi wondered. He wasn’t going to admit he’d come over to see her. Not with Lexi right there.
    â€œYou knowwhat?” he said, creeping his fingers like tarantulas over the backs of Anabelle’s legs. “I came over because I had something to say.”
    â€œYeah?” Anabelle sounded hopeful, as if she knew deep down that this big thing Jonah had to say was for her ears. Lexi felt invisible. As if they didn’t notice that she was right there, practically naked beside them. Part of her wanted to jump out of the pool and run away and another part wanted to barge in between them and push them apart.
    â€œIf you must know, I had to tell Jeanie something,” Jonah said, dropping his feet and standing.
    â€œJeanie?” Anabelle sounded shocked.
    Yeah, Lexi thought. Jeanie? What’d you want with her at two in the morning?
    â€œShe’s been giving me advice about this situation I’m in.” Jonah turned around with his back to Anabelle and bowed down, placing her feet over his chest. “Or was in.”
    â€œWhy is my mom everyone’s therapist?” Lexi asked. But she was relieved in a way that his goal hadn’t been to find Anabelle. Or was this just some crazy excuse to hide that?
    â€œSo,” Jonah said, ignoring Lexi, “I’ve kinda been seeing this woman. An older woman. Well, not seeing her exactly. It’s complicated. Anyway. I got the good sense to realize it was no good for me. I came to tell Jeanie that.”
    â€œHow old?” Anabelle asked, scrunching her nose.
    â€œToo old.” He grabbed Anabelle’s hands and put them on his head. “Now hop on before I drag you in against your will.”
    Anabelle slid off the side of the pool onto his shoulders. She steadied herself as Jonah carried her out to the center of the water.
    Lexi couldn’t get Anabelle’s judgmental look out of her head. So what if Jonah was seeing an older woman? Big deal. It wasn’t something to make faces about. Lexi was glad she hadn’t made her confession earlier; she didn’t think she could’ve handled Anabelle making a similar face when she found out Lexi used to make out with a girl.
    Jonah walked deeper and deeper. When the water was up to his chest, Anabelle leaned over and whispered something in his ear, which Lexi couldn’t hear but made Jonah smile. And then Anabelle raised her arms and started flapping them gracefully, as if she were an exotic bird. Jonah bobbed up and down along with her movements.
    What in the world was going on here? Some crazy mating ritual? Watching this thing between the two of them unfold made Lexi feel sick to her stomach, like she did that time when Anabelle’s boss was out of the shop and they overloaded on saltwater taffy. “Are you guys, like, practicing for some sort of two-person winged dragon role in a play I don’t know about?” Even as Lexi asked it, she knew she was talking too loudly.
    Anabelle and Jonah both shushed her.
    Jonah turned around and glided back toward Lexi. She suddenly noticed how hairy his chest was. Much hairier than last summer. Not beastly or anything. But for the first time she thought of him as a man, not a boy.
    Were she and Anabelle women? Anabelle showed more signs of becoming one than Lexi did, but flapping around up there in her dry clothes on Jonah’s bare wet shoulders, she looked really young. Lexi felt relieved that Anabelle hadn’t taken off her clothes; it would’ve felt too bad to see the two of them this close together in just undergarments, with her off to the side feeling like the only one who was still a child.
    Just then, Jonah gave a big jump and dunked Anabelle underwater. There was kicking and shoving, spluttering, and the holding in of