10. Then
10
THEN
Brooke stood on the shore of Portobello Beach three days after the night in the library, ready for adventure. Light sand stretched out down the coast, the promenade behind her, and a cement seawall extended forlornly into the ocean like an abandoned pier. Thin-ridged whitecaps interrupted the gray-blue water as it gently rolled toward the shore.
Jack set his kit in the sand next to hers, unpacking his layers of clothes to put on when they finished their wild swim. He wasn’t wearing his glasses today and she wanted to study the fan of his eyelashes, inventory the different angles of his face without them. His black wet suit stretched across his broad shoulders, clung to his trim waist, hugged the curve of his muscular thighs. She was going to break her peripheral vision trying to catalog every stretch of that fabric.
Being here with Jack was a charcoal gray area and she knew it. She would’ve stayed away from him if it hadn’t been for that thunderstorm. She was almost certain of it. But now? She couldn’t quite summon the reasons not to experience more of what he could show her.
Brooke slipped out of her shoes and even the freezing sand on the bottoms of her feet was a shock to her system, sending goose bumps over her shoulders. The water was going to be torture. “This seemed like a better idea when I was wearing more clothes.” She spun her earring and stood with one foot on the top of the other. She didn’t like trying things she wasn’t good at and it turned out it was uncomfy outside her comfort zone.
Jack looked up at her from where he bent over, his gaze traveling quickly up her body before tossing her a smirk. “You’re not backing out on me now, B.”
Exhilaration bubbled in her chest at the little nickname, the kind of forbidden excitement that came from sneaking out a bedroom window on a hot summer night—or at least how Brooke imagined that would feel.
But he was right—she wouldn’t back out, not when he was looking at her like that.
Not when his face lit up and his eyes crinkled before he made a concerted effort to avoid her gaze during the weekly lecture. It was the opposite of being under a microscope, but she still somehow felt his singular focus.
She’d wanted to know his stories, but now she wanted to know his secrets.
So she was a bit infatuated. What was a little crush between friends anyway? It wasn’t like either of them would act on it.
She liked being around him. Liked the promise of adventure. Maybe standing on a beach considering jumping into frigid water a coin’s toss from the arctic circle wasn’t what she’d had in mind when she agreed to get out of the library, but she couldn’t deny the thrill of it.
“Have you considered Olympic swimming as a career choice?” she asked.
“I should. I look great in a swim cap.”
“That’s nothing to brag about. They just hide big ears.”
“Hey, now!” Jack said, cupping his hands over the side of his head and making her laugh.
“Alright, what are we going for here? Time? Distance?” Brooke asked as she pulled the last of her clothes from her bag.
Jack shook his head. “We’re trying not to get hypothermia. Since you’ve never done this before, we’re staying in for fifteen minutes.”
“Fifteen minutes! It took me longer to get into my wet suit.”
Jack grinned. “It’s not a contest. It’s good for your body, and your breathing. And your stress level.”
“I am a high-functioning stressaholic, thank you very much.”
“Now there’s something to brag about.” Jack walked down the beach and stopped on the water’s edge, turning to find Brooke where he’d left her. “We’ll go in together. The trick is to submerge yourself slowly.”
“Are you sure? It seems better to jump in.” Brooke chewed on her thumbnail as she made her way to the pebbly, wet sand and took one tentative step into the water. She gasped at the freezing shock of it, the cold stealing her breath even though the water was only up to her ankles. “On second thought…”
She had highly underestimated what eleven degrees Celsius felt like.
“Trust me,” Jack said and slipped his hand into hers, his palm achingly warm and solid and the only reason she didn’t dash back to the beach and her woolly socks.
Jack Sutherland is holding my hand.
Again. And this time, it felt significantly more than comforting. A giddy flutter in Brooke’s stomach was drowned out by the alarm bell clanging in her head, but she couldn’t focus on either when the cold water burned her feet and calves.
This better level-up her writing.
Jack wrapped one arm around himself against the cold. “Fuck, this is Baltic.”
“Say the word and we’ll walk away,” Brooke said through clenched teeth. She’d give him any out to end this.
Jack caught her eye like he’d noticed the double meaning she hadn’t intended, but perhaps should’ve. Because Jack Sutherland was still holding her hand. “We’ve barely just begun. It’d be a shame not to go a bit further, wouldn’t it?” His gaze clung to her and there was no possible way she could stop herself.
Besides, they weren’t really doing anything wrong—this couldn’t be construed as sexy when her feet stung with pins and needles. She nodded and he squeezed her hand, tugging her forward.
By the time Brooke was up to her waist, every muscle was clenched against the cold. Her stomach was pulled in so tight, her ribs felt like cracking. She couldn’t feel her lower body at all.
“I can’t do it,” she said with a shaky breath. There was an invisible line at her belly button that could absolutely not be crossed.
“I didn’t take you for a quitter…”
She’d lost her ability to form coherent thoughts outside of Freezing… Ow… Why? but the way Jack widened his eyes in challenge sent a shimmer of heat down her spine.
He slipped below the water, ripples appearing in his wake. He resurfaced with an elated whoop, pushing his hair out of his face and absolutely beaming. Brooke wished she could slow the motion down, to linger in the flex of his bicep under the wet suit, the water droplets clinging to his eyelashes, the curl of his slicked-back hair, the delight in that blown-wide smile.
Jack looked at her expectantly so Brooke scrunched up her face and shoulders and held her breath. Apparently, her desire to impress him outweighed her will to live. Unlocking her knees, she let herself sink as quickly as she could manage. Water flooded her wet suit, the cold boring into her skin and her bones and definitely her vital organs. She pushed back to the surface. “Fuck you, Jack,” she yelled, but a rush of exhilaration swept through her, every nerve ending in her body sparking.
He laughed, a loud, booming sound, as relaxed and carefree as she’d ever heard him—the shiniest gold star she’d ever gotten.
A low wave pushed him forward and he rolled toward her, so close she could sense the nearness of his thighs by the way the water rushed faster over hers. He cupped her hip to keep from crashing into her and her body seemed to regain some feeling—at least in the places his fingertips touched.
“We’re getting to the good part now,” Jack said, eyes flashing before tipping into a wide back float and smiling up into the sky. She couldn’t help but read into those words.
Brooke pushed out to where it was deeper, treading water. Her shivers abated and she floated on her back, too, the gentle waves rocking her, her head tight and tingly.
The tension in her body loosened and her mind emptied of to-do lists and her color-coded calendar for papers and studying and bookshop hours. Her attention was completely consumed by the numbing cold making her buoyant, the briny smell of the water, the filtered sunlight on her face.
This was the greatest thing she’d ever done. Better than the high of her valedictorian address or the rush of a new beginning on a flight over the Atlantic.
“I feel free.” Like birds disappearing over the horizon.
She heard Jack’s quiet hum of agreement over the ripple of the water. Brooke’s toes bobbed above the surface, summer red nail polish bright against the deep gray of the water. The sun glinted in strips over the long, rolling waves. Her hair brushed her neck, a floating, gentle caress to balance out the tightness developing in her jaw.
“We should get out,” Jack said, his voice muffled.
“Not yet.” She wasn’t ready to part with this weightlessness. This bliss.
“Can you put your middle finger and thumb together?”
She sat up and tried but her hand felt like a claw. She pushed her fingers together harder and all the adrenaline that’d felt like euphoria shifted straight to blinding panic. “No.”
“Time to get out.” Jack’s voice was tight and it sent more fear through her icy veins. Even her blood felt cold. That could not be good.
Brooke trudged through the water, a complete slog to the beach. Her legs felt too heavy, her knees too stiff. Jack looped an arm around her back and helped propel her forward. Her ribs constricted tighter and tighter like a python banding around her. When they broke the hold of the water, her relief was short-lived. The wind was calm, but the air on her wet suit sent a violent shiver through her. She clenched her jaw tight against the agonizing chatter of her teeth.
“Can you unzip your wet suit?”
Brooke reached for the zipper at her throat but didn’t have enough strength in her fingers to tug it down. She was never going to get out of this, never going to warm up. As her grasp slipped for the third time, panic zapped through her, a coiling, debilitating thing.
Then Jack’s hand was there, tugging the zipper. The wind sliced through her bare skin and she heard herself whine.
“We’ve got to get you out of everything wet.” His hands were on her shoulders, sliding along her arms as he pushed the wet suit down. “Can you take your bathing suit off?”
Brooke could barely get her arm behind her back, it was so heavy, let alone pinch the string on her bikini. She shook her head.
“Turn around. I’ll do it.”
She followed directions, hugging herself in a death grip against the tremors. Jack pulled the knot of her bikini top and she wished she’d felt it more. Jesus, this was not the way she wanted to get naked in front of Jack for the first time.
He tugged the string around her neck and the ends tumbled over her shoulders. Before she could protest, he was slipping a shirt over her head. She struggled to release her bikini top and move her arms.
“You got it. Keep moving.”
Finally in a shirt, she turned back around and Jack pulled a fleece over her shoulders. As she wrestled with the sleeves, Jack picked up her vest and she noticed how much he was shaking, the blue tinge to his lips. “I’m sorry. I can do it. Take care of yourself.”
“I’m okay for another minute.”
He tossed the vest around her shoulders and fumbled with the zipper. She wanted to see Jack like this in another setting. Shaky and fumbling, but not from the cold.
“You good?” He looked up at her, his hair slicked back, and she wasn’t afraid anymore. He wouldn’t let anything bad happen.
Heat flowed back in her core. “I’m good.”
Jack unzipped his wet suit, exposing his bare chest. Water droplets clung to his shoulders and pecs. His abs were clenched against the cold and she wanted to drag her fingers over the ridges, down the light trail of hair on his belly. He pulled on a shirt, raising his arms and exposing the swell of his bicep. Then his shirt was over his head, his vest on top, and she kept staring as if she might see more secrets etched in his skin.
“Brooke.” He cut through her trance. “You’ve got to keep adding layers.”
“Right,” she said, picking up her down jacket from the sand and slipping it on.
“We can both turn around to get joggers on.”
“Right,” she said again. That was the sensible thing to do. She peeled the wet suit down her legs, which were more or less completely numb, and wrapped a towel around her waist before stripping her bikini bottom off and tugging on sweat pants. She scrubbed the sand off her feet and ankles before sliding on warm socks and boots. Her body still shivered, but a mild heat flowed through her now.
“You alright?” He ran his hands up and down her arms to warm her. Even though she didn’t really need it anymore, she let him. She liked his hands on her.
“Yeah.”
“You scared me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry.” He shook his head like he was chastising himself and yanked a beanie down over his damp hair, the ends curling up around the green wool. “We should have gotten out earlier. Fuck, I should’ve—”
“Jack—”
“That could’ve been so dangerous.”
“Hey.” She stopped him with a hand on his arm. “I’m okay, Captain.”
He laughed under his breath. “Can I make it up to you with cake?” he asked, his eyebrows still furrowed with worry, his eyes still searching her face. Like whatever was between them was more than a dare in the dark.
And suddenly, the line they couldn’t cross felt like it’d been drawn in the sand, insubstantial and effortless to tread over.