Chapter 6 #4
"Okay. Cool." I hesitate, then commit. "You're actually relaxed right now. For the first time since I met you. It's weird. I don't hate it."
His mouth twitches. "I'm not always tense."
"Holt, you're literally always tense. It's your default setting. You probably came out of the womb already stressed about something."
"Maybe you make me tense."
"Oh, definitely," I agree cheerfully. "But like, in a fun way. Not a bad way. More like a 'this tiny person talks too much and I don't know what to do with that' way."
"That's accurate."
"See? Self-awareness. We love that for me."
He's looking at me now—really looking, the kind that feels like it means something, like there's a conversation happening underneath the conversation—and I'm suddenly very aware of how close we are.
How the water makes everything feel more intimate.
How his gaze drops briefly to my mouth before coming back up, and how that makes my breath catch and my stomach flip and every nerve ending wake up and pay attention.
The moment stretches, charges, and I'm about to say something—what, I don't know, but something—when Finn cannonballs directly between us, sending up a wall of water that absolutely drenches us both.
"SNEAK ATTACK!" he shouts, shaking water from his hair like a dog.
"BETRAYAL!" I sputter, shoving wet hair out of my face, half-laughing and half-ready to drown him. "FINN, WHAT THE HELL!"
"I've been planning that for ten minutes," he says proudly. "You two were having a Moment with a capital M. I had to. It's my job as the third wheel."
"We weren't—" I start, but Holt's already swimming toward shore.
"You're the worst," I tell Finn.
"I know," he says cheerfully. "It's my best quality. Come on, let's go dry off and I'll tell you about the time Holt tried to jump off the cliff on a dare and almost chickened out."
"I didn't almost chicken out," Holt calls from where he's already climbing onto the rocks.
"YOU ABSOLUTELY DID!" Finn yells back. "You stood up there for like five minutes!"
"I was assessing."
"You were SCARED!"
"Strategic evaluation."
"SEMANTICS!"
By late afternoon, we've migrated to the rocks, sprawled on towels in the sun.
I'm on my stomach, eyes closed, arms stretched overhead, feeling the heat soak into my skin, into my bones.
Everything feels heavy and good, like my bones have melted into something softer.
Sun-drunk. Water-tired. Perfectly, completely content.
"I could live here," I announce to the universe. "Just... permanently. Become a swimming hole cryptid. People would tell stories about me."
"The legend of Scout," Finn says from somewhere to my left, sounding equally sun-drunk. He's on his back, one arm thrown over his eyes. "She emerges only to judge people's diving technique and offer unsolicited commentary."
"It's a noble calling. Someone has to maintain standards."
"You maintained nothing today," Finn says. "Your cliff jump was average at best."
"Excuse me, it was EXCELLENT."
"It was adequate."
"You're just jealous because I screamed less than you did."
"I was PROJECTING CONFIDENCE through VOLUME!"
I crack one eye open and find Holt sitting near my feet, forearms resting on his knees, looking out at the water. His hair's drying in uneven tufts, shoulders sun-warmed and slightly pink, and there's still that ease in the line of his spine.
He turns his head, catches me looking.
I don't look away this time. "What?"
"You're staring."
"You're stareable," I say. "Nice tattoos. Very broody and mysterious. The wolves really sell the whole 'I have a complicated past' thing."
"Oh my God," Finn says from his towel, not bothering to move his arm from his eyes. "Are you two flirting? Because if you're flirting, I need to know so I can properly document this moment for posterity."
"We're not flirting," I say.
"You're definitely flirting," Finn says. "I can hear the flirting. It has a specific frequency."
His eyebrow goes up. "Broody?"
"In a hot way," I clarify, committing fully to this disaster while Finn makes gagging noises in the background. "Very 'I have a complicated past and excellent arms and I know how to fix things.'"
"I'm going to throw up," Finn announces. "This is disgusting. I'm disgusted."
"You asked if we were flirting!"
"I didn't think you'd ACTUALLY DO IT! I thought you'd deny it like normal people!"
Holt shakes his head, but I catch it—the almost-smile. "You're impossible."
"It's been said. Multiple times. By multiple people. I'm starting to think it might be a core personality trait."
"It is," Finn says, still not moving. "Can confirm. Scout, you want my professional opinion?"
"Not really."
"You're a menace and Holt is into it. There. Mystery solved. Everyone go home."
"Finn," Holt says, low and warning.
"What? I'm being helpful! I'm facilitating! This is me being a good friend!"
"You're being annoying."
"Those things aren't mutually exclusive!"
The sun shifts lower, and Betty Cordero starts packing up her chair.
A few other families follow suit—kids being called back to shore, teenagers reluctantly leaving, the music turning off one truck at a time.
But we stay sprawled on our rocks, sun-drunk and content, letting the day wind down around us.
"Remember the guy who wanted us to make his car electric?" Finn asks Holt.
"By removing the engine and adding batteries," Holt says flatly.
"Yeah! And we were like, 'Sir, that's not how that works,' and he was like, 'But I saw it on the Tube!'" Finn sits up, animated. "We tried to explain that converting a car to electric requires actual engineering and he just kept insisting it was 'simple' because some guy on the internet said so."
"What did you do?" I ask.
"Told him to go back to the Tube," Holt says.
"We were very polite about it," Finn adds. "Extremely polite. Holt's 'polite no' is a thing of beauty. It's like getting rejected by a very professional wall."
"That's the nicest description of me I've ever heard," Holt says dryly.
"You're welcome. I'm full of compliments today. Must be the sun. Or the joy. Probably both."
I sit up to wring out my hair, twisting it over one shoulder, water dripping down my collarbone and between my shoulder blades, and when I glance up, Holt's watching me again. His gaze tracking the movement of my hands, the water sliding down my skin.
"Okay," Finn announces, standing and stretching, completely destroying whatever moment was forming. "I'm starving. Are we doing food on the way back or what? Because I could eat an entire pizza by myself. Maybe two pizzas. I'm thinking about three pizzas."
"That's too many pizzas," I say.
"There's no such thing as too many pizzas. That's offensive."
We pile back into the truck—same positions but the energy's different.
Satisfied, quiet, sun-tired contentment.
I've got my feet up on the dash, window still down, warm evening air rushing past. Finn sprawls in the middle, taking up more space than physically possible, and starts humming along to the radio.
"Today was perfect," he announces. "Best executive decision I've ever made. I should make more executive decisions."
"Please don't," Holt says.
"Too late. I'm inspired. I'm full of ideas. Tomorrow we're doing something else fun."
"Tomorrow we're working."
"Boring. Predictable. I expected more from you."
I find myself watching the landscape blur by, thinking about Holt's smile, about the way he looked at me in the water.
Finn starts snoring softly between us, head tilted back, mouth open, completely dead to the world. The sun's sinking lower, everything turning orange and purple, and we drive in silence the rest of the way back.
We pull into the garage lot just as the sun's kissing the horizon. Finn wakes up with a snort, mumbling something about pizza, and disappears into the shop still half-asleep and definitely sunburned.
"I'm ordering food!" he yells back at us. "What do you want?"
"Surprise me!" I call back.
"DANGEROUS WORDS! I'M ORDERING PINEAPPLE!"
"FINN, NO!"
"FINN, YES!"
Holt and I grab our stuff from the truck bed. I'm suddenly very aware that we're heading back to the loft together. To shared space. To close quarters where the awareness that's been simmering all day won't have the buffer of water and distance and Finn's mayhem to diffuse it.