Chapter 13 #2
But Jim underestimates my sister’s speed.
I guess all those pilates classes have paid off, because she rips it towards the red buoy that marks the turnaround point, her oversized life jacket doing nothing to reduce her velocity.
As soon as Matthew sputters up to the deck, heaving as he smacks Jim’s foot to give him clearance to go, Jim is off after her, his stocky arms moving faster than I’d thought possible.
Meanwhile, Arthur is down to his swim trunks and goggles, stretching on the dock like he’s about to run a marathon instead of drag behind a motorized diving scooter.
I look away when he starts in on his jumping jacks, unable to control the laugh that wants to burst out of my mouth.
But my cheeks immediately deflate when I lock eyes with Caleb.
He’s sitting up with Patricia, his face stony as ever as she whispers something to him.
After the sharkcident, it felt like Caleb and I finally had some sort of truce.
But now that he knows how I felt about him, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s borderline disgusted.
Why did I volunteer to do this, again?
As soon as Arthur and Harry set out on the seabobs, Caleb and I leap into the water to take our positions.
The trampoline is about twelve feet wide, and in the center lie two corrugated green pool noodles.
I climb onto the platform just before Caleb pulls himself up onto the surface, breaching the water and shaking out his hair like a model in a perfume ad.
His muscles look even bigger slicked with sea water.
If I’m going to knock him into the water first, I’m going to have to get creative.
Surprisingly, Arthur rips around the course and back to the trampoline before Harry even has the chance to touch the race buoy, giving me precious moments of lead time on my opponent.
And I’m going to need every advantage I can get.
As soon as Arthur smacks my hand, I drop to the ground and grab my pool noodle.
These aren’t ordinary noodles—they’re as thick as palm trees and coated in shiny green rubber.
Caleb smirks almost lazily at me as I lumber towards his weaponless body as if waiting for me to faceplant on the rippling black surface.
But as soon as I lift my noodle above my head, his nonchalant expression drops.
“Stella…“ he puts his hand up to block me, but I strike forcefully at his thighs. He leaps sideways as the noodle smacks against his skin, nearly knocking him off balance. No mercy will be shown today.
“Caleb,” I twirl the noodle playfully in the air. “I suggest you run.”
He darts back, using the sturdier edge to skirt around and get as far away from me as possible.
But as fast as he is, there’s only so far he can go on the small trampoline.
I lunge for him, reeling my noodle back and connecting with his ribs so hard there’s an audible smack.
He stumbles sideways and I swing again, this time clocking him in the stomach.
“Harry, I could use you right about now!” he wheezes in his teammate’s direction. But Harry’s Seabob has stopped completely. He floats in the water beside it several yards away, trying to dislodge something from its jet propeller.
“Looks like your backup’s indisposed,” I taunt. “If you surrender now, I’ll go easy on you.”
“Not a chance.”
He lunges for me, bare fisted, and I drop backwards as he collides with my pool noodle.
The foam deflects the worst of the blow, but I still lose my balance and end up bouncing on my butt across the trampoline.
I strike out from the ground with the noodle, catching the back of Caleb’s calves with a slap and hooking my hand around the other side, clotheslining him to the ground.
He barely wastes a second on his knees before he leaps for me, trying to wrestle the noodle out of my hands.
“You can tap out whenever you’d like, you know,” he pants as he pins me to the rubber. “There’s no shame in losing.”
I push upwards, bumping him in the chest and rolling over until I’m straddling him with only the foam between us. I may be tall, but I’m not nearly strong enough to push Caleb around. If I’m on top, it’s only because he’s letting me be.
“Remember that when you’re swimming with the fishes,” I grit out.
I raise the noodle over my head, readying for the death blow, and make the mistake of locking eyes with Caleb.
His blue eyes bore into me, leaving me as breathless as I was that first day on the beach.
For a second, I’m frozen in action, paralyzed by the sudden awareness of his body heat beneath me; his stomach muscles straining between my thighs.
The side of his mouth twitches and I can feel my arms lowering almost involuntarily.
Beads of salt gather across his lips- lips that are far too close to mine.
For a second, everything around us seems to disappear.
My thighs clench around the hard bones of his hips.
His hands on my sides, hands that were pushing me away, suddenly feel intentional, his calloused thumbs pressing into the ridge of my ribs.
In this moment I’m extremely grateful for my covert female anatomy, because the way Caleb is looking at me, the self-control function in my brain suddenly short-circuits.
“Kill her, Caleb!” I hear my traitorous sister shout from the deck, and just like that the spell is broken.
Caleb’s weapon of a smile twists into a grimace as he flings me over towards the edge like I’m nothing more than a dishrag.
I flail with the noodle, but it does nothing to dislodge him as he shoves me towards the water.
All I can do is reach out and cling to him with everything I have, attaching like a barnacle to his sun-warmed skin.
Somehow, it works—the momentum of his shove takes us both toppling into the sea.
Salt water shoots up my nose as I push off of Caleb and up to the surface, our bodies a tangle of foam and limbs and sunscreen grease.
I leave the noodle floating there in the foam and propel myself back towards the boat’s swim step.
What is wrong with me? Why do I keep letting this man get in my head?
“Ten points to Ravenclaw,” Steven jokes as he pulls me out of the water. “That was quite the fight you put up.”
“Does that mean we won?” I ask Matthew, who’s wrapped in a candy-striped towel a few feet away.
“Looks to me like a tie,” Patricia weighs in from her perch as Caleb pulls himself up to the deck and helps Harry after him. “Unless one of you remembers who hit the water first.”
“A tie?” Matthew asks incredulously. “Harry didn’t even finish his leg! I demand a rematch!”
“No way!” Jules practically shouts. “We clearly won—I saw Stella’s shoulder hit the water.”
Matthew whines, “did not!”
But Harry claps his brother on the shoulder.
“Matthew, if you want your victory shot, go ahead. No one’s stopping you. But I’m going to celebrate with a hot shower.”
“Coming right up,” Caleb says, pulling a glistening silver shower hose from a hidden compartment on the deck. He turns to Jules, who’s wringing her salty hair out with a towel.
“Good idea,” she says, reaching for the shower head. But Caleb holds it back.
“Allow me.”
He holds up the nozzle above her head and clicks it on so I can feel the warm spray splatter across the deck against my feet.
Jules may be much better behaved than she was when we were teenagers, but I can see in her eyes she’s still annoyed at the outcome of the race.
We’ll be lucky if she doesn’t rope us into some insanely complicated board game later to break the tie.
As soon as she’s finished rinsing off, I step into her place, anxious to wash off the salt and the memory of Caleb’s fingers. But instead of water on my head, I feel the warm spray against my knees. I turn to see Caleb holding out the hose to me, a look of displeasure on his face.
“Make sure you hang it up when you’re done,” he says as he drops it into my hand.
Humiliation gurgles in my stomach. That ass.
First he sabotages our foam fight with his smile, now he has the nerve to act disgusted by me in front of the whole family.
So much for our white flag. Without thinking, I lift the hose up to his turned back and pelt him with the spray. He turns back to me, indignant.
“Oops,” I tell him. “Slipped.”
He narrows his eyebrows and opens his mouth to say something, but stops when he sees someone approaching behind me. Gia is beside me in a flash, fresh towel at the ready.
“Thanks, Gia,” I say, but my eyes are still following Caleb.
So much for playing nice. Was he really that icked out by being pressed up against me on the trampoline?
Or was it the knowledge that I once thought he was sexy that set him off?
I have a choice here—buckle and take the cold shoulder, or be the first person in his adult life to call him on his bullshit.
So, still wrapped in my Warren crest embroidered towel, I stomp off after him.
“Caleb,” I call as I enter the salon. “I know you can hear me!”
But despite being less than twenty feet from me, Caleb doesn’t look back.
He marches across the room as fast as he can without breaking into a jog, heading straight for the galley.
I skirt to the side, trying to cut him off, and he redirects his steps towards Arthur and Patricia’s cabin instead. No, not their cabin, the elevator.