Chapter Twelve #2
She looked at me like she was reading the words I wasn’t saying. “You don’t have to be afraid to want things, hermana.”
I swallowed hard, unable to answer.
Maria lifted her chin and said brightly, “Thirty minutes. Everyone changed. At the dock.”
Then she marched off to find her swimsuit like she was leading a military mission. None of us moved, waiting for her to realize, and a second later she was back. “I have no idea where I’m going.”
Diego picked up her bag, I grabbed mine, and Mac led our little entourage up the stairs to the bedrooms. She and I were going to be sharing a cute little room with a massive king-size bed and Diego set her bag down before she shooed him out the door so we could change.
Maria immediately started rummaging through her bag like a woman on a mission.
“You’re sure you’re ok to swim?” I asked.
She shot me a flat look. “Holly, I’m fine. I can float.”
“People who ‘float’ don’t go around saying they’re rotund.”
“You said I wasn’t rotund.”
“That was me being nice.”
She reached into her bag and pulled out a purple maternity swimsuit that looked shockingly cute, then paused to squint at me. “Where’s yours?”
I held up the one-piece I had added to my bag after she left. Black. Simple. Conservative. Safe. The emotional equivalent of a brick wall. Maria stared at it like it offended her ancestors.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Maria—”
She marched over, plucked it from my hands, tossed it onto the bed, then went back to my duffel like a general conducting a search-and-seizure raid.
She let out a triumphant little sound when she found it.
The red one. The one that made me look like I had a waistline sculpted by the gods.
The one I had privately planned to wear in my room and then never again.
Maria shoved it at me. “Put. It. On.”
I wanted to argue. I did. But she was looking at me with those big brown mom-friend eyes, and I caved like a wet cardboard box. Ten minutes later, I was standing in front of the mirror wearing something that should have come with caution tape. Maria let out a low appreciative whistle.
“Damn, hermana. Jackson’s gonna die.”
“Maria.”
“He deserves it.”
“Maria.”
“He does! Mr. Macho Man, no feelings. Take that.”
“Maria.”
She winked at me, grabbed her towel, and waddled—yes, waddled, I said what I said—toward the stairs.
I stood alone for a second, staring at the girl in the mirror.
Legs too long. Stomach too tight. Skin that still didn’t always feel like mine.
And beneath it, the quietest sliver of something that hadn’t existed in years.
Want. I swallowed hard, grabbed my towel which I wrapped around me like armor, and followed.
Outside, Maria was hustling toward the shoreline with a determination I couldn’t help but admire.
I stood there watching her, knowing just how badly she needed this after the disaster that was prom.
Then Mac cleared his throat and I looked over at him.
He looked pointedly from me to the purple menace who was kicking off her flip-flops.
I groaned. “Oh my God. I’m responsible for her, aren’t I?”
“Yes,” all four boys said in unison.
I frowned at Diego, who was watching Maria closely. “Why aren’t you chasing after her?”
Jackson folded his arms. “Because she listens to you.”
I blinked. “No she doesn’t.”
“Yes she does,” Diego said.
“Maria,” I yelled, “Sunscreen! Sunscreen!”
Nothing. No reaction. I gave the four of them a pointed look and then we all trudged after the pregnant woman about to yeet herself into a lake.
She went to step off the dock and it wobbled precariously, which meant she did too. Diego was there in an instant. “Easy,” he said softly, offering both hands like she was made of clouds.
She smiled at him, the kind that could melt a glacier. “Gracias, Diego.”
He turned bright red. “Yeah. Yeah, of course.”
I had to look away because it felt like intruding on something private. Something soft and new.
Dalton, on the other hand, was across the dock announcing at top volume, “Mac hit me with a noodle and I’m pressing charges!”
Mac smacked him with the neon pool noodle again. “It was an accident the first time. This time was because you’re annoying.”
Jackson was shirtless—of course he was—sitting at the edge of the dock with his feet in the water, pretending not to listen but smiling that crooked grin that was so him.
His hair was brushed back. His shoulders were broad.
His jaw was bruised. My chest tightened so fast I almost tripped on the last step.
I caught myself, but not before my towel fell leaving in my bare skinned glory.
Jackson’s head snapped around, probably ready with some asshole remark, but the second his eyes landed on me—he froze.
Actually froze. Like someone had unplugged his entire brain.
His mouth opened slightly. Then shut. Then opened again like a fish desperately trying to survive on land.
His eyes dragged over me once, then jerked away like the sun had slapped him.
Good. Suffer.
I tried to walk normally, like a girl who wasn’t painfully aware of every square inch of exposed skin. The wood was warm against my feet. The lake smelled like pine and sunscreen and summer.
Maria eased into the water with Diego, who kept one hand hovering near her back like he was ready to catch her if gravity betrayed her.
Dalton cannonballed off the end of the dock and came up screaming, “Fuck! That’s cold.”
Mac dunked him under the water with one hand. “Hush.”
Chaos. Pure chaos.
And Jackson. He stared at the water like it had personally wronged him, shoulders tight, jaw ticking. Every few seconds his gaze flicked toward me, then snapped away like touching a hot stove. I stopped beside him, arms crossed, voice low. “You planning to jump, or just brood dramatically?”
“I don’t brood.”
“You literally are brooding. Right now. In front of me.”
He cracked his neck, eyes still on the water. “Maybe I’m thinking.”
“You thinking usually looks like brooding.”
“Malibu.”
“Jackson.”
That earned me a sideways glance. Slow. Careful. Like he was afraid if he looked directly at me, something inside him would break. I sat down next to him, close enough to feel the heat from his skin. He sucked in a breath like the proximity hurt.
“Relax,” I muttered. “I’m not here to bite.”
“You don’t have to bite,” he said quietly. “You do plenty of damage with just your mouth.”
My heart stuttered. I tried very hard not to imagine any alternative meanings to that sentence.
“Are you trying to flirt with me or piss me off?” I asked.
“Yes.”
I hated how good he was at this. How my pulse jumped every time his knee brushed mine.
“Malibu,” he murmured, almost under his breath.
“Hmm?”
“Go swim.”
“You go swim.”
Before either of us could say a word, we were shoved off the dock. Dalton at some point had climbed back onto it and used the distraction to creep up behind us.
Jackson surfaced with a curse then huffed something that might have been a laugh, then immediately looked horrified with himself for doing it.
God. He was stupidly cute. This time when he glanced at me, I wasn’t able to hold back my smile. Dalton stood in the dock triumphantly. We ignored him.
I swam backward farther into the lake, holding Jackson’s gaze.
“Come on, Morgan,” I teased. “Or are you scared of a little cold water?”
He splashed me, and I shrieked as freezing water exploded over me.
Dalton cheered. Mac yelled at him for almost knocking the dock loose. Maria cackled like a gremlin.
I glared at Jackson. Then I dove. Straight at him. When I surfaced inches away, he went perfectly still. We were almost nose to nose.
I pushed my wet hair back. “I grew up on the water. I got moves you don’t even know.”
He swallowed.
Then—voice low, almost strangled—said: “Is that so?”
And just like that, I felt my cheeks go as red as my swimsuit.
The lake water was cold enough to make my bones file complaints with HR, but after the first shock, it felt good—clean, alive, like something I hadn’t felt since California.
Maria eventually perched on the lower dock steps, letting the water lap at her legs.
Dalton dragged Diego away from her and the two of them got into a wrestling match in the water.
Mac joined in, and Dalton did his best to drown his brother.
Jackson did his usual routine—act like he wasn’t watching me, fail spectacularly, then pretend he had been looking at a tree the whole time.
The chaos eventually tapered off, and by late afternoon, the six of us drifted into the lazy warmth of the day like sleepy lizards.
Maria and I sprawled out on towels near the waterline while the boys took turns roughhousing and occasionally “checking the firewood situation,” which I suspected was code for “let’s stand somewhere and secretly watch the girls. ”
Maria nudged me with her elbow, eyes closed behind her sunglasses. “You know he keeps staring.”
“Please,” I said, pretending to be unbothered. “They stare because we’re the only women here and one of them is literally pregnant.”
She hummed, unimpressed. “Uh-huh. And the other one is wearing red.”
I smacked her with my towel.
A soft breeze combed through the trees. I glanced over my shoulder, watching Mac carry one of the coolers to the deck where Jackson was pulling off the cover of a massive silver grill.
Everything felt warm and loud and alive.
For the first time in a long time, Maria’s face didn’t look pinched.
She was sun-drowsy and glowing, one hand idly resting on her stomach.
“You happy?” I asked quietly.
She didn’t open her eyes. “I forgot I could be.”
My throat tightened. “Good. You deserve this.”