31. Chapter 31 #3
He didn't wait for an answer. Just turned around and backed up a few steps. Then he ran, hit the edge of the shore, and flung himself into the water with zero hesitation and a whoop that was pure joy. It echoed off the rocks and through the trees and into Beau’s toes.
A second later, Colt broke the surface. “Shit, that's fucking cold.”
“You don't say,” Beau drawled as he lowered himself to the edge of the pool and put his feet and lower legs in.
The cold was immediately soothing, crisp and biting against his hot skin. He was watching the pines swaying when a jet of water hit him square in the chest, shockingly cold. Colt stared at him with nothing but his eyes and the top of his head breaking the surface.
“You look like a hippo.” Beau leaned back on his palms.
Colt was smiling when he rose up again. “Nah. Maybe a whale.”
“Don't you dare,” Beau warned.
Too late. Colt was already under, swimming down to the bottom of the pool. Then he kicked up, broke the surface with a noise that sounded like a dying cat, and crashed back down sideways. The splash was huge, cresting up over the shore and soaking Beau up to his chest.
“You little—” Beau leaned down to grab Colt out of the water, hands searching through the wake left by that jump.
Colt burst out of the surface in a spray of water and grabbed Beau around his shoulders right before he braced his feet against the rocks and threw himself backwards.
The water crashed over Beau’s head in a shock of cold that was extra intense after the way he'd been sitting in the sun. His sunglasses fell off and floated away as Colt let him go and escaped, and Beau’s feet hit the rocky bottom.
“Christ,” he choked as he spit out his mouthful of water and pushed his hair back out of his face.
Where'd that shit go? Beau spun around, his shirt pasted to his body, the breeze almost frigid now. No sign of him except the ripple where he'd gone under to Beau's left.
He was still searching when hands wrapped around his ankles and yanked, and he dropped back into the water on his back. When he broke the surface again, Colt was a few feet away, twirling Beau's sunglasses in his hand and grinning like a fool.
“Mhmm.” Beau reached down to grasp the hem of his soaked tank top. He pulled it over his head and balled it up before tossing it onto the shore. “C'mere, boy.”
The sunglasses hung forgotten in Colt’s hand, and he was staring at Beau with wide eyes and pink cheeks.
Perfect. Beau used the moment to launch himself through the water like a torpedo.
Colt yelped and scrambled backward, but his frozen moment had cost him.
Beau dropped down on him and crushed him into the water, Colt’s limbs flailing everywhere.
The sunglasses fluttered away, and Beau pushed off of Colt to grab them as they tried to sink.
Before Beau could swim them back to shore, Colt shot up out of the water and grabbed Beau’s shoulders.
Beau’s feet didn’t reach the bottom anymore, and he slipped under the water.
Twisting, he grabbed Colt around the waist, arms slipping along slick skin, and pulled Colt under, too.
His sunglasses sank into the rocks as Colt wiggled and slid along Beau’s body until he was on Beau’s back.
When Beau was pulling himself out of the water a few feet closer to the shore where he had footing, Colt had both legs wrapped around his middle.
“Go, Willy, Go!” Colt yelled.
Beau’s cheeks hurt from smiling, his hair was dripping into his eyes, and he was cold everywhere except for where Colt was pressed along his back. “Did you just call me a whale?”
“Yes, now get back in the water where you belong.” As he spoke, Colt tried to pull Beau backward, grunting as he used all his strength.
Beau had expected it, though, and had his feet firmly planted, core tight.
Colt groaned and draped himself along Beau's back with his chin on Beau's head.
“I take it back, you're not a whale. You're a moose.”
Then Colt scrambled up and tried to push Beau forward instead, which was his mistake. Beau snatched Colt’s ankle the second his legs loosened their grip and tipped him back into the water with an echoing splash.
Colt didn't come up right away, but Beau knew his tricks now. He tracked Colt’s movements underwater, and by the time Colt launched himself up, Beau was already moving.
He bent his legs and wrapped both hands around Colt’s waist, warm and soft under Beau's calluses.
He followed Colt's momentum and used it to throw him bodily across the pool into the deep end.
A shriek that turned squeaky ripped out of Colt as he flew, rebounding off the rocks, rippling off the water, and startling a flock of birds into the air in a series of honks and chatter.
He came up sputtering and coughing, a thick water weed slapped across his face, and he tried to glare through it.
A laugh burst out of Beau’s chest like it had been dying to get out.