Chapter 15 #2
“Stop! I can see you still moving!” My tough-sounding words were unfortunately muffled by my deranged laughter as I retreated backward.
I tried pleading with his rational side.
“Listen, I straighten my hair every three days. It takes an hour in the morning. An HOUR. I just did it today. So if you throw me in, then it will all be wasted.”
Jake looked over at Sophie, who was watching us with a cautious air of anticipation. “That doesn’t seem like our problem, does it, Soph?”
Instinctively, I knew that if Jake throwing me in the water would bring a smile to Sophie’s face, I’d allow it. Though, one more quick glance at the arms that repeatedly roped cattle, hauled hay bales, and threw his daughter in the air, had me wondering if I would have much choice if he caught me.
“Tuck, getting thrown in a pond by a guy you like is flirting 101,” Jake said, stepping out of the water.
“Yeah, but that’s not what this is,” I said, fighting for one last bit of reason. He ignored me, no doubt propelled forward by the sound of Sophie’s excited squeals.
I wasn’t sure how he got to the edge that fast. My eyes drifted downward, noting his bare feet, before calculating the distance up the dirt hill to the gravel pathway. There was a chance I could—
Suddenly Jake bolted forward, causing me to panic and flail up the mountainside with mud-crusted feet and octopus arms.
We were both laughing by the time he caught me, but I wasn’t this tall and strong to fold like a deck of cards.
He turned me around to face him and pulled, my heels digging in the soft ground toward the pond.
My hands found a branch from a tree and clung as hard as I could before Jake tickled my armpit, causing me to laugh harder and drop my grip.
He picked me up, swung me into his arms, holding me cradled in front of him. His sudden warmth and his fingers on my legs had me blurting what I hoped would at least buy me some time.
“Easton asked me out, and I accidentally said yes.”
He stalled his determined stride toward the water and looked down at me with furrowed brows. “Huh?”
I wiggled out of his arms, and to my surprise, he let me go. Straightening my clothes, I took a step back and dared a glance at him.
“It’s your fault. You told me to go back and flirt with him. I must have been amazing at it, by the way, because he asked me out. And then I was so flustered that I said yes, and he’s picking me up tomorrow night.”
After a long moment, Jake said, “Okay. Why are you acting like that’s a bad thing?”
“Doesn’t that go against what you and I are trying to do?”
He laughed, rubbing water droplets from his face. “It’s fine. It’s tomorrow night?”
I nodded.
“Then nobody will find out. It will be good practice. Maybe you and Easton will hit it off, and you’ll keep dating in Boise.”
“Yeah, because that’s happened before.”
Something flashed in Jake’s eyes that caused my stomach to clench. He shook his head slowly before taking a step toward me.
“What did you say?”
There was an edge to his voice that instantly had my guard up. Confused, I began backing up, away from him, matching his pace step for step.
“What?” I asked.
“Were you doubting yourself again? After all our talks?”
“No…” I lied, trying to recall what I had said.
“You were.”
I immediately bolted up the hill, retracing my steps to no avail. His arms wrapped around me, lifting me up in the air, my back at his stomach, as he began slowly walking us both back down to the pond. Sophie’s delighted squeals were only encouraging him.
“Listen,” he began, his voice in my ear causing goosebumps to ripple down my arms. “I would lose sleep at night if I were to mess up your hair. You know that, right?”
“Liar,” I spat as a laugh bubbled out of me. Jake wasn’t slowing down, so I went limp, attempting to free myself from his embrace.
He gripped me tighter, and my fighting definitely became more for show.
“But then I see you’re still spouting off bull crap about thinking people still don’t want to date you. Even after he ASKED YOU OUT. So, unless you can come up with ten nice things to say about yourself right now, I’m throwing you in the pond.”
“Ten?!” I squealed in outrage, but his arms refused to move from their vise grip around my waist. My feet dangled in front of us as he stepped into the water.
“You'd better think fast. You’ve got thirty seconds.”
“Dunk her, Daddy!” came the excited voice of a pint-sized traitor.
“Two against one,” he taunted, my breath catching as the cold water nipped at my legs. “You'd better start talking.”
My mind scrambled through years of self-doubt and never feeling like I measured up to the standards around me. But I did have one thing.
“I like my straight hair!” My hands jerked wildly. “I’m insanely vain about it, and I would be devastated if somebody messed it up right now.”
Jake snorted and moved us farther out. “That’s one.”
We were getting closer; I was going to have to rapid-fire a few things off.
“I like my legs!”
He didn’t slow but did make a strange noise. “You came up with that pretty fast.”
“They’re spectacular,” I lied.
“Agreed.”
My mouth was open to say something else when that low mumble of his, rumbling in my ear, stopped me, effectively scrambling the rest of my brain and sending electricity charging up and down my veins.
Jake must not have noticed the effect of his words because he continued to goad and tease as he led us farther into the water, even more so when I didn’t…couldn’t say anything else.
I needed to care about my hair right now.
I would definitely care about it tomorrow morning.
But the only thing my mind could compute was that somewhere in the timeline of our friendship, Jake had looked at my legs and thought they were spectacular.
Definitely not with that exact word. I can’t imagine Jake actually using a word like that. But…something like that.
I wasn’t sure how a girl was supposed to recover from this knowledge. This awareness. This tiny, microscopic breach in our code of conduct.
And he didn’t even realize what his admission had done.
“Tuck, I’m ten seconds away from dunking you. Keep talking.”
“My freckles.”
He shot me a look, probably remembering all the times I complained about the persistent spots overtaking my face every summer.
“I love them now,” I said, hoping that I sounded confident. Maybe I did love them. It was quite possible I had been wrong about everything I thought about myself.
Jake liked my legs.
Such a dumb thing to fixate on, but here I was. Fixated.
Jake dropped me gently in front of him, my back pressed against his stomach as he held me hostage.
“Keep going. No more physical things, you big cheater. We both know you’re fine in that department.”
I blinked.
No, we didn’t.
We didn’t know that.
What was happening?
Was Jake playing me? Was this part of his coaching? Tell the poor girl nice things about herself, and then she’ll start to believe it? If that was his play, I should be able to tell a mile away. He was a good actor, but I knew all his tricks.
But…I couldn’t tell.
He said the words so matter-of-factly, like he wouldn’t have ever thought otherwise. Like I should never have thought otherwise.
“Daddy, throw her in!”
Jake hesitated for a moment, but when I still didn’t answer, I felt his hands on my spectacular legs as he picked me up, like a girl on the cover of a romance novel.
“Any last words?” He looked at me, eyebrows raised.
I was done. Spent. He could do his worst, and I’d probably walk out of this pond with a giant grin on my face.
“Nope.”
He shifted me, adjusting his grip. “How about I give you some, then?”
My heart rate picked up as I stared at him, transfixed, my feet dangling. Weightless. All of this with Sophie watching. Had Jake forgotten she was there?
“What?”
Flashing me his trademark grin, he said, “I’ve always liked your curls.”
That was the last thing he said before I found myself flying and plunging into the cold water.