Endless Summer

He came back dragging a beanbag float and nearly knocked the legs out from under a few folks. He dragged it right over the quarters game, scattering the boys, and would have spilled the beer if someone hadn’t been faster. en he dropped the float into the lake and kicked off the part of it that sagged over the dock. He gestured toward it and gri

I had my doubts about this. e lake was black, and the sky was black with faraway stars. But anyone who drove their boat to the party this late would know to dock at the marina where there was more room. We were safe. I shrugged off Adam’s sweatshirt and— without looking to see if Sean was watching me, very important—slipped into the hot water. I hadn’t realized my butt was frozen solid from the cold dock. The lake was such a relief. Ahhhhh.

Until Adam did a ca

“Aaaadaaaaaaaam!” they all cried. He chuckled softly to himself as we held onto the raft and kicked it out into the lake, beyond the glow of light from the house.

He stopped kicking and crawled higher on the raft, straddling it. “Come up here with me.”

e beanbag raft was filled with floaty bits rather than air and always seemed in danger of sinking. is could be a

“Now. Where were we?” He put both his strong arms around me, pulled me close, and kissed me hard.

I hadn’t thought this was possible, but it was even better than before, because no one was watching. Which was actually my new problem with it. I put my hand on his chest to stop him.

He groaned in frustration. I made a mental note to make him groan in frustration more often. It seemed like something a treacherous girl would do. Also he was really cute when he groaned.

“I just wanted to know,” I breathed, “why we’re doing this where no one can see us.”

“We think no one can. We thought no one was watching us at the bridge. We need to act the part all the time, and never step out of character.” He put his hand on my arm. “If that’s okay.”

I nodded. I was still nodding as he pushed me gently backward until I was lying down on the raft, and he was lying on top of me. His whole weight was on me, but he didn’t squash me because I was hovering on the raft, just under the surface of the warm water. I felt him along me. Almost every inch of his skin touched almost every inch of mine.

I watched the skull and crossbones glinting in the starlight, and tried to impress it on my retinas so I’d still see it when I closed my eyes to kiss him again. This was Adam, not Sean. I was after Sean, not Adam. Adam was after Rachel, not me. And if kissing Adam was better than anything I’d ever dreamed of doing with Sean… well, I could see how that was going to mess up my plans.

I kissed him anyway. The skull and crossbones lay on my throat.

“And when you kiss me,” I said against his lips, “you’re thinking about Rachel. Right?”

Almost before I got the last word out, he was kissing me again, harder than before, so intense I got lost in it and thought I might drown in the blackness even though my head was still above water.

I pinched his ass.

He yelped, and the yelp echoed across the lake and back. Silhouettes moved far away on the dock, peering in our direction without seeing.

“Did you hear me?” I asked.

He propped himself far enough above me to be able to see me. With one finger he smoothed a strand of wet hair away from my face. He traced the line of my cheek down to my chin. “Do you want to stop? Tell me and I’ll stop.”

“I don’t want to stop,” I said. e absolute truth, for the first time in a week. “But how far are we going with this?” Adam was used to jumping off the roof. I wasn’t.

These were dangerous waters.

He moved to my ear again, and my body braced for the shockwaves. Just before his lips touched my skin, he whispered, “I guess we’ll know when we get there.”

“S-bend or what?” Adam asked me, gri

I’d just climbed out of the water after landing the S-bend! And even though he’d dried in the hot sun and hugging me must have been a cold, wet shock, he wrapped his strong arms around my life vest and hugged me hard. Best of all, Adam acting this way wasn’t an unexpected hostess gift wrapped in Valentine’s paper anymore. It was part of being his girlfriend. I was getting used to it, and I loved expecting it.

Saturday we’d gone mud riding. en we’d parked in the movie theater lot, watched the trucks go by, and just talked. We’d shared a milkshake. I was totally immune to his germs by now. Monday after di

I could have sworn Adam hadn’t thought of Rachel, either. When he kissed me (often! really kissed me!), it felt like he was thinking of me, not her. Yeah, he could have been faking. But as he’d said that first night at the te

And it would come crashing down around us any minute. Adam never looked over his shoulder to make sure Rachel was watching us when he kissed. He did check Sean’s reaction. I knew Mr. Vader was wrong about which of his boys was stabbing the other in the back, but I also knew Adam wouldn’t walk away after being stabbed, any more than Sean would. So I enjoyed my time alone with Adam as much as I could. Whenever Sean came around, I held my breath, waiting for the fall.

It wasn’t so long a wait. e boys looked harmless enough this afternoon. Adam, Cameron, and my brother had had fantastic wakeboarding runs, too. ey’d finally gotten their wakeboarding legs back, as good as last year. Cameron and McGillicuddy lounged across the seats in the boat, basking in the late afternoon sunshine like big golden retrievers, watching me drip on the platform and wagging their tails vaguely. ey felt what I’d been feeling since the first day we went out: sated with happy exertion. High.

Sean lay flattened across the bow seat, but not for the same reason. He hadn’t taken his turn yet. He said he didn’t want to miss a call from Rachel. She’d pla

Beyond the windshield that separated us from him, we heard his cell phone ring Nickelback’s “Fight for All the Wrong Reasons.” We knew it was Rachel calling him back. And when his curse word burst over the windshield, we knew what she’d said hadn’t been very nice.

Adam shrugged and turned back to me. Unlike Sean, he didn’t flirt with me by assisting me with things I was perfectly capable of doing myself. He didn’t help me off with my equipment. He did sit on the back of the boat and watch me appreciatively. When I took off my life vest, he surveyed my bikini-clad hotness (ha) and gave me a naughty smile. I untied my bindings and lifted one foot out. He licked his lips like he had a foot fetish. I burst into laughter.