Page 63 of Came the Closest
Dropping my voice to a conspiratorial whisper, I grin. “I learned to swim so well that I bet I could beat your sister in a race to the buoy.”
Something between a laugh and a sob bursts from Milo. I shriek when Indi dips her paddle under the lake’s surface to flick water at me. The sudden movement nearly sends our board sideways until something steadies it.
I look up. Make that someone. Colton sits on the edge of the dock, his foot resting on the paddleboard directly behind me. He winks, and I inhale sharply. Which is basically just a deep inhale of him. Cologne and body wash and…coffee?
“What happened to your shirt?” I ask at the same time as Milo says, “Colt!”
“Captain!” Colton lifts Milo onto the dock beside him, but he keeps his foot on my board. His white dress shirt has an espresso stain on its front, and I tuck my lips between my teeth to smother a laugh. “As for the shirt, don’t ask. Let’s just say that barista-ing is not in my future, near or far. But,” he adds seriously, turning to Milo, “the tie made it out unscathed.” He lifts an arm to flex. “Freaky fast reflexes right here.”
“What,” Indi quips, “are you a Jimmy John’s ambassador now?”
Colton only wiggles his eyebrows suggestively.
“Wait a second.” If Colton is home—I grab his wrist to look at his watch. “Colton! It’s already five? How did it get so late? I need to get supper made, and—”
“Easy, Fini,” Colton cuts in. He turns the watch away from me, but he doesn’t pull his hand away. He flips it so his fingers close around mine and squeezes gently. “It’s almost four. I got off early today. The watch needs a new battery. According to Indi, it completed the suit and tie look.”
Indi shrugs sun-pinkened shoulders. “Fake it till you make it.”
I pull my hand from his grasp, but his touch isn’t why my cheeks heat. Colton has seen me in a swimsuit from adolescence on, but when he looks at me now, it’s different. Maybe because all I can remember is his hand resting over my abdomen. The protective rumble of his voice when he told me I would always be a mother.
Something that is evidenced by the slight softening of my body since my miscarriage. I’m in shape, and I’m healthy, but I don’t have a perfect body. I exercise frequently, especially in the summer, but I also eat most foods in moderation.
I’ll never be like the women he’s dated over the years, with perfect curves and perky chests and flawless faces of makeup.
The reverent way he’s looking at me now makes me feel like I’m on the dock with my dad all over again. But now it’s not the lake that terrifies me. It’s the fear of saying goodbye to the only man who has ever seen me for me when August swoops in next month.
Milo pokes Colton in the arm. “Hey. Do you know how to swim?”
“I do,” Colton says, shifting his focus away from me. He bumps his shoulder—more like elbow, given their size difference—into Milo’s. “Thought about putting on my suit and taking a dip right now, actually.”
“Do you wear a life jacket?”
Colton lifts a dark brow. “Do you want me to wear a life jacket?”
Shifting his gaze to the boards of the dock, Milo nods.
“Then yes. I’ll wear a life jacket.” Colton eases to his feet and holds out a hand. “C’mon. You can help me find one in the garage.”
Milo hesitates. “I can’t get in ‘cause I don’t know how to swim.”
“You don’t have to get in,” Colton tells him. “But you should probably sit on the dock while I do. Swimming is way more fun when you’ve got a buddy. Otherwise, who would I have to talk to?”
Milo laughs when Colton grabs both of his hands to lift him completely off the dock. His tiny life jacket rides up over his soft belly, and his little blue swim trunks have come untied at the waist. Colton waits until they’re on solid ground to swing Milo onto his shoulders, not worried about his shirt getting wet.
“Stop staring at my brother’s butt.” Indi’s dry tone captures my attention. “It’s weird.”
“Indigo,” I say as seriously as I can muster. “It is not my fault that your brother has a fantastic butt to look at.”
“Oh, my gosh, Cheyenne. Stop.” As she says it, she’s laughing. Then, like a summer thunderstorm blown in over calm water, her mood shifts. “By the way, Mom didn’t die from water. The last time Milo saw her alive, she was sitting on the dock behind Vincent’s house. She passed in her sleep that night.”
Emotion—the clawing kind that makes your throat scratchy—lodges in my chest. “Indi, that has to be hard for him.”
“Yes. But I don’t want him to be scared of the water. I mean, look around.” One hand on her paddle, she gestures to our surroundings. “It’s one thing to have a tainted memory from the past. It’s another to let that tainted memory determine your future.”
I swallow around the emotion, and I glance away. She’s talking about Milo, but it feels personal to me. Like something much scarier than jumping into the lake while being terrified of water.
Something that has a whole lot to do with falling in love with my best friend.