Page 65 of Tutored in Love
“Ah,” she said. “Good incentive to swim fast too.”
Noah nodded. “Our family didn’t do much during the summer, but one of our apartments had a pool. It was lame but wet. Matt and I were there almost every day.”
“I bet.”
Noah handed a bucket to Rosa and sent her to get someaguafor the moat. “He loved to dunk me, but once I learned to hold my breath and swim away underwater, he mostly gave it up.”
“Aren’t older siblings a joy?”
“You have an older brother?”
“Sisters.”
Noah agreed, as if he knew this would also be terrible, though he had no experience growing up with females. It had only ever been him and Matt. “How many?” he asked.
“Four,” Vanessa said.
“Wow. That’s a lot of—”
“Hand-me-downs,” she finished. “I think I was twelve before I had a pair of new jeans all to myself. By then I was taller than the rest of them, so I got the new ones.”
“They must not be very tall.”
Vanessa laughed. “They aren’t.”
“I mean, you’re only—” he looked at her, judging her height.
“Five-seven, on the nose. They’re all five-three or less. I’m even a hair taller than my dad.”
“Huh. Where did your height come from?”
“Beats me.” She shrugged, taking the wall-form she had filled and setting it carefully next to the last one. “They called me Mutant.”
Noah shook his head. “Nice.”
“Yeah, they were always looking out for me,” she said sarcastically, her gaze straying to the action on the beach—landing on Garth, if Noah wasn’t mistaken.
“So... country dancing?” Noah said, referring to the fun fact she’d shared.
Vanessa’s eyes narrowed as they returned to Noah. “Yeahhhh?” she said, drawing it out as a question.
“I never would have guessed,” Noah said. He watched Garth, who looked a little strange without his boots, and remembered Grace saying something about John Wayne once. “What is it about cowboys, anyway?”
Vanessa closed her eyes and grinned. “Mmm, cowboys.”
“I don’t get it.”
She opened her eyes, still smiling. “Broad shoulders, chivalry, horses, and that tip of the hat with a ‘Howdy, ma’am’?” She sighed. “Gets me every time.”
“So if I take some riding lessons and get a cowboy hat, that will improve my datability?”
She laughed. “I can’t see you in a cowboy hat, somehow. Nah, you’ve got your own thing going.”
“I do?”
“Sure, Aquaman.” Vanessa’s eyes flicked down to the beach to where Grace, Alec, and Garth were volleying a beach ball with the kids and then back to Noah. “You just have to let it show.”
Let it show? How on earth was Noah supposed to do that when he didn’t even know what “it” was?