LAUREN
At exactly two-thirty that afternoon I was being buzzed through the gates of the Weston Hills Pool Club. Butterflies swirled in my stomach at the thought of what I was about to do.
Swim lessons.
I’d been putting this off for the past four years, ever since I’d been out of my parents’ house and old enough to decide for myself. I’d always made some excuse—too busy with school, I didn’t have a way to get myself to lessons, I was broke.
But then I started making money of my own and I bought a car, and my class load, well, that had never really been an issue. School had always been easy for me, even college. What it really boiled down to was that I was a full-grown woman who was afraid to swim.
But clearly I wasn’t going to just magically overcome that fear on my own.
Noah might not have been the hero I’d been hoping for, but he’d been right about that at least: it was time I enlisted some professional help.
I gripped the steering wheel as I made my way up the long, winding hill toward the entrance. Noah had warned me this place was swank, but when I rounded the final curve and caught a glimpse of the building it seemed less like someplace you took swim lessons and more like an upscale hotel, complete with valet service.
The butterflies launched into assault mode. I was so out of my element here.
I was more worried, though, that if I didn’t figure this whole swimming thing out, I might have to admit that my parents had been right all along—swimming was dangerous.
I’d lived in the shadow of their fears my entire life, even if I’d never heard the whole story behind them.
I wasn’t stupid though. My mother’s family had fled Cuba when she was just a girl, and there was no way that wasn’t, at least in part, at the root of her anxiety. She never talked about that part of her childhood. It was a taboo subject in our house. But I’d gathered enough information on my own about—those voyages had been treacherous. Overcrowded and plagued with disease and starvation, and those were the boats that had withstood the crossings. Some sank with everyone onboard.
If I were her, I might not ever want to set foot near water either.
But that was the thing. I wasn’t her. And for as long as I could remember I’d wanted to swim. Now was my chance.
After parking my own car—yes, thank you, I can still handle that much myself—I checked in at the front counter. A girl who was barely in puberty slid some release forms across the counter. Basically, I was promising not to sue the club if I drowned—like that made any sense.
Then she handed me a key to a locker and told me to meet my instructor in the pool at three sharp.
The locker room was nothing like the ones we’d had in gym class at my high school. Everything about this place was ultra-fancy, and only made the butterflies worse.
I slammed the beechwood locker closed and followed the signs to the outdoor pool deck, which was just beyond the ladies’ locker room.
I stopped short when I saw that the pool was already swarming with little kids and I wondered if I was in the wrong place, or if I’d been confused about where I was supposed to meet my instructor.
I glanced around uncertainly for someone who could help me, but all I saw were parents huddled together on metal bleachers on the other side of the pool. I doubted they had the answers I was looking for.
Cutting back through the locker room, I went to the front desk.
“I think there’s some sort of mistake,” I told the girl, who looked annoyed when she was forced to tear her eyes away from her iPhone. “I’m supposed to be taking a swim lesson, but there are a bunch of kids in there.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “What? In the Beginning Swim class?” Then she looked back down at her phone, already losing interest in my dilemma. “You should be out there too. Class starts in T minus sixty seconds.”
“I . . . um . . . Beginning Swim . . . ?” Crap. The kids. The lesson. “Is . . . is Beginning Swim a kids’ class?”
The girl stopped just short of rolling her eyes, but the eye-roll was implied in her tone. “Technically, it’s an all-ages class. For beginners.” She enunciated beginners like I was slow.
All ages. It was all ages. Me and a bunch of children.
I could leave. Walk away now and forget all about this swimming nonsense. Give up and admit defeat.
The girl behind the counter read my mind. “Do you want a refund?”
I totally did.
But . . . double crap.
I also didn’t.
She’d said that other thing too—that part about the lesson being for beginners—and I was as beginner as they came.
Who cared if I would be the oldest kid in the pool? No one outside of this place would ever have to know. Just me and those kids and their helicopter parents. Odds were, I’d never run into any of them ever again, right?
I didn’t answer the girl about the refund because, to be perfectly honest, she didn’t deserve an answer. I couldn’t give up now.
I was New Lauren. California Lauren, and I could do this.
I spun on my heel and marched right back out to the pool deck.
And that’s where I saw Will. Standing near the edge of the pool, looking for all the world like he owned the place.
Apparently this was New Will I was witnessing, because this was so not the Will I’d met that first night at The Dunes who licked tequila from my navel. Or even the same Will who’d been on the beach last night, when he’d caught his girlfriend cuddled up with another guy.
This Will was trying to coax one particularly terrified little girl off the top step.
“Gracie,” he was saying in a voice I would never, not in a million years, have expected to come out of his mouth as he stretched his hand toward her. “How ’bout we make a deal, you and me? You only have to try this one lesson, and if you still hate the water, you don’t ever have to come back here again.” It wasn’t hard to guess which mom belonged to the little girl, because there was only one who was standing over the little girl’s shoulder, biting her lip so raw it looked like it might bleed any second.
But Will didn’t look nervous at all. His patience seemed endless, as he concentrated solely on the little girl in front of him.
The girl frowned, her lips puckering as she considered his proposal. “Pinkie swear?” she finally asked, not looking the least bit convinced.
Will eased closer to her, raising his hand out of the water and lifting his pinkie toward her. “Pinkie swear,” he told Gracie as if they were the only two people in the entire pool club.
She reached out and wrapped her tiny finger around his, and when the deal was sealed, her narrow shoulders visibly relaxed. This time, when Will held his hand out for her, she let him lead her down to the second step, and then the third, where she bounced up and down anxiously, waiting for the lesson to start.
There was still time to change my mind; Will still hadn’t noticed me yet. Maybe New Lauren was okay with chickening out.
Then Will glanced up.
Confusion scrolled over his face, and even before I had the chance to register anything else, he’d lifted Gracie back to the top step. “Wait here a sec, will ya?”
And he was coming out of the pool. Right toward me, water dripping off of him.
Ho-ly. Hell.
How many six-packs could one set of abs have?
I told myself to look away. For my own good. Looking at him was like looking at the sun, too much intensity in one white-hot package. Wasn’t this exactly how people went blind?
But unlike at the Sand and Slam, this was broad daylight and there was no more guessing what he’d been concealing under those tight T-shirts of his. I could make out ever sinew and every muscle of Will’s chest.
He cocked his head at me as he shook the water from his bronzed skin. “Hey, Brown Eyes!” My cheeks flushed all degrees of hot when I realized I was just standing there, gaping. I’d lost complete control of my ability to move.
When did I become the girl who was so easily captivated by a nice piece of man candy?
“What are you—” he started, then his eyes slid down to my swimsuit, and now he was the one staring.
I felt my face get even hotter, if that was possible.
Then he cleared his throat and reached for a clipboard lying on top of a duffle bag. He did a quick scan of the roster, and without missing a beat, gave me a knowing look. “Okay, yeah. So, go ahead and get in the pool with the rest of the class. We were just about to get started.”
“What are you even doing here?” I squeaked in a voice so high-pitched probably only dogs could hear it.
But somehow Will had understood, because he answered. “Remember that jack-of-all-trades thing? Well, this is one of them. I work here too.”
My brain glitched. Will is my instructor . . . Will is my instructor . . . Will is my instructor . . .
I blinked, trying to force my thoughts under control, because this . . . this was nuts. It was bad enough I was in Beginning Swimming with the little kids, but now Will was teaching the class?
Will was “the friend” Noah knew who taught lessons. It was bad enough No way could I let Will teach me. I never should have come here in the first place.
“I . . . this was just a misunderstanding,” I said, and turned to make my escape back into the locker room, my bare feet slapping hard against the concrete.
But Will stopped me. “Hey, hold up a sec.” I was glad his voice was low. This was the last conversation I wanted to have in front of prying little ears. His head dipped closer to mine. “I know this must be tough for you.” My skin betrayed me by peppering with goose bumps the moment his fingers reached out to mine. “But it’s not a bad idea.” He frowned. “You were right to get mad at me last night, when I said you were stupid for trying to teach yourself to swim. I didn’t mean to insult you, but what you did was . . .” He ran his hand through his hair. “It was reckless, Brown Eyes. But this is what I do. I teach people to swim—let me help you.” I told myself not to look into his eyes, but when I heard the urgency in his voice, I couldn’t stop myself.
And that’s when he had me. He wasn’t lying.
Dammit.
My shoulders wilted as I peered past him. “Okay, fine. Yes, but . . .” I grimaced, not even sure where to start. “Not like this. Not with a bunch of . . . toddlers.” I nodded toward the pool, where several of the kids were trying to keep their heads above water as they balanced on their tiptoes.
Will chuckled. “Come on, these kids are well past toddling.” And just when I was about to let him know I wasn’t in the mood to be teased, his fingers squeezed mine. “Look, don’t be that way. It’ll be okay. Let me show you.” He coaxed me forward, and even though each step closer to the water made my chest tighten with anxiety, his grip was sure and comforting. And before I could run away, I was standing at the water’s edge.
I should have objected—this whole thing was ridiculous. But I didn’t want to. I need this lesson, I justified. Plus, there was that part of me that . . . even after everything I’d witnessed, couldn’t help being drawn to Will.
Before I could back out entirely, he made an announcement. “Class,” he said, and just like that all eyes were on him. “Today I have a special surprise for you.”
I suddenly wished I’d drowned in the ocean after all. I stood awkwardly, feeling like there was a spotlight shining down on me. Even the parents waited to see what Will had to say.
Will’s hand settled on the small of my back. “We’re going to have a helper for class! Say hi to Lauren.”
A helper. So that was how he was planning to play this.
I could live with that.
I glanced down at the gap-toothed grins as the kids in the pool waved at me.
They were sort of adorable. Maybe this wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.
I turned to Will and he smiled at me, not gap-toothed at all, and a different kind of butterflies erupted. “Okay,” I agreed. “Let’s do this.”