Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 74298 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 248(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74298 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 248(@300wpm)
I pulled off my shirt. “Let’s go,” I said.
I took off toward the edge and didn’t let myself look down for too long. I jumped off, my legs tucked against my chest.
The water was a bracing rush of cold, but on a summer day like this, it was welcome. I stabilized under the water and swam up for air, surrounded by reddish rocks on almost all sides. I swam over to the patch of water that was in direct sunlight, and here, the water was a little pleasantly warmer. The perfect temperature.
I looked back just in time to see Tris and Shawn jump off at the same time, landing a few yards away from one another in big splashes. They swam up just as Nathan was wading in slowly from the shallow rocks on the other side, cradling a bunch of cans against himself.
“It’s fucking awesome, isn’t it?” Tristan said, swimming over to me.
“You guys are nuts for jumping in,” Nathan said. “But I brought some craft beers.”
He passed one to each of us and we floated over to a rock ledge, sat on it, and cracked the drinks open.
Shawn and Nathan got deep into the weeds in a conversation about their contracting business while Tris and I lounged back on the rocks, sipping our beers. A few puffy white clouds passed by above, with a bluebird sky behind them.
“It’s pretty unfair,” I said to Tristan, gazing up at the sky.
“What is?”
“How perfect it is here.”
“You did always strike me as someone who’d like it up here in the mountains,” Tristan said. “It just seems fitting.”
I watched the tiny drops of water run down along his neck. I wanted to lean in and kiss him there, but I figured he’d freak out if I ever did something like that in front of his siblings.
“I love it,” I said. “I knew I’d like it, and I somehow like it even more than that. You’re going to be happy here, Tris.”
He gave me a glance, looking from my eyes to the water and then back again. It seemed like there was some question there behind his eyes, something he wanted to say but couldn’t figure out how.
Was last night still burning in his brain the way it was in mine? The heat of our lips, the soft touch of our skin against each other, the desperate hardness of our cocks? Or was my earlier fear correct, and what I saw behind his eyes was nothing but regret?
I pushed that thought out of my mind.
“You were scared shitless doing that dive weren’t you?” Tristan finally asked, a mischievous look on his face.
Finally. Finally he was opening up to me a little again. Being playful, like he usually was.
“I was not,” I said.
“A little scared, right?” he goaded, reaching out across the water and giving me a tiny pinch on the side of my stomach.
“Ow,” I said. “And I wasn’t scared.”
“Come on, that didn’t hurt,” he said, reaching out again for my hip. I swatted away his hand and slipped off the rock into the water again, swimming in place near him. I held up my beer can with one hand out of the water.
It hadn’t hurt at all. But it had started making me hard, even having his hands on me in such a playful way.
Tristan chugged down the rest of his beer and placed the can on the rock, slipping down into the water after me. My can was nearly empty already too, and I put it over on the rock next to his.
“Race you to the waterfall?” I asked.
“Already ahead of you,” Tris said, splashing me as he instantly headed toward the waterfall in a breaststroke swim.
“Fucker,” I said, but I was already smiling as I took off after him, swimming as hard as I could.
He paused a couple of times on our swim to turn around and splash at me, and I retaliated back. It was a close race, but I peeled ahead right at the end, touching the slick rock beside the waterfall a moment before he did.
“Hate you,” he shouted, shoving back his wet hair with his hands. “You’re always such a good swimmer.”
“I have endurance,” I said.
Tristan hummed. “That is definitely true.”
The small waterfall was crashing down just behind Tristan now, and it looked like he had a halo of white, misty water behind him. But he still had that sad, faraway look in his eyes that he’d had all morning, and he wasn’t making much eye contact.
Fuck it. There was one way I could find out if he was no longer interested, and if he didn’t want me, I wanted to know it sooner rather than later.
I reached out to touch his hip under the water, but this time it wasn’t a playful pinch. I hooked my fingertips into the waistband of his swim trunks, using the leverage to pull myself closer toward him in the water.