Unmaking Hunter Kennedy (38 page)

He noted the bright, Colorado-blue sky above as he contemplated his new phobias: gnome girls, mermaids and impossible love.

As if on cue, Vere dove into the water, grabbed his arm, and yanked him up.

31: guy language

VERE

“UGH!” Vere shouted, trying to catch her breath. “Why do guys always hold their stinking breath under water for as long as possible? Charlie does it! My dad does it! Every guy I’ve ever known does it! Guys suck when they swim.”

She and Dustin were treading water facing each other. She pushed her heavy, wet hair off her face. She hadn’t had time to bun it before jumping in when Dustin didn’t surface—in what she deemed—an appropriate time for him to come up.

“It’s what guys do. What can I say?” Dustin laughed, but it wasn’t his usual, easy laugh. It sounded forced.

“Not funny.” She glowered, scanning his face to see if he was okay. She was relieved when he added his usual impish grin, but realized he wasn’t wearing the retainer or the glasses.

How she’d forgotten—how she’d missed—his real smile and his real over-the-top beautiful face outside of the ugly hats he wore. She felt so comfortable around him. When had she begun to take his amazing looks for granted? Or...had she? Because right now he was so amazingly stunning with drops of water all over him, she was pretty sure she wasn’t taking it for granted.

So he’s beautiful.

So I notice.

So what? I can’t turn off my eyes, right?

“First time to hold my breath in a lake though.” His voice sounded more normal that time. Had she imagined the tension in it? “I wasn’t under there that long,” he added.

She cupped her hand, filled it with water and splashed him. “You were too. I bet you knew it freaked me out.” She splashed him again, this time harder to show she was serious about the freaked out part.

His eyes suddenly struck her as bluer than she remembered. Maybe it was the sky, reflecting into the lake with the bright sun? Or maybe it was because he seemed to be looking really deeply into her eyes.

She swam closer and scanned his entire face again. “Your hair seems to be lightening up a bit all over. You might want to re-color it soon, before your roots grow out?” she said finally, when she realized she’d stared too long all over again.

“Yeah. It’s on my list. I’ve been hiding it non stop. Don’t worry.” He shook out his wet hair.

Vere was close enough to reach over and move one long, wet strand out of his eyes. “I could trim it again,” she said absently.

“Wait.” He smiled. “You’re going to have to repeat that move in one second. I’m not the best swimmer...so I need my hands to keep me floating.” He shook out his hair again, deliberately spraying her face with the water from his hair.

She laughed, and obligingly moved the wayward piece of dark brown hair again. She liked how it stayed put, just where she set it.

“Thanks. Where’s your sidekick?” he asked.

“Jenna’s with my parents. She wanted to bag one more big peak for the season.” Vere shook her head, unable not to keep studying the angles and planes of his face, remembering the first time she’d ever seen him.

She figured it was a darn good thing Jenna had decided to go on the hike with her parents because, duh and
holy cow
. There was no disguising this guy in this lake.

Worse, before Dustin had jumped in, Vere’s gaze had been stuck on his ‘award winning six-pack’ like a staring weirdo.

Ding-dingity-ding!

And the first prize goes to Mr. WOW! Did you see that dive off the dock?

She had also not missed his perfect, muscular, biceps, and shoulders. And legs...and all of him!

Stupid assets! Jeez.

Encouraging this guy throw on a suit and swim had been a very bad idea. Jenna would have tagged all of that muscular perfection right away. She would have started asking questions. She would have flung herself at him. Or worse!

Mega-bullet dodged.

Vere tried to erase the image of his perfect
assets
from her mind as she taunted him by swimming around in a circle using her best side stroke.

He spun along with her, keeping his shoulders under the water, but turning along with her strokes, facing her the whole time. His gaze was pensive. An expression she’d never seen before, and she thought she’d seen them all.

She wondered if he was going to bring up her crying attack and lame eavesdropping. They still hadn’t talked about it yet, so she knew it was inevitable.

Does his look mean: Awkward conversation comes next?

Hoping to avoid it, she splashed him with a big arc of water, and paddled backwards away from him.

His brows shot up. “Oh. Oh you want to play that, do you?”

“Yep.” Because
that
, Vere could handle way better than how her heart felt when she thought about him being sad for so long without any friends. She added, “But beware. Tangle with me, you’ll lose. I’ve been trained by Charlie at this sport.”

She turned quickly and hit the surface of the lake with a perfect hand-to-water slam. She got his head, dead on, with tons of spray.

“Oh...no you didn’t!” He swam after her and splashed her back, hard.

Vere retaliated with her epic, two handed water flood. “Ha!”

He coughed, choked and couldn’t get out of it.“You want to hold your breath so long, why don’t you start again now?” she teased, letting the guy catch his breath as she changed positions for her grand finale.

While he wiped water out of his face, Vere laid her entire arm flat against the water and held it rigid, digging it just into the water’s surface to create a perfect, mini-tidal wave. It rose up about three feet and aced him right in the mouth, causing him to choke all over again.

He looked so surprised as he wiped his face a second time she couldn’t help but giggle. “What? Didn’t think I had it in me?” She giggled again. “You ready for another? Start holding your breath, city boy.”

Fun water fight: A++

Dustin raised his eyebrows high, but instead of retaliating as she’d expected, he sucked in a deep breath and dropped back down under the dark water.

Fine. I can wait. He will not get to me twice. Don’t count, Vere. Don’t let him win. How many seconds has it been?

She paddled over to where he’d disappeared and peered around looking for a flash of swim trunks or pale skin under the surface.

Nothing.

“You jerk. Come up,” she called into the water.

Was he heading toward her in a surprise, dunk attack from behind? If so, bring it. Charlie invented that game, and she beat him at it every time.

She dove down as deep as she could to meet him head on, but again, he wasn’t there. Why did this always have to freak her out so badly? She resurfaced and glowered.

“Dustin McHugh, if you think you’re scaring me...well you are. You win. Okay? YOU WIN!” she shouted. Vere’s gaze searched further out into the lake to be sure he hadn’t surfaced somewhere out of reach.

“Dustin!” Vere’s heart picked up its pace as panic set in. She took in as much air as she possibly could and went under again. This time, she swam in a long, deep circle. Her hands reached through the water in every direction but came into contact with only water. Her lungs felt as though they’d burst, but she stayed down, her eyes wide open in the murky water, looking for any sign of him.

Large, very warm arms circled her waist from behind. She knew it was him, safe and sound, and probably thinking this was all very funny.

She went limp with relief and let him pull her up.

She gasped in a huge breath of air as she broke the surface and turned to kill him.

He did not drop his arms when she gripped desperately onto his forearms for support, treading water along with him.

“Weak swimmer, my ass. You suck!”

“You told me to start holding my breath, so I only did what you asked.” His gaze was bright and unreadable. He remained silent, and she felt swallowed up for a moment into the intensity of his gaze.

“Couldn’t you hear me calling? What in the hell were you trying to do? Kill yourself?” She glanced down and realized her hands were over the scars on his wrists.

She gasped and looked up into his face, immediately regretting what she’d said so lightly. She could tell from the look on his face, he thought she was reacting badly to his scars.

She felt him try to twist his wrists away from her.

“No!” Her voice quaked. “Please. Wait.” She held on to his wrists extra tight. What was she supposed to say to him after she’d screwed up so badly, again? She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that. I didn’t. You know I always talk too quickly and—when I gasped—it was not because of you, it was because of me always being so stupid. And so...”

Her throat was closing up, and she stopped treading water. His hands were gentle, and surprisingly warm on the sides of her waist. Tears had filled up each of her limbs. She could hardly move.

“Vere.
Don’t.
” His voice was too low. Too soft. Water, rushing over stones as she sensed he, too, was holding back tears. “Don’t say you’re sorry for me. I know what you meant. It’s okay. Just please don’t cry again. Not about me, not about the damn scars I put on myself.”

“I’m not.”

They both knew it was a lie.

Vere let him float her weight fully. He swam them a little toward shore until they could touch bottom, but didn’t let her go.

She couldn’t look up at his face, so instead, she pulled his arms off her waist and brought them near the surface and kept them there just under the water. She let her fingers trace the jagged lines crossing back and forth.

He didn’t pull them away, but she could feel him tremble at her touches. It felt nice to know he trusted her with this. With this part of him.

She finally spoke, her fingers still on the widest part of his scars. “I’m glad you didn’t succeed at this—or even come close. I can’t imagine not knowing you.” She sniffed back a flood of tears, and whispered, “Since I overheard your story—I’ve have this terrible flash of how it might have gone. I keep thinking of you not being—just not
being
—in the world. And that’s why I haven’t been able to talk to you about it. I can’t imagine it, and when I do...
God
. I kind of flip out.”

“I can’t imagine it either.”

His voice floated softly over her head, setting off a shiver down the back of her neck.

He went on, “Mostly because I would have never met you. I don’t want to sound like a sappy dork, but I really want you to know how much you’ve meant to me.”

She looked up then, her eyes still heavy with unshed tears. His face was so sincere. “I love being friends with you, too. So much...”

“Yeah...I know. It makes me happy when you’re happy.”

He looked away and took one of her hands to lace his fingers through hers. They were palm to palm. He did the same with the other. He gave her hands a little squeeze and it felt nice, perfect. She could swear she felt his pulse connecting with hers through their palms.

“Poor you. Your poor mom. That whole night sounds like it was total chaos.”

“Yeah. I wish I could take it all back. My mom only came into the living room hours later. My lame-ass suicide attempt was nowhere close to nicking an artery, but I guess there was a lot of blood on the floor. I don’t remember it clearly.”

She kept her hands with his, but turned his wrists to face her again. She wanted him to know—to feel—that he didn’t need to hide them away from her. “What do you remember?”

“I only remember my mom’s super pissed-off voice, yelling down the hall. She’d found the car stuck through the front door. She was in the middle of screaming something about how I was never going to drive again. And how I was going to have to clean up the mess I’d made without her help this time.”

“Sounds like the standard mom-type speech. She should have grounded you for life.” Vere met his gaze.

“She did. Remember?” He flashed her a look that was half smile, half grimace. “My mom’s voice that night made a permanent impression in my brain. It’s like I can’t forget one word or how she sounded.”

“I can imagine. Were you very drunk?”

He shrugged. “I guess. I spilled most of the second bottle of wine, thankfully. Or I’d have been sleeping in my own vomit. At least I didn’t sink as low as that. I keep telling myself there must be a couple of notches lower on that ladder than the place I landed that night. I’m also using those imaginary rungs as a reminder that there are people way more bad off than I am. People with so many more scars than mine to bear. Depressions that aren’t as easy to get out of. My mom, she has to take medication to handle her depression every day.”

“Why?”

“Ever since my dad died, she’s been on it and it really works for her. Nan told me depression runs in our family. I’m lucky, actually. Lucky I know about it now, and that I can track it if it comes back.” His blue gaze burned into hers. “Lucky that I’m alive too, of course.”

Vere felt like his eyes had just pulled her deep into his heart. He was such a complicated, lonely person, yet he’d seemed to have let her in, and it felt great to be there.

She swallowed a small lump creeping up her throat. “I can help you track it. Check in with you every single week. You seem to be just fine now. To me, anyhow.”

“Yeah, well. I am fine now.” He smiled. “I’m happy that someone besides me and my over-paid therapist has reached the same conclusion though. But it doesn’t erase what went down that night.”

“No. It doesn’t. But that is over.”

“All but the part between me and my mom is over. She and I are still so disconnected.”

“But not forever?”

“Maybe. When she finally figured out what I’d done, she called Martin. He came in and handled everything. He also had the crashed car snuck out before sunrise, and a new door installed by 10 AM the next day. The rest of it was so whacked. My mom had her own freaking team of doctors at my botched suicide/nervous breakdown event! Martin ordered private doctors to come to the house to evaluate me, but it was my Mom who needed the most help! ”

Vere sighed. “Moms...are moms. I guess it makes sense. My mom would act the same.”

He shrugged. “Because I wasn’t critical, beyond needing some stitches, they—mom and Martin—sent me to the residential home the next night. I was there for six weeks before coming here.”