“Relax,” Miles breathed in my ear.
Reluctantly, I moved both hands underneath the water. If he was a normal boyfriend, I probably would have let my hand rest on his knee–but he wasn’t a normal boyfriend. He was a guy I didn’t like, who I worked with, who was now playing the part of my fake boyfriend because he had so rudely and unexpectedly crashed my anti-Christmas vacation. It had been a complicated couple of days. I settled on resting my hands on the hot tub seat between our legs. Miles nudged my hand with his thigh, holding himself tight like he was trying not to laugh.
“It’s funny. I would have bet big money against Olive ever jumping in that lake with you,” Glenn baited.
We both turned back to Glenn who was peering at us with a knowing smile on his face.
“She’s not exactly the daredevil type, if you haven’t noticed,” he added, folding his arms.
Miles nudged me. “Olive? Care to rebut?”
I smiled sweetly at Glenn, though the motion pained me a bit. “Nope, he’s right. I’m not the daredevil type.”
“Told you, man. I always tried to get her to go skiing with me, but she flat-out refused. The craziest thing I could ever get her to do was a double feature of two movies on a school night.” He laughed and rolled his eyes. “Remember that, Olive Oil?”
I did remember he had always wanted me to go skiing with him. I also remembered that it wasn’t skiing he had been pressuring me for that night. Two action movies back to back along with a giant tub of popcorn sitting between us was the only way I could get his mind and his hands to focus on something else besides me.
I hated how Glenn seemed so sure about me. Fine, I didn’t want to jump in a frozen lake. Crazy, I know. But it galled me, him sitting there on his high horse, smugly bringing up things from our past. And that’s all it was. The past. Even though he was correct. Sue me if flying down a mountainside on two toothpicks wasn’t my idea of a good time. I had plenty of books that gave me the same thrill. But regardless, who was he to assume he even knew what I was or was not interested in? We’d dated nearly four years ago. He didn’t know me anymore, and I resented the fact that he acted like he did.
I swallowed before moving my hand up stiffly to Miles’s knee, and with a raised chin and haughty expression, I said to Glenn, “Actually, we have plans to do lots of things this week.”
His expression looked amused. “What’s that? Stay inside and watch movies? Write poetry? Read a book together?”
Miles shrugged and looked at me, a gleam in his eye. “Well, probably some of that. I think Olive’s introduction to The Terminator is long overdue.”
I wrinkled my nose. “We’d have to watch Jane Eyre to cleanse our palates after that.”
Miles smiled. “Great, I’ll be about ready to fall asleep by then.”
“You two are poster children for adventure,” Glenn said, amused.
This I could confidently contradict. “Miles is actually a certified Outward Bound instructor.”
Glenn failed to look overly impressed. “I’ve heard of that. Isn’t that where you take kids hiking? Or rafting?”
“Yeah,” Miles said, squeezing me closer to his side. “We do a lot of whitewater rafting, and rock climbing as well. We teach a lot of safety basics.”
“My parents took me down the Colorado River in Arizona when I was a senior. You just can’t get any good whitewater this far northeast.”
Miles raised his eyebrows. “Have you ever done any out here?”
Glenn shrugged as though nothing mattered. “No. I wanted to go right for the big stuff.”
“Well, you’re missing out. There’s a few great runs around here.”
Glenn huffed in disbelief like it was all funny to him.
Miles suddenly turned to me. “You ready?”
I was most definitely not ready, if the sudden bolt of panic coursing through my body meant anything, but somehow, the frozen pond seemed better company than Glenn at the moment. I grasped the hand Miles was offering me and immediately began shivering as we made our way out of the hot tub.
Suddenly, we were running—correction, Miles was running and pulling me behind him while I squealed. My hand in his was the only warm part of my entire body. If I thought too hard about what was about to happen, I’d never do it. Though my brain was refusing to acknowledge the humongous frozen pond growing closer, my body seemed to have a good idea of what was expected and began to pull back.
“Nope!” Miles shouted as he dragged me along behind him, the pond twenty feet from us now. “You can do this!”
When we got five feet away, I dug in my heels. “Wait! Wait!” I yelped, sheer panic making my words come out in bursts and jumbles. “Let’s think about this for a second. Let’s just do the bingo. We don’t need to do the blackout. I’ve got to—”
“No thinking. Just jump,” Miles yelled, pulling my hand with his toward the small dock. But this time, my hand broke away. He turned, and for a split second, we both stared at our empty hands before his eyes flicked over to mine and narrowed dangerously.
Swimsuit bottoms and jiggly thighs weren’t even on my radar at the moment as my body did a breakaway one-eighty and bolted forward. It was five degrees out, I was dripping wet, and I was about to jump into frozen water. With Miles Taylor. My brain was working fine now, and my fight-or-flight instinct came out swinging. I needed to end this madness. I had a book and a hot bath waiting for me. Adrenaline made me fly. I was Usain Bolt crossing the finish line.
Until two steel arms wrapped around my waist, halting me mid-stride. My back instantly warmed as it pressed against his stomach, blocking the chill from the night air. Oh gosh, it felt good to be held, even like this. Even by him. I had almost forgotten, but those arms also wanted to throw me into a frozen pond, so I lost all dignity, flailing about like a toddler throwing down a tantrum, squealing and shouting and offering up new negotiations. Finally, I broke away from him. When he regained his balance, he reached for me once more, but I held him off.
“Don’t throw me in.” I stood crouched, giving the impression I could dash away at any second, which was laughable because my body was quite literally shutting down in the cold.
His hands paused mid-air in their reach toward me. He peered at me carefully. “Are you going to jump in on your own?”
My chest heaving, I glanced at the pond, the dark water hole shimmering from the outside light from the lodge. Ice chunks floated nearby. “If you try to throw me in, I will grind up your body, fry you into donuts, and feed them to your students.”
His mouth twitched, but he lifted his hands in a gesture of peace. “You know, you’re a lot different here than you let on at school.”
“Shut up.”
Now that I wasn’t fighting for my dignity, I took a few tentative steps onto the dock.
He settled in beside me, his shoulder brushing against mine as we both stared down into the dark abyss complete with chunks of floating ice.
“Why haven’t you jumped yet?” I asked. “I would have thought you’d be on round four by now.
“I don’t usually stop and think. I just do it. You made me stop, and now I’m thinking that this sounds like a terrible idea.”