Page 45 of Center of Gravity

“California.”

He tipped his head to one side, studying me through narrow eyes. “Are you alike?”

I laughed. “Not at all. She’s very…impulsive. Free-spirited. Believes in auras and universal powers and Fate and a bunch of other shit.”

He cracked a smile. “Is she older?”

“Younger.”

“That explains it.”

“What does that explain?”

“You. She’s the yin and you’re the yang. The rebel with a cause to her rebel without a cause.” I hardly had time to begin dissecting that when he said, “On the count of three, okay? Whoever surfaces or cracks up first loses.”

He submerged before I’d caught on to what was happening. I reacted by instinct, inhaling a deep breath and plunging beneath the surface. It was stupid and ridiculous and nostalgic all at once.

Under the water, I blinked my eyes open, watching the golden crown of Alex’s head as we both sunk to kneel in the sand, our cheeks bulging like pufferfish. Everything was as quiet and cool as I remembered, with the occasional water-muted trill of our arms moving. It reminded me of the sensory deprivation tanks Summer used to rave to me about, the absolute Zen she said she achieved floating in them. I hadn’t bought it at the time, but now I thought maybe I could understand it. This was a lesser scale and imperfect, but for a solid five seconds where I floated motionless, only dimly aware that my eyes were locked with Alex’s, I felt a twinge of bliss as I counted in my head the way I used to with Summer.One Mississippi, two.Summer always flailed too much and wasted energy. I kept perfectly still. I’d gone a whole minute once.Three Mississippi, four. Ten, fifteen.

Then the heaviness in my chest settled in, like my lungs were being wrung out. By the time I reached thirty, Alex was struggling, starting to move around to distract himself. He arched one brow high, then both, changing tactics, but I didn’t crack. He twirled around, did a little jig on the sand, and when that garnered only a stiff bunching of my lips, he tugged down his shorts and kicked them off, baring his ass to me first, then twisting around and gripping his cock. I lost it in one big maelstrom of air bubbles, bolting to the surface, and gulping air in between gasps of laughter.

“Cheater,” I accused when I could.

He was gone with laughter. “Your face, oh fuck. I think your eyes literally bulged.”

“Oh stop.” I flicked him with a spray of water. “Nothing I haven’t seen before.” I defended, as if I wasn’t pushing my own erection down with the heel of my hand. As if I wasn’t thinking of how he’d felt in my mouth. Or what his lips would taste like slicked with seawater.

“Yeah? If I put my hand on you right now, what am I going to feel?”

“Natural reaction, or possibly my fist in your face.” Only the former was true and even that was stretching it. I’d classify my reaction to Alex as anything but natural. It was almost paranormal. But it was the first time he’d teased me in a while, and I’d missed it more than I wanted to admit.

“Uh huh.” He sounded unconvinced and turned abruptly, swimming for shore.

We stretched our towels out on the sand, and then our bodies, a soft evening breeze lifting patches of goosebumps across my chest. I cracked a beer and handed it over to Alex, and he propped himself up on one elbow to sip from it.

“I need to tell you something.”

I eyed him cautiously, afraid the day was about to be ruined by a request for something I couldn’t give him.

“If you come to dinner, that is. I feel like I should give you some warning. A trigger warning, or whatever. My dad’s pretty sick.” He inhaled and focused his attention over the water.

I set my beer down and rolled onto my side, scrutinizing his impassive expression.

“That’s the source of the financial squeeze.”

He nodded once, slowly, and took another sip of his beer. “He was a mechanic for a long time at a chain, and he quit to start his own business. Took out a loan, rented a place. He was a few weeks from opening when he found out. He didn’t have health insurance, of course. It takes my mom and me to make all the bills and keep the house because she wants him to be in the… She wants him to be in the place he knows best. He says he doesn’t care, but I think he does. Meanwhile the bills for his treatments and hospital visits keep rolling in.”

My thundering heart sank like a stone. “Oh Alex, I’m so sorry.”

“He wants me to quit my job and go back to school, but it’s hard for me to even think about.”

I dug my heels into the sand and squinted at the sky, then my gaze shifted back to Alex. The inward curve of his shoulders and the tension in his mouth shallowed out my breath and dug a hole in my chest. I wanted desperately to do something to help him. Wetting my lips, I said, “Would you consider letting me give you an advance or—?”

An instantaneous fury ignited in his eyes. “Why are you so hell-bent on making me a project? That’s not why I’m telling you this.” Color hitched a ride at his jawline and crept all the way up to his temples. “I could get a loan if I wanted to, but I make more money working full-time hours and I’mhelping. It’s something I can do to help. I’m not a fucking house you can fix up and sell.”

My hands went up in an attempt to placate him. “You’re not a project.”

“Then what am I?”