I stare at her blankly. I've seen her face a million times, but I can't remember her name for the life of me. I also don't care to remember it. She's pretty, but I'd never be into a girl who would go behind her so-called friend's back and try to bait the guy she's talking to. If she's genuinely trying to help Riley find me, there's no need for the flirtatious tone or the batting of her eyelashes.
"Yeah, I think I found her," I say, nodding toward the dock when a splash followed by Riley's obnoxious laugh meant to garner attention has both our heads turning toward the commotion.
Everyone is now staring over the edge into the water when I ask, "What the hell was that?"
"Probably time for skinny dipping," she guesses.
I'm scanning the onlookers, searching for Laney, when Noah dives in. "What in the actual fuck?"
I brush her hand off my arm and continue toward the dock, only to take off in a sprint when Noah pops up out of the water and yells, "She's stuck!"
I don't need to search the dock to know which shadowy figure is missing. Laney.
I'm beyond soaked,my clothes are a second skin, weighing me down, determined to drag me back into the depths that nearly claimed her. My lungs aren't just burning; they're screaming for mercy with each ragged breath while my muscles tremble and threaten to give out completely as I battle against the shoreline. Her blonde hair is plastered against her face, and blood is streaming down her right leg, but it's the faint, erratic flutter of her heart against my chest that terrifies me most. I have to focus on that fragile drumbeat because if I don't, I'll lose myself to the panic that gripped me when I thought I might lose one of the only people I've ever truly cared about. Each shallow breath she takes, each weak thud of her heart as I carry her toward safety, is the only thing keeping me from completely falling apart.
If I hadn't been there…if I hadn't had my grandfather's knife in my pocket… I shake the thought away. I don't want to know what an existence without her looks like, and I sure as hell never want to feel it. I feel her fingers tighten around my neck, and I look down at her motionless body. Our eyes lock, and though no words are shared, something profound passes between us, a silent acknowledgment of what was nearly lost. Not just a life, but a future. Our future. My eye twitches with the thought, wondering if the "our" part is flicking through her mind the way it is mine.
In the distance, I hear familiar voices. "Laney, thank god you're okay," Sydney says, coming to my side, but I don't stop walking. I won't. I can't. Not until she's safe. I can't be sure what put her in that lake, but I know damn well I don't trust anyone else to take care of what is undoubtedly the reason my heart beats.
"London," I hear Noah call out, his footsteps heavy as he runs up the grassy hill beside me as I reach the yard. "Thanks for helping. I can take her home. I offered to take her home. What happened back there didn't change that."
My fingers instinctively grip her tighter. "Go home, Donovan," I grind out without slowing. There's no way she's leaving here with anyone but me.
"I'm her date, Hale!" he attempts to assert, but I ignore it. Laney didn't come here with him. She came with Sydney. His wanting this to be a date and it being a date are not the same.
"You can stop staring, asshats. You're all gawking like you've never seen someone get wet," I hear Sydney say at my back as she follows behind us as we pass the people gathered around the bonfire.
The sound of the music fades once I get past the backyard, and Laney asks, "Is there anything sticking out of my knee?"
"No," I answer, eyes forward.
"Well, how would you know? You didn't even look," she argues as she squirms to get a better look.
My jaw tightens with the memory. The second I came out of the water with her in my arms, my eyes scanned her entire body from head to toe, ensuring I was pulling her out the same way she went in—in one piece.
"Trust me, Laney. I looked," I say, my tone a little thorny.
I may have saved her, and an unspoken moment of what we almost lost might have been shared, but it doesn't change the fact that I still don't have an answer for her clothing choices tonight. It's her choice of outfit that has me marching straight back to my truck. My forearm has been firmly plastered against the lacey underwear covering the soft milky skin of her ass since I swoopedher into my arms. There's no way in hell I'm pulling it away with an audience.
"Noah can take me home. You've done enough. You don't need to drive me home," she says meekly, misreading my tone and words for annoyance with her.
I'm more than annoyed, but not with her, with this entire night. If I hadn't second-guessed myself last year, if I hadn't paused again tonight, allowing doubt to creep in, she might never have ended up with her ankle stuck in an abandoned fishing net beneath dark murky water.
"Yeah, I got it, man," Noah piggybacks onto her suggestion, and I ignore it as I reach the old truck my father gifted me for my sixteenth birthday last year.
I carefully set her down at my front, pinning her between myself and the truck so no one sees what she's wearing beneath my old shirt. "Hold on a second," I say with one arm firmly wrapped around her center as I pull open the door before lifting her by the waist onto the backseat. "Don't move," I instruct before disappearing to the back to grab a med kit.
"Laney, I'm so sorry. I jumped in to help you when I noticed you weren't coming up, and then when I found out you were stuck, I went back up to get help and—" Noah says, quickly invading the space I vacated and leaning against the door, only to be cut off.
"London, what's going on?" Riley interrupts with her minions at her back.
I pay her no attention. I'm unsure what happened, but I know she's not innocent. She fucking laughed, and now she dares to ask what's going on as though she didn't bear witness to pure horror. I return to the side of the truck with a first aid kit. "Do you mind?" I gesture for Noah to step back so I can reclaim my spot at her front.
"I can do that," Noah offers.
"I got it. You can leave. I'll be taking Laney home."
"You can't be serious," Riley says exasperatedly. "Noah just offered to take her home."
