I lick my lips, aware of how dry my mouth is.Even his quads are sculpted. . .
Blake travels smoothly beneath the water’s surface, all the way to the opposite edge of the pool, where he emerges right next to his cousin, much to Myles’s surprise, and shoves a wave of water into his face. Myles grabs Blake’s head and dunks him back into the water for what slowly becomes an uncomfortably long time, until Blake erupts for air, and they both chortle with mischievous banter.
Savannah, over the top of her tattered book, scathingly shakes her head.
I paddle my legs back and forth through the warm water and inhale the scent of chlorine, watching Blake and Myles continue their war in amusement, enjoying how nice it feels to sit in the summer sun by the pool with a clear mind. . . Until Blake glides across the pool toward me. My stomach somersaults more than once and those inappropriate thoughts return.
Blake reaches me and rests his arms on the pool’s edge, his breathing shallow. He flicks his wet hair and droplets of water splatter over me. Luckily, the water level rises to his chest, otherwise the sight of his bare body again would have me stammering my words. Blushing over the mere sight of hot guys is one thing. . . But hot guys that are wet and shirtless is another.
I try to lookanywhereelse. Bailey is collapsed in a heap under the shade of an old oak tree. “Is he okay?”
Blake follows my gaze to Bailey. “Yeah, just bloated probably, but that’s what he deserves for being a scrounging cake thief.”
As Blake rubs at his chlorine-irritated eyes, it dawns on me that this is the first time he has ever seen me without so much as a single stroke of mascara, and my hand flies up to pull my cap further over my face.
Blake’s playful expression falters. “What – you’re not looking at me now? Are we still being awkward about what happened on Sunday?”
“No – it’s just. . .” I say shyly, my voice low. “I’m not wearing any makeup.”
It sounds ridiculous when I say it out loud, but I’ve always been rather self-conscious of my bare face. It’s one of the effects of Hollywood, that relentless pressure to be picture-perfect. Whenever Dad has an event that Mom and I are to attend, she plonks me in her artist’s chair and spends forever contouring my cheeks and nose, darkening my brows, applying a fresh set of lashes, before repeating the whole process all over again on herself. Then she’ll breathe a definite sigh of relief when Ruben gives an approving nod to confirm that we have met his high standards.
These days, I don’t even go to school without products clogging up my pores, and the only reason I have ditched the makeup most of the time while here in Fairview is because there is no one here who will clock my lack of cheekbone definition. Plus, the humidity makes it pretty uncomfortable. However, until now, I have always worn makeup around Blake.
With a snort of disbelief – boys willneverunderstand such an issue – Blake plucks my Dodgers cap straight off my head to reveal my face in the sunlight. “Miss Mila, why have you been covering up those freckles?”
Protectively, I draw my chin in toward my chest as though it’s second nature to shield myself from prying eyes. Blake sets my cap backward onto his damp ruffled hair.
“It’s only me. I don’t care,” he says seriously, noticing the color on my cheeks. “I’ve got this huge pimple right here. Look.”
I lift my head and a smile creeps onto my face as Blake points out the blemish on his forehead. I place my hands behind me and lean back, relaxing my posture so that I’m not so closed off to him. The terrifying concept of being bare faced around him suddenly no longer seems to matter. Did he mean that my sun-kissed freckled cheeks are cute?
I purse my lips at him. “Did I give you the right to steal my hat?”
“What are you going to do about it?” he challenges, a glint in his dark eyes.
There go the somersaults again. . . I swiftly plough on, because I can’t muster up a witty, cool reply fast enough, and leave my cap still on his head. “How are things with your mom?” I ask, back to treading carefully.
After Sheri seized me from his truck on Sunday, he sent a text to check up on me that evening. I reassured him that everything was okay on my end, though he was marginally less convincing about things being fine back at the Avery house.
Blake stops smirking. He shrugs and folds his arms over the pool’s edge. “Why do you think I’m hanging out here? To get away from her.”
I frown, watching Myles perform a series of underwater handstands. Over on the lounger, Savannah has ditched reading for snoozing – her straw hat is placed directly over her face, shielding her from the sun and, unbeknown to her, blocking out her chances of spying on Blake and me. If she saw the two of us chatting by the side of the pool like this, Blake already wearing an item of my clothing, but not much else, she would be shooting me teasing winks and suggestive grins.
“My aunt said my parents wouldn’t want me to hang around with you. I don’t know why. I haven’t asked them yet,” I say in a flat tone, dropping my gaze back to Blake. “Butyouknow.”
He looks up at me beneath thick, damp eyelashes. “It’s ancient history. I told you, my mom is just a resentful person who clings to the past. I’ve been trying to talk sense into her this week, but it’s not going great. I stayed here last night,” he says in a sullen tone. “She doesn’t want me to hang around with you either.”
My stomach dips. Whatexactlyhappened between my parents and LeAnne Avery?
“And yet. . .” I trail off.
“And yet here we are,” he finishes. The corner of his mouth twitches, concealing a smile. “My mom can be controlling, but I always do what I want in the end. And when will I ever come across another girl who knows how that feels?”
“I never said my dad was controlling.”
“You didn’t have to. It’s part of the deal, isn’t it?”
I think again of Dad being the one who conspired to have Aunt Sheri hold me captive at the Harding Estate for the summer, and my chest knots with a sickening feeling. My frown deepens.
