They’re going to kill her.
“Two should be enough,” I said. “More than enough.”
Mia shot me a dirty look.
“You wouldn’t want to overdose.”
Hirsch nodded. “I’ll give you two. One for now, one for later. I never take more than one at a time, and I weigh a lot more than you.”
“Thank you, Mr. Hirschman,” Mia whispered. She stashed one of the tabs in her pocket and popped the pill through the back of the other one. She put her hand up to her mouth, but kept her last two fingers curled against her hand. Then she took a long drink.
“How in the world do you take a pill with soda?” her mother asked and shook her head.
Damon pretended to cough, and turned away from the table toward me. He whispered in my ear. “She totally just palmed it.”
I didn’t have to wonder long how Mia intended to get the pill into her mother.
Mrs. Teele excused herself to go to the bathroom, and Kim went with her. Then Lucas drew Hirsch into a conversation about Star Trek and real science versus science fiction.
Mia grinned, split the capsule and poured the grains into her mother’s glass. Then she opened the other blister pack and added the second one.
“Stir it up,” I mouthed.
Mrs. Teele came back to the table and took a drink.
By the time we finished dinner her glass was empty and her eyes were glassy.
“I don’t know when I’ve been this tired,” she said as Hirsch paid and we got up to leave. She stumbled, and Mia grabbed her arm.
“Poor Mommy,” Mia said. “Let’s get you to bed.”
I was pretty wiped out myself. But when we left the guys outside the hotel elevator, Damon winked at me. “See you in a few.”
No way would I miss this pool party.
* * * * *
Mrs. Teele barely made it into our room before passing out, and we laid her on top of the covers. She sprawled on her back like da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man. And she snored. Loud. Hirsch couldn’t have been any worse.
Kim, Mia and I took turns in the bathroom to change into our swimsuits. I ran a dry razor over my legs to whack off the dark little stubbles that had grown since my shower the night before.
When I came out, Kim sat on the bed near the door and twisted her hair into a bun.
“Do you mind if I keep your scrunchy for tonight?” I asked. I didn’t want to have to wash my hair later.
“No problem,” she said. “Try not to get it wet, though. It’s real silk.”
Mia came out with fresh makeup on her face. “Let’s go. I’ll get the key.” She rummaged through her mom’s purse.
We heard a soft knock and I went to look through the peep hole.
A big hazel eye looked back.
“The guys are here.”
I draped a hotel towel over my neck to cover the chest I barely had and I opened the door. Lucas stood there in nothing but a Speedo and a pair of glasses.
“Ready to party?”
I closed my eyes and tried to erase the mental picture now branded on my brain. “That’s way more of you than I ever wanted to see, Lucas.”
He turned around and shook his butt. “You like?”
“Kim,” I called. “Your date is here.”
“All of him,” Mia said.
Kim giggled.
What did she see in Lucas?
“Out of the way, Emberry,” Erik said and pushed on the back of Lucas’s head. “Ladies? Shall we?”
Erik looked even bigger framed by the doorway in nothing but swim trunks. He actually had hair on his chest.
“Are you sure you’re thirteen, Erik?” Mia asked.
“Fourteen, thank you. Had a birthday last week.”
Erik stepped back into the hall and I saw Damon. He wore his blue dive shirt with a white towel draped over one shoulder. He grinned at me and I swallowed really hard.
We closed the door behind us and hung the Do Not Disturb sign on the knob. The empty halls echoed our footsteps. We all piled into the elevator and Lucas pushed G for the lobby.
“Can we get there without the guy at the desk seeing us?” Mia asked.
Erik nodded. “I checked the hotel diagram. We can go around the back hall, past the restrooms, to get outside to the pool. It’s open till midnight.”
“And there’s a Jacuzzi,” Lucas added.
I leaned against the elevator wall next to Damon, very aware of my skinny legs with their dry, white razor stripes and bloody nicks. I should have wrapped a second towel around my waist.
“Hope the pool’s heated,” Damon said.
I nodded. “It’s kind of cold out, huh?”
“You’ll have to keep each other warm,” Mia said.
When the door opened everyone else slipped silently out of the elevator. Damon and I followed behind.
Erik led us around the corner and down a hallway past the restrooms and a door marked Staff Only. Lucas grabbed Kim’s hand and pulled her along. She giggled again. Damon had me go in front of him. I pointed to his shirt.
“You were wearing that the night we met,” I whispered.
He looked down. “I was?”
“Mm-hmm.” I tapped the space between DIVE and PROS. “I almost broke my nose right there.”
He grinned. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
Erik pushed open the glass door at the end of the hall and a shriek from across the parking lot pierced our ears. “There’s already a party,” he said.
We filed out into the very chilly night air. Inside a wrought-iron fence, mist rose off the pool and swirled a little before it evaporated around the half dozen kids in the water.
“Hey!” Mandy screamed and waved. “Parnell!” She bounced up and down in the shallow end of the pool.
Mia turned to me. “Think she’s excited to see us?”
“Probably not you, me, and Kim.”
“Get in! The water’s great!”
The four Ballard guys had a beach ball and played some sort of water polo game in the deep end.
Polly, the other Ballard girl, leaned against the edge with her elbows up on the deck. She stared at Erik with equal parts of bliss and terror in her eyes.
Kim and Mia went to the Jacuzzi with Lucas while Erik, Damon and I headed for the pool.
Damon stopped at the edge, reached behind his neck and grabbed the back of his shirt. He pulled it over his head in one swift motion for which I was neither mentally nor physically prepared.
Damon Sheppard now stood in front of me covered by nothing but a pair of blue swim trunks.
My mind flashed through images like a hyperactive slide projector: Michelangelo’s David. My Matt Dillon poster. Captain America, minus the spandex bodysuit.
Damon tossed his shirt toward a chair, but it missed and landed on the cement.
The air around me shot up ten degrees. I couldn’t look away.
How fast could one’s heart actually beat before it cried Uncle! and keeled over?
“Wow. The water’s warm,” Erik exclaimed as he descended the pool steps.
Damon moved toward me.
I wanted to run.
I wanted to run my hands over his shoulders and arms.
He took the towel from my neck and tossed it onto a chair, then took my hand and led me into the pool.
“Feels great,” my voice warbled like the last cry of a bird after it hits a window.
Chlorine stung all the places I’d nicked up my legs.
“You guys want to play?” Joseph asked Damon and Erik. “Three on three. The life rings are the goals.”
“Sure,” Erik said.
Damon looked at me. “Do you care?”
Mandy splashed at him. “What, is she your mother?”
I could have slapped her. No, I could’ve scalped her.
Damon shrugged and backed away toward the deep end. “Nah,” he said. “Just my girl.”
His girl?
Warm fizzies exploded like Fourth of July
fireworks inside my body.
He called me his girl.
I am Damon Sheppard’s girl.
This is, without question, the best day of my entire life.
He has to kiss me now. Guys kiss their girlfriends. That’s what they do.
I glanced at Polly again, and felt just like she looked. Damon would, at some point, probably soon, want to kiss me.
Terror seized me. Then elation. Followed by panic.
I watched Damon tread water, then lunge for the beach ball. One long, tan, breathtakingly muscular arm shed a sheet of rain as he knocked the ball to Erik. Erik grabbed it and slammed it into the life ring on the side of the pool. He, Damon and their Ballard teammate high-fived each other and whooped. “Yeah, baby!”
Damon looked over at me. My bladder fainted.
I will not pee my pants again. Not even in a pool.
I waved.
Oh, God. He’s really going to kiss me sometime, isn’t he?
Was it okay to talk to God about kissing?
“You should take a picture,” Mandy taunted. “It’ll last longer.”
With great effort I broke my gaze away from Damon and lowered myself in the water to my shoulders. Calm. Cool. Laugh.
I smiled at Mandy. “You guys were really good today. You have a great team.”
“Apparently not good enough,” she said. “I heard you won the region.”
I tried not to smile too big. We would go to the finals tomorrow. And I had Damon.
So this is what magnanimous feels like.
Polly moved over to the corner with us. “Juliet, right?” she asked. “Are all the guys at your school as cute as them?” she whispered.
“Yep,” I said and smiled. “Every single one of them.”
Polly grinned. “I like you.”
“You didn’t this morning.”
“I didn’t know I liked you this morning.” She moved closer to me along the edge of the pool. “So, is Erik going with anyone?”
* * * * *
According to the clock on the pool house wall, midnight came and went and no one threw us out. I expected a furious Hirsch or frantic Mrs. Teele to appear at the gate, but that never happened either. My toes and fingers wrinkled up like chubby pink raisins, and when I laid my head on the side of the pool to look up at the stars I yawned so hard my throat stretched.
Damon swam up next to me and rolled over to look at the sky, too. “Tired?”
“Yeah. But I really don’t want to go to bed yet.”
“Me either.”
I let my body float up a little, and braced myself against the side with one arm. I ignored the splashes and laughter and just stared up at Orion. The stars always looked the same, no matter where you saw them from.
Then Damon disappeared under the water and a wave washed over my chin.
“Dunk!” Mandy cried as she pushed down on his stomach.
I am going to strangle that girl.
Mandy took off for the other side of the shallow end.
Damon resurfaced and squeegeed his hands up his face and back over his hair. “Don’t start something you can’t finish,” he called at Mandy.
She giggled and swam away, obviously hoping to do just that. But one of the Ballard guys grabbed her as she went past and pulled her under.
Damon laughed, and I elbowed him.
“What?”
“‘Don’t start something you can’t finish’?” I said.
“Same goes for you.”
I snorted. “Is that a threat?”
He shrugged and put his elbows up on the side of the pool. “More like a promise.”
“Oh, really?” We stared at each other for a few seconds, then I splashed him.
“You don’t listen, do you?” He stood up and moved toward me.
So I splashed him harder. “I’m not afraid of you.”
“That’s your mistake.” The look in his eyes gave me shivers all over. “You’re going under, Julie.”
I put my hands out. “Wait. I want to keep my hair dry.”
He kept coming at me. “Should’ve thought of that before.”
“Seriously!” I backed up, but not fast enough. “This is Kim’s scrunchy, too. She told me not to get it wet.”
He ducked behind me and grabbed me around the waist.
“Please, Damon!” But I was laughing, and didn’t sound as serious as I wanted to.
He reached up with his free hand and slid the scrunchy off. The sensation of his fingers in my falling hair sent chills down my neck, and everywhere else.
He shot the scrunchy away like a rubber band and it landed on top of his shirt. “Hold your breath.”
He twisted me against him and I wrapped my arms around his neck. If I went in, I’d do my best to take him with me.
But he didn’t push my head under or turn me upside-down, like Mark would have. He slid his other arm beneath my knees, pulled me out of the water, dropped me under, then lifted me back out again.
“I baptize you in the name of King Neptune,” he said as the water ran off my hair and face.
I sputtered and wiped my eyes with one hand. “You big bully!”
“Be nice, or I’ll do it again.”
I opened my eyes and met his, so close. His open palm rested on the skin just outside my knee, and every chlorine sting I suffered was totally worth hairless legs. The warmth from his arms underneath me, his stomach against my side, and his neck under my forearm spread over the rest of my skin, and those two urges battled inside me again.
“Get a room, you two,” Lucas yelled from the Jacuzzi.
Damon grinned and I blushed. He spun me around in the water, and I held on tighter around his neck and laughed.
“We have one,” Damon answered as he released my legs. “Two, actually.”
I stood up and he let go of me.
“Do you ever not know what to say?” I asked him.
“Not much,” he said. “It’s a gift.” He moved closer.
I took a breath and backed away. Was it possible to get too much Damon Sheppard?
His brow wrinkled. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m just really tired. I think I’m going to go up now.”
“You sure?”
Not really. But I nodded.
“Okay,” he said, and started toward the side of the pool. “I’ll walk with you.”
“No.” If we left together everyone would make a huge deal out of it.
“Right,” he said. “Just don’t go alone, okay? Hang on.” He swam over toward the Jacuzzi, where Kim and Mia still sat on the edge with their feet in. “Julie wants to go up. Are either of you ready to go yet?”
Mia looked over at me. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I called. “I’m just tired. I need sleep.”
Neither Kim nor Mia wanted to leave, so Damon swam over to Erik, who chatted with a very giggly and animated Polly. I couldn’t hear what Damon said, but Erik got out of the pool and walked over to me.
“Damon wants me to escort you upstairs.”
“You don’t have to,” I said.
“Come on.”
I climbed out of the pool, and the cold air pricked up gooseflesh all over me. I wrapped my towel around me, then turned back and mouthed, “Sorry,” to Polly. I picked up Kim’s scrunchy and Damon’s shirt.
The shirt felt like any other cotton T-shirt, but somehow it really didn’t. Softer, finer, and steeped in something almost electric, it was sacred, and mine. I hung it on the back of a chair and caressed my palm over it as I walked away.
“The key’s under my towel,” Mia called.
Inside the building the air felt a lot warmer.
“You don’t have to walk me clear up, Erik.”
“You worried about leaving Sheppard alone with Mandy?”
I stopped in the middle of the hall. I hadn’t actually thought of that.
Erik laughed. “I’m kidding. Geez. He’s completely stupid over you.”
“Come on.
”
“Seriously. I quote: ‘She’s so cool. It’s like I can talk to her about anything’.”
I started to walk again, but looked down at my feet.
“You’re all red!”
“Shut up, Erik.”
He elbowed me. “So you meant what you said about Drew? You guys didn’t make out?”
“No!” I stopped him in the middle of the hall and looked straight in his face. “No. I did not make out with Drew. I did not let Drew kiss me. I did nothing with Drew but eat an elephant ear.”
“Okay, okay. I believe you. Geez.”
“Are you going to tell Damon about it?”
He shrugged. “No reason to, I guess. But Drew probably will. You know about him, right?”
“Know about him?”
We stopped in front of the room door and Erik just looked at me.
“What?”
He started to say something several times, kind of like my dad at the lake, then just shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. I’m just glad you didn’t, you know, fall for him.”
I unlocked our room and handed him the key. “Okay, then. Good-night.”
“Sleep tight,” he said.
I took a quick shower to wash off the chlorine, then dried my hair.
Mrs. Teele hadn’t snored since I came in, and it suddenly occurred to me to worry. I went over to her bed and leaned down to listen.
She moaned, and I almost jumped out of my skin.
“Mia?”
“No, ma’am. It’s Juliet.”
“What’re you doing?”
“Just had to go to the bathroom. Go back to sleep,” I whispered.
“Mm-kay.” She rolled over and tucked her hand under her cheek.
I got in the other bed and left room for Kim. I expected to lay awake for a long time, tormented by thoughts of Damon and Mandy in the pool together. But before I even knew I’d fallen asleep, the alarm went off and the sun burst through the drapes.
And Mrs. Teele stood at the end of my bed, fists on her hips. She cleared her throat and glared at me with crazy eyes. “Where are the other girls?”
CHAPTER 26
She stomped between our beds, picked up the phone from the nightstand and dialed four numbers.
I bit my thumbnail.
“Arnold? This is Betty.” Then she stopped, listened, and sucked in her breath. “I’ve got Juliet here. She’s in bed, right where she should be.”
I lay on my back and stared up at the ceiling. What happened?
Mrs. Teele put her hand over the phone’s mouthpiece. “Do you have any idea where Mia and Kim are?”
“The pool, maybe?”
“Did they get up early and go to the pool?” she asked Hirsch. She turned back to me. “The boys are gone as well. Did anyone say anything to you about an early morning swim?”