His car door shut us in together, and he started the ignition to turn the air on. We sat for a long moment in what felt like chasing the calm. We just... hung out for a few minutes, listening to each other breathe.

He looked over at me and stared for an extended beat. "How's your foot?"

I smiled, and looked down at it. "It's probably fine."

"Let me see it."

There was something demanding in his voice. A desire to comply came over me. 

And then, as if we had always been this way, as if I had sat in his car a million times, I turned toward him in my seat and gently placed my leg across his lap. A corner of his mouth drifted up uncontrollably as he surveyed what had been placed in his care. He leaned in and began to lift one side of the bandage carefully. "I assume you have plenty more of these in there." I smiled and nodded for him to continue. He peeled the gauze patch off and grimaced. "It's a pretty big gash."

"Not as big as the one on your knee." It came out of me softly and childlike.

"No." He smiled in agreement, almost flattered. "Not as big as the one on my knee." He left my leg in his lap and rested a hand on my knee, occasionally tracing it with his fingertips. We stayed in that collective moment that felt euphoric after what we had been through or not been through together.

How could the simple act of being together as if we were allowed to be, or as if we were together, feel just as good as the other thing we had done? It was the strangest thing. One I hadn't realized I missed or needed.

He tilted his head in thought. "Still, do you think you should have been running around, climbing all over the pool deck, and diving off boards on a foot you potentially fractured?"

"Thought I may have fractured, but the swelling went down." We were both still smiling even though the speed of our voices and the tone of our conversation were working their way back to normal. We had to. My break would be over soon.

That, and I knew he was getting to the very tall pink elephant currently on the last leg of his rotation.

"I bumped into Spencer, and your friend, or arch enemy, Court."

"Yes, I know. I can't say anything about Spencer that's not obvious, but I can tell you that what you witnessed is just par for the course for lifeguards. Our boss, Cleta is working dispatch today, and when—"

"The cat's a way, the mice will play?"

"You got it, especially with lifeguards. This city pool is notorious for guard pranks. Years ago, someone dipped all of the cotton balls from our first aid cabinet in pickle juice from the concession stand and stuck them to another guard's car. The acid ate some of the paint off in the heat.

"No... don't tell me!"

"Yup. So, it's been toned down a lot, and just so you know, we may ask the first years to perform simple tasks and pawn the worst schedule off to them, but there is a hard rule of no hazing rookie guards. The pranks are reserved for the pros, and...

"Let me guess, you're—"

"Extremely good at this. Like, what you saw was not me and a guy named Court, it was the two pros. I had his shirt pulled out of his locker and reserved for that moment before he ever got the idea of embarrassing me in front of you. I just happened to have his locker combo unbeknown to him. I learned from the best my rookie year, and twelve years of swim team growing up, watching all the guards before that. If that explains what you saw a little better."

He smiled, looking down at my leg and then at me. His blue eyes sparkled at me, and I couldn't help but match his smile.

"Not that ah, you owe me an explanation, but I do understand that one and like it much better than what I came up with on my own. That is, not knowing who I was dealing with here in terms of the City Pool's Queen of Pranks. Lane may have left that part out over his explanation of summers here."

Hmm. Had he talked to Lane about me? "Well, Lane is also on vacation this week. So."

"I see." He kept grinning, and so did I. It was contagious and provoked by a mood that seemed to encompass us both. I wasn't sure how we got here, what it meant, or whether it was okay. If I had my wits about me as opposed to being completely taken off guard by how kind and sweet he was, I probably would have asked what the hell we were doing. But I had never experienced this side of him. 

I trembled a little as he dropped his fingertips to the back of my knee, tracing the tender ticklish part slow and torturous. An unsteady breath slipped out of me when he looked up at me. His wide grin let me know it did not go unnoticed.

He looked away from me and moved his mouth to prepare to speak. I think it almost scared me. I had no idea what he was going to say, and I felt the moment too fragile for us to ruin it with out first real talk. 

I put my hand on the door handle to prepare to leave. It was hard to do somehow, but whatever part of my right mind was still functioning tried to lay the groundwork for me to exit his vehicle and not be late back on rotation.

A deep breath snuck up on me, and I exhaled before he opened his mouth. 

"I have to go."

I opened the car door to step out when I felt a strong pull on my remaining arm. I didn't even look back at him completely before his lips pressed firmly on mine. My mouth opened slightly, just to draw in a breath, and his tongue entered to find mine.

It was insane how quickly direct contact with him in that way could make me lose my mind to the point where I was breathless. Everything in my body was heightened and on edge for more. The weight of the passenger door I had opened closed as my hand left the handle to run my fingers through Adrian's thick, dark hair.

His breathing changed, too, and his tongue pressed deeper into mine. He kissed me harder, with a desire that ignored any intention of stopping soon. I kissed him back just as deeply and for what felt like minutes, I marveled at the insanity of what continued to ignite between us. His smell, the way his mouth tasted in mine, and his unrelenting desire for me. It was still so crazy, even after what we did. You would think some of the mystery had worn off, but it must have had the opposite effect... it was unfinished. And by the way he held the back of my neck and head in his hand, gently, but firmly pressing me into his, I could tell he wanted more.

It was hard not to. This experience in his car led me to believe, that we had not only unwittingly  relied on interruptions in the past, but it had been far more  necessary than we knew to have something force our restraint. 

"I have to go," I whispered into his mouth, my lips curving into a smile on his. His wet, swollen lips paused on top of mine. He left them there for a moment, and we breathed in each other. Then he dragged his teeth across my bottom lip as if he wanted to bite it but instead refrained. Thank God for that. I was shaking already, and it took everything I had to push out of the car and stand up.

I grabbed the rookie guard's towel on the seat and wrapped it around my waist as I slammed his door shut. I didn't even know if I could look back at him or wave; I was so out of it. I just walked forward, limping a bit as the pain from my foot reminded me of what started this impromptu day. As I approached the steps to the pool house entrance, I felt a sinking feeling of loss.

I paused on the second step and looked back to where I had just come from.

He was still there. Adrian was watching me go in. His blue eyes hit mine, engaging a thousand butterflies that replaced the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. He was looking at me as if to confirm that this had, in fact, just happened, and he wasn't going anywhere.