The first thing I noticed was how cold the water was. The cold seeped into my skin and bones, momentarily paralyzing me from the waist down and leaving my face with an expression of shock. You might be asking yourself how I'd gotten in the water if I hadn't known that Fletcher Ray's grandparents' on his dad's side's cabin had a pool.

And no, I hadn't borrowed a bikini from one of the girls who so conveniently kept an emergency swim suit in their car for girls that got tortured by Adrian Fletcher and his cronies. I had pointed this out to Adrian when he'd invited me to swim, and I'd honestly thought that I'd gotten myself out of the situation. But of course the bitch had a solution to every problem.

Adrian, the smug little lizard, had smirked and just told me to take off my clothes. Because surely I was wearing underwear under my clothes. I'd scoffed at the thought that he'd thought otherwise. Of course, me being in my right mind had been reluctant and told him to go to hell and leave me alone, but the little rodent had threatened to leave me here with no way of going home.

That had shut me up.

I'd stood there on the deck with my arms crossed and my eyes pointing daggers at his head for about five minutes when Adrian encouraged the onlookers to chant, "Take it off!" I'd glared them all down one by one, which proved effective with some. Others just got stoked on again by Sam and Adam.

It had taken three minutes and fifty three seconds for me to start going insane from the cheers and chants. I'd pulled off my cropped sweater and kicked off the denim short, before plunging into the water. Loud cheers and applause arose from the crowd when I emerged from the bottom of the pool. I'd scowled and shoved Adrian, who wore a victorious grin.

At some point while we were in the water, someone had thrown in a volleyball and started playing water volley. The rule was simple: the ball is not allowed to touch the water's surface. I think it's needless to say that almost half of the people in the pool got disqualified during the very first round. We'd divided into five teams of two partners that helped each other.

The game had gotten so competitive that Keelan Nicks, an honor roll student, had dived and grabbed Youri Song by the ankles to distract him. Unfortunately, there were no rules that said distractions weren't allowed, so everyone started doing it. This turned into a screaming fit between the guys as they were shoved back and forth while other teams tried to get them disqualified.

The ball came hurtling toward me so fast I nearly missed the shot entirely. I crouched, ready to jump out of the water when something tickled my inner thigh. A head of curly hair appeared between my thighs and lifted my higher as I slid onto the person's shoulders. I caught the ball and bonked it on the dude's head, then passed it to Sam.

The mop of curls pressed into my stomach as the boy lifted his head to look at me. Adrian blinked the droplets from his eyes and grinned up at me with his straight white teeth and the little dimples in his chin. "Hello, up there." He laughed, shifting me so I was pressed up against his head. I swatted his nose and commanded him to let me down.

Next thing I knew, I got a face full of water. Adrian had lifted me off his shoulders by my thighs and let me crash into the water like a boulder. Because that's what I felt like; a boulder that was rapidly sinking to the bottom of the pool. Two strong hands grabbed me by my arms and hauled me up and away from the chlorinated water.

Adrian was looking at me with big concerned eyes. His mouth was rapidly moving, stumbling over words as he most likely asked me if I was okay. His eyebrows scrunched up in concern as he held my head in his massive hands. The piercing yowl that held a steady beat and increasing volume made it impossible for me to understand what he was saying.

That's when the lights went out.

I awoke to Adrian hovering above me like a UFO. His eyes were wide and his lips were pursed together in a pout. He was arguing with someone next to me, yelling at them to leave him alone. He stopped short when he saw me blink at him and held my face in his hands. "Bernard, you scared me! Are you okay?"

I nodded, trying to sit up but hopelessly failing. "What happened?" I scrunched my nose, because that was a stupid question and I knew exactly what had happened. Adrian had dumped me in the water and I'd inhaled chlorinated water and become momentarily deaf by the water pressure. "You know what, never mind."

Adrian grinned sheepishly and handed me a mug of warm coffee. I gulped it down and felt the liquid warm up my blood slowly. "I'm sorry, Bernard. I didn't know you'd freak and choke down that much water." He helped me sit up and smiled apologetically. The door opened and Fletcher walked in, stopping when he took in the scene in front of him.

It must have been quite the sight. Adrian was in his trunks, sitting beside a girl--in her very revealing black underwear, no less--who had previously been knocked out cold. I couldn't blame the guy for holding his hands up in surrender and silently etching back out of the room.

Dammit.

Ten minutes later, we were heading toward Adrian's Pathfinder. While I was out, the others had carried me out of the water and hadn't taken into consideration that they shouldn't have let my clothes get wet, or else I would've gotten a cold. I wonder what was going on in their alcohol induced minds.