“I never can.”

I kick my feet back and forth in the water, watching the ripples.

“Were you going to go for a swim?”

“I was thinking about it. I’ve been doing laps in the pool this week, but I can never resist the temptation of swimming in open water.”

“You’re not trying to cross the whole thing, are you?”

He laughs softly. “You don’t need to worry about that. It’s too far. Though I did used to swim across the lake back at St. John’s.”

I know, I want to say.

Instead, I merely nod.

Then he pushes to stand. “Get in with me.”

An incredulous laugh spills out of me. “Absolutely not. It’s freezing.”

“Hardly.”

“This is a deep glacial lake.”

He looks unimpressed, but I don’t care.

“Have your swim. I’ll stay right here.”

“What an appropriate metaphor, you always sitting right on the edge of life, never quite brave enough to enjoy it.”

I bristle at his assessment, aware of how close he is to hitting the bull’s-eye.

“Save the reverse psychology. It won’t work on me.”

“Have you ever gone swimming at night?”

“No, and I’m doing perfectly fine, thank you.”

“What about skinny-dipping?”

My eyes widen. “No! Because unlike you, I don’t succumb to peer pressure.”

“You’re such a bad actress, you really shouldn’t bother trying. I see you, remember? The quiet girl who sneaked out into the woods to spy on my friends and me. You want to misbehave so badly…why don’t you give it a try?”

A dark blooming need starts to build inside me, but I resist with everything I have, trying to lighten the mood with my reply.

“Because I know how skinny-dipping would end. You’d take one look at my naked body and pass out from the sheer pleasure of it. It’d be a pain trying to call for an ambulance out here in the middle of nowhere.”

It’s one of life’s simple pleasures watching Emmett’s smile unfurl across his handsome face.

“I could push you in.”

“I’d never forgive you,” I say with mock seriousness.

He rolls his eyes.

“Fine. Then sit there and sulk.”

And with that, he takes aim and completes a smooth dive into the water, transitioning easily into his measured strokes. I’m catapulted back in time; watching him from the pier, I could be thirteen again, spying on a young Emmett as he tries to swim his anger away. I’m not surprised he still does this, the laps, the unending search for peace at the end of a long day. Just like him, I haven’t solved my problems either.

The methodic strokes are as mesmerizing as they always were. I swirl my toes in the water as I watch him disappearing into the distance. Worry edges in as he starts to grow smaller, but if teenage Emmett with his boyhood body could swim the length of St. John’s lake twice over, the Emmett I know now, with his menacing height and broad shoulders and hardened muscles, can manage just fine out on Lake Como.