He pries my arms from around his waist and comes up for air first. I’m right behind him, coughing the water out of my lungs.

“What’re you trying to do, drown me?” he sputters as he paddles to the edge of the pool.

I wipe the water off my face, half coughing and half laughing, and grab on beside him. “Add that to my resume. World-champion splasher. Another useless talent of Imogen Ada Lovelace.”

“You flipped me back!”

“Is your pride wounded?”

“A little,” he admits.

He could make for the stairs again, but instead he lingers near me, and I think we both realize at the same time how close we actually are, and there are flecks of gold in his eyes I haven’t seen before and that is so freaking cliché I kind of adore it. Not him. But his eyes. I have to remind myself that I can’t like him, but it’s so hard when a droplet of water beads at the end of a lock of raven hair in front of his face, and falls on his cheek, and rolls down his cheek slowly, languidly, like I want to run my finger down his jawline. It’s like there’s no one else but us in the world, and his eyes navigate steadily to my lips.

I should’ve exfoliated them earlier. A sugar scrub or something. I should’ve packed a cute bathing suit instead of jumping in wearing Jess’s dress. I should’ve done something—

NOT THAT THIS IS ANYTHING.

BECAUSE IT’S NOT.

It can’t be.

But then he migrates closer, closing the gap between us—the snippy remarks and the snark and the circumstances—until the heat from his skin burns against mine without even touching me, and the cool blue of the pool reflects across our faces like ripples in the ocean, and I think I might be—

I think this is—

“Ethan,” I whisper, and it’s my voice—my real voice—that breaks the spell.

He jerks back as if he’s forgotten that I’m me. Then his look morphs into mortification. Because it is me. And he wants Jess.

“I should, ah…I should get out of the pool. I—I’m sorry.”

“Oh, of course,” I murmur, trying to keep my voice steady.

“It’s not you. It’s just, I’m only here to keep a lookout for you for Jessica, so you don’t r—” But then he stops himself. “And you seem fine at the moment. You’re not masquerading as her. So.”

He pushes off from the edge and swims toward the shallow end.

I don’t say anything until he’s halfway to the stairs. He stands, his wet button-down clinging to the cordlike muscles of his back. Dammit, he does have a nice body. And it kind of just makes me angrier. I don’t know why.