“Brave enough to soak your feet in the water?” I ask, half joking.
“It’ll be freezing,” he warns.
“Afraid your balls will fall off, Bennett?” I elbow him playfully.
“You’re bad for my no-challenge resolution, Jonesie.”
He stalks toward the water, and I trail behind him.
“Men are so predictable,” I inform him. “Whenever someone challenges you, you can’t help yourself.”
Max spins around, tilting his head to one side. “You think you have me all figured out, don’t you?”
I shrug. “I don’t want to brag, but....” I point to his feet in the water, as if that would explain it all. Without any warning, Max lifts me, one arm under my knees, the other one around my back. We both drop the shoes on the sand before he walks into the water up to his knees, with no signs of stopping.
I shriek, then laugh, and he laughs with me, and it’s the most perfect moment.
“What are you doing?” I ask between fits of laughter. “You’re crazy. The water is freezing.”
“You make me crazy,” he says, and he’s up to his waist in the water. “I was the bad influence when we were kids, but I think the roles are reversed now.”
“You make me proud, Bennett.”
We both stop laughing for a moment, long enough to look straight at each other. I can practically see my question mirrored in his eyes. What the hell are we doing? Is this friendship? Is it more?
He’s up to his waist in freezing water—but holding my ass carefully over the water so I don’t get wet—and even though this isn’t a date, it feels better than any date I’ve had.
And maybe if we weren’t so lost in each other, we would have noticed the wave about to hit us, but we don’t until it’s too late and we’re both drenched. The universe’s way of saying, stop eye fucking your best friend.
“Holy shit.” I shriek, tightening my arms around his neck. “This is c-c-c-cold.”
Max doesn’t say one word, and when I look up at him, I realize it’s because his teeth are chattering.
“Let’s get out,” I say, and I’m not sure if my words are intelligible, because my teeth are chattering too. But Max gets the gist of it and starts moving back to the shore.
“You can put me down, I’m wet anyway,” I tell him. “You’ll move faster if you’re not carrying me.”
Max merely shakes his head and pulls me to him protectively, which I find incredibly sweet.
“So cold,” is all I can say once we’re on the beach. Max puts me down and then runs his hands up and down my arms in an attempt to warm me, but that’s not doing much good.
“Let’s go to my car,” he says, “I have a towel.”
“Why do you have a towel?”
“I have the bag for the training session on Monday inside, and I always shower after the session.”
We pick up our shoes, which we left on the sand, and a tourist group is staring at us like we’re crazy, which I suppose we are. So why am I grinning from ear to ear even though I’m about to go into hypothermia? Because I’m with Max, that’s why.
He leads the way to his car, taking my hand in his. I relish the warmth radiating from the point of contact. When we reach the car, Max opens the trunk, fishes the towel out of his gym bag, and wraps it around me.
“I can do it,” I murmur.
“Let me,” he says, and I don’t object anymore, because it feels too good.
“Go change into your training clothes,” I tell him. With a nod, he slings the bag on his shoulder and heads inside the restaurant where we had our pancakes, returning a few minutes later. “I’m still cold.”
“Short of taking off your clothes, I don’t know how you’ll stop being cold,” he says.