The best thing is just to ignore her, I remind myself.
“I mean everybody does it. I would totally do it if I were you.”
“Does what?” I ask, despite my best intentions.
She leans forward, her eyes bright with mischief. “Don’t tell me you haven’t heard about Belinda and Blaine!”
“What about Bel— wait. What are you saying?”
She raises her eyebrows and leans back, cheeks sucked in, oozing mystery.
“You’re not telling me that they are…”
She nods once.
“Ew! Gross!”
Shrugging one shoulder, she assumes a more-mature-than-thou expression, as though I just wouldn’t understand.
“It’s just nature, Chelsea,” she sighs as though she’s already bored. “You can’t fight nature.”
Nature, huh? What does she know?
Chance throws the football a little wide and though Jack lunges for it like some kind of jungle cat, it bounces off his fingertips and jolts over the concrete to land between my chair and Yoyo’s. When he comes after it, Jack picks it up and glances at each of us. To my surprise, he drops between our lounge chairs and sits on the patio, grinning with his elbows on his bent knees.
“Hot out today, isn’t it?” he grins, letting his eyes skate shamelessly over Yoyo’s perfect skin.
“Just got a little hotter,” she answers with a mischievous pout.
His eyebrows rise in delighted surprise as his grin twists a little sideways.
“Oh really?” he answers, clearly intrigued. “Are you a fan of hot days?”
Yoyo shrugs one shoulder, slowly raising her arms over her head and crossing her ankles so that she can move her knees. I watch his eyes track every shifting plane of her body, the way he is mesmerized like a cat. Like if she were a mouse, he might jump right on her.
I have to bite my cheeks not to say anything. I don’t know why, but I want to jump in the middle of this. I don’t want his eyes on her. Well… what do I want? I’m not sure, but before long I realize I want his eyes on me. If I could slip myself like a piece of paper between them and intercept that hungry gaze, I think I actually might.
“What are we talking about?” Chance asks, trotting around to our side of the pool.
“Yoyo likes it hot,” Jack nods, wetting his lips with his tongue.
“Is that a fact?” Chance chuckles.
To my surprise, he directs his smile at me. To my greater surprise, he sits down on the end of my chair, nudging my ankles aside with his hips. I freeze in place, sure it must be some kind of mistake as my heartbeat instantly doubles.
“That is definitely a fact,” Yoyo continues smoothly. “The hotter the better, I always say!”
Chance leans back slightly, resting his weight on the heel of his hand which is on the other side of my ankles. Basically, he’s got me caged in. I try to catch his eyes to figure out if he knows he’s doing it, but he is looking at my best friend right now.
When I look up, I see Jack give me a look, kind of a playful jerking of his chin.
“It can get really hot around here,” he says, to her and... to me also? I guess?
Is this really happening?
“Oh trust me,” she giggles as she arches her back. “I could take it.”
“That’s what people always say, but you really shouldn?