Jade let out a trembling breath and laid her head against his neck. She was safe. She was home. This was her spot.
Joshua easily carried her over to the bench where they’d put their gear on. He sat her on the bench and knelt in front of her. “Are you okay, love?”
Jade’s eyes widened. Had he just called her love? She’d told him she loved him earlier but then quickly retracted. She felt love, for him, but they hadn’t even kissed and they had so much junk between them.
“I’m fine, I’m just embarrassed.” She laughed shakily. “I couldn’t let go.”
“You did great.” He grinned, clasping her hands between his.
“I was horrible, worse than mini-golf or basketball.”
He chuckled. “What do you mean? You rang the bell. I was super proud.”
“I bet you were just beaming with pride when I climbed back down instead of letting go.” She gestured to the climbing wall, where a five-year-old was floating back down after climbing, no fear, just trusting that a simple cable would keep him from falling to a painful death.
He smiled. “It was pretty cute.”
Jade looked him over. “You’re pretty cute.”
“Ah … shucks, darlin’, I feel all warm and fuzzy.”
She laughed. She stood shakily and started removing the gear. Joshua tried to help her, but she batted his hands away from her upper thigh. “Now that is too fresh,” she said.
He laughed loudly but kept his hands to himself.
The girl from California came and took their gear, and they thanked her.
“Flow Rider?” Jade asked bravely.
“You up for more?”
She shrugged. Not really sure. Her legs were still kind of shaky. They walked around to the Flow Rider but it was a bodyboarding session. They’d already done that and the line was horrific.
“Lunch?” Joshua asked.
“Sure.” Jade was pretty sure they’d barely had breakfast, but when they went through the amazing buffet and she built a huge salad, she found she was hungry and it was already almost one o’clock. The time made her sick. She didn’t want her day with Joshua to end.
After lunch, they put on suits and decided to try out every pool. The first pools they arrived at were the kids’ pools. Some parents looked at them strangely as they ran through the water features and went down the small water slides.
Joshua looked uncertainly at the “lazy river.” “It looks more like a toilet bowl,” he said.
“No, it doesn’t.” It had glass walls and was a flowing circle. “Come on, you wimp.”
“I’m pretty sure some kid has peed in that.”
“Probably a lot of kids. Buck up.” She took his hand and tugged him up the stairs then down into the water.
They laughed as they chased each other around, dodging kids and the current making their swim strokes go faster.
After the kids’ pools was the main section. They swam through the two pools and took a dip in each of the hot tubs, then went to the adults only section and swam in that pool by themselves for quite a while. The rest of the adults lounged on the chairs or at the side of the pool, but no one else seemed inclined to swim in the cool water.
They soaked in each of the hot tubs. In the final hot tub there wasn’t much room. A guy yelled out, “Come over here, we’ll make room.” He grabbed his wife and tugged her onto his lap. She squealed happily and raised her beer to them.
“Thanks.” Joshua led her to the open spot, sat, and also tugged her onto his lap.
Heat not created by the warm water rushed over her as Joshua wrapped his arms around her abdomen and her back pressed into his bare chest. She relaxed back against him yet was as keyed up as she’d been at the top of that rock climbing wall.
“This is the life, eh?” the guy who made room for them asked.