Britt was indomitable, he was pretty sure. But she was just beginning to reassemble her life and its new form wasn’t entirely ready for the light of day, like her drawings.
He parked his truck in front of his house, dashed inside to collect his things, and rejoined her.
“OK, the trail down can be pretty precarious, but I’m a great navigator. Trust me.”
She hesitated. She opened her mouth, about to say, “I can do it on my own,” he was pretty sure. Then she clapped it closed. And she finally gave him her hand, and he accepted it like she’d just handed him an Emmy.
He smiled and gripped it fast.
And she allowed him to be her rudder as he led her down the crooked path that traced the river and opened up into the swimming hole a hundred or so yards down.
The pool was bound by a few huge granite rocks, and a nice, big flat one near the narrow beach.
“Ta-da!” he said.
She was gratifyingly impressed. “What a find, J. T.! I’ve never seen this pool before.”
“Found it first day I was here. Followed the sound of the water. Pretty sure I’m hardly Ponce de Leon, but I bet it’s ours at least just for today.”
They whipped out their towels and flapped them down over the big flat granite rocks that flanked the pool, deposited their tote, then splashed on in.
The chill sucked the air out of him at first. But then it was exhilarating, and they got used to it. And then they frolicked like otters.
“Race you to that rock.” He pointed to a big granite boulder jutting out from the beach.
She beat him handily.
“Ha!” She exulted, albeit breathing like a bellows.
“Wench!” he laughed. Both pleased and nonplussed. And high-fived her.
“I’ll give you a head start next time, J. T.”
He kissed her.
For a long time.
“I almost forgot how much I love to win,” she mused when they came up for air.
“I’m sure it’ll all come back to you,” he teased. “We’ve established that you like the view from up top.”
She laughed and shot away from him like a mermaid.
A half hour later they waded dripping out of the water and stretched out on the rock to get warm. They fished out their e-readers. They read and passed the thermos full of iced tea back and forth, swigging at it like a couple of bums under an overpass. Britt on her stomach with her bikini top untied so the sun could erase any tan lines, J. T. on his back.
J. T. felt as happy to be himself as that rock or that boulder or those trees were to be what they were. Present and purely content and right where he should be.
She chuckled.
He turned to her and smiled. “What are you reading?”
“It’s a Susan Elizabeth Phillips book. It’s pretty funny. What are you reading?”
“Malcolm Gladwell.Outliers. It’s good, but I guess I’m not really in the mood for it today.”
“Wanna swap? I’ve read this one before. I like Gladwell and I haven’t read that one.”
They swapped e-readers and read in companionable quiet for a time, instinctively, almost unconsciously, shifting every now and then to make sure their legs, their hips, some part of them was always touching.