Page 73 of Deep End

Low-key terrified.

“I’m sorry.” I try for a smile, but my cheeks won’t behave.Calm down. “I better go . . .”

“Nah, stay,” Kyle says.

“Some company would be nice,” Jared adds. “Kinda bored of these losers.”

“Asshole, who did you call a loser?”

“Shut up—Vandy, stay in my mojo dojo Epsom tub.”

In the steaming heat, I shiver. “That’s lovely, but I have class.”

“What class?”

Shit. What class? “It’s—” No class.Think. “Psych.”

“Wait.” One of the guys scowls. “Is there a psych class on Wednesday afternoons? My adviser told me that—”

“Come on,” a deep voice says from behind me.

Two strong hands slide under my armpits. I clutch my phone, and for a second I’m suspended in the air, a toddler in floaties plucked out of a pool. My feet touch the floor, but I don’t turn around to see who my rescuer is.

It’s not a touch I could ever forget.

“Sweedy.” Hunter frowns. “Did you just, like, steal her from us?”

“You okay?” Lukas asks me. When I nod, he adds, louder, “We have to go. We’re working on something.”

“Ah, yeah.” Kyle nods wisely. “That physics project.”

“Bio,” Lukas corrects.

“Same difference!”

Next thing I know Lukas is ordering his teammates to behave and pushing me out of the room, his hand hot on my lower back, not too far from where the bruises have started to fade, no matter my—deranged?—attempts at keeping them alive. In the hallway, his fingers close around my shoulder. He turns me around. “You okay?” he asks again.

I’m really,reallyrelieved to not be in the tub anymore. So muchso, I don’t care if it’s a bit awkward, seeing him after nearly two weeks, wearing joggers and nothing else, smelling like soap andhim. He looks at once like Lukas Blomqvist, Pen’s ex, the Greatest Swimmer in the World or Whatever, and likemyLukas, who printed out a checklist and peels apples and hates rhetorical figures, and it’s all . . . confusing.

I shush the odd pang in my chest. “Thank you. I was feeling a bit overwhelmed there.” Not that Kyle & Co. would have done anything. But my gut isn’t always aware.

“I’m going to talk to Kyle,” Lukas says. His mouth is a straight, displeased line.

“What?”

“He needs to give you space.”

“There’s no need—”

“I won’t tell him why. He’s not a bad guy, but he has no idea how he comes across. He, Hunter, and a few of the others move in a pack. It’ll be good for him to know.”

I want to tell him not to bother, but—why not? It’ll be a ten-second conversation between them. Saves future unpleasantness. “Okay. Thank you.” I give Lukas one last smile and turn around to leave.

He stops me with a hand around my wrist. “Where are you going?”

“Oh.” I squeeze out one more smile, and that’s it. I’m all out for the day. “I appreciate your help, but I’d rather not make this weird.”

His eyes close, like he’s gathering the strength of a dozen Valkyries. He slowly exhales from his nostrils and says, “Scarlett.”

---