Page 16 of You've Got The Love
“I couldn’t believe my luck when I found this place. The solitude it afforded me was exactly what I needed in the days after Abel was born, but as he’s grown, I love this place for so much more than that. We love fishing on the lake together, it's great to share something with him that I shared with my pa when I was younger.”
I can’t resist grabbing a pink poppy growing amongst all the wildflowers and threading it behind her ear. I know I shouldn’t be encouraging this kind of behaviour, especially as her answering smile is huge. She’s beaming. It blows me away how she can rally and try to find a little joy in the midst of this situation’s chaos, but I guess being the VP’s daughter, it comes with the territory. It fills my chest with that ache I always get when I’m around her, but this time it feels like that ache has doubled, no tripled.
“There are fish in the lake. Big ones?” She looks at the water dubiously, thankfully not expounding on my foolish behaviour, as her eyes bug out of her head, which makes me laugh out loud.
“Of course. We’ve caught Pike, Carp, and even Perch. You aren’t afraid of fish, are you?”
“No. Well, no… yes… but only sharks, I know they are mammals, but it’s the same. I don’t know what those fish are, the ones you just mentioned.”
She is so fucking adorable. She’s afraid of sharks.
“Amber, you grew up and continue to live on an island with water all around you, how can you be afraid of sharks?”
“I don’t gointhe water. Besides, we don’t get the scary killer ones,” she snaps her teeth open and closed, trying to mimic a shark, and just makes me laugh even louder.
“Well, I think it’s safe to say you won’t find any sharks in my lake, well, unless one has gotten very lost.”
“Oh my God! What!? Can that happen? Can they get lost?” She moves to put me between her and the lake, but I’m too lost in laughing so hard. She plasters herself to me as I’m bent over, trying to get air into my lungs.
“Bas! Don’t laugh! One could eat us,” she screeches at me as she whacks my back, which only makes me laugh harder.
I bump down on the bank of the lake, throw my head back, and just laugh. She’s too cute for me to handle.Fucking lost shark.In a lake in the Netherlands. She sits down next to me, and as I watch her profile, I can tell she’s trying to hold in a smile, so I reach around her and tickle her sides, making her screech loud enough the sharks in the damn Pacific Ocean could hear her. She slaps at my hands and tries to wriggle away from me, but fuck that, seeing her laugh is too good. We end up halfway down the bank, and I try to warn her that we are getting closer and closer to theedge of the water, but she’s wailing like a damn banshee at this point.
“Amber! You are getting close to the edge!” I try to shout at her, but I’m laughing way too hard at her.
I try to grab her instead of tickle her, but she squirms away on her side, rolling straight into the lake.
“FUCK! Baaaaaaas!”She screams from the water as she rolls onto her arse; she’s soaked from her waist down.
I roll onto my back and laugh so fucking hard I have tears streaming down my face and have to hold onto my stomach. Just thinking about the face she pulled as she rolled into the water makes me laugh more and more. My abs contract with how much I’m laughing.
The next thing I know, I get a load of cold water dumped on my face, making me stop laughing pronto. Amber is standing over me, hands on her wet hips like some kind of half-soaked superhero. She pokes out her tongue at me and looks at me in mock rage, while I wipe the cold water from my face. I know she’s not really mad; she never is with me, but she’s trying her hardest to look it.
She plonks herself down next to me on the bank and continues to give me that mock-angry face, which honestly kills me.She’s ridiculous.
“I’m waiting,” she states with one eyebrow raised as she looks at me.
“For…?”
“Your apology for almost drowning me!”
I burst into laughter again–this girl.
“Almost drowning you? Your face didn’t get anywhere near the water… unlike mine,” I add, pointing to my grinning face. I can't help it, she makes me feel way too happy, too joyful, and it’s a welcome and unwelcome feeling all at the same time.
“Well, if my face HAD gone near the water, I could have drowned, you know.”
“Yes, very true. If not drowned, the rogue lost great-grandson of‘Jaws’could have eaten you,” I say, biting my lips to keep from smiling.
“That’s it, Mr Van der Meer, I’ve had enough of you. Urgh… I can’t keep up my pretend anger, can we go back so I can put on some warm, clean clothes?”
“Course, come on, Bell,” I jump up and offer her my hand to help her up. Shit, she really is soaked through, from the waist area of my hoodie to the tips of her toes.Ooops.
She slides her soft, small hand into mine, and I pull her up. I slip my arm around her shoulder; she wraps her arm around my waist, and we walk back in silence. It just feels natural to walk with her like this, with her close and being able to feel her body, even though half of it is soaked in lake water.
I refuse to think about it anymore, not wanting to admit that I might have something like feelings for the girl.
Chapter 9
