“Hi,” I say after a moment.
The tension in Amanda’s shoulders melts instantly, and she smiles over her shoulder before shaking her head. “Hi.”
“Such lovely company we have with us today,” I muse.
She snorts. “Yeah. Lovely enough to drown when no one’s looking.”
She says the words with another smile over her shoulder.
I smile back.
It’s not much, that greeting, but it’s enough to let me know she’s okay.
That we’re okay.
“Come on, Birthday Baby!” David announces, paddling by us. “Let’s roll!”
Tucker smiles and makes baby noises as his mom claps his hands together. She’s in the front with Tucker in her lap, and David is doing all the paddling work in the back.
Poor guy.
Or is it… lucky guy?
Amanda and I start paddling behind them, Josh bringing up the rear and struggling with how to drink his beer and paddle at the same time. He’s not even supposed to have alcohol on the river at all, but somehow managed to sneak on a six pack under his lifejacket.
None of us offer to help, and soon, we’ve put distance between us and him.
The river is calm for a Saturday, the locals telling us that in the summertime, it would be crawling with kayaks and canoes and boats and swimmers in tubes. Right now, it’s quiet enough to hear our paddles gliding through the water, and I watch the way the sunlight trickles in through the leaves above and makes designs on Amanda’s back.
“How are you?” I ask once we’re going, David and Julia ahead of us with Tucker, Josh somewhere behind.
She sighs, dipping her paddle into the water and pushing us along. “Just peachy.”
“You ever going to tell me what happened on your date?”
“Probably not.”
“Amanda…”
She sighs again, pausing with the paddle balanced in her lap. “He just rubbed me wrong. He was self-absorbed, eager to hook up, and… offensive.”
I don’t know what makes me see red more — the thought of him trying to hook up with her, or the fact that he offended her.
“What did he do?”
She shrugs. “He didn’t really do anything, other than kiss me.”
I grip the paddle tighter.
“It was what he said.”
“Which was?”
Amanda shakes her head. “Nothing that wasn’t true, I guess,” she whispers.
I frown, wondering what she means, but before I can ask, she screams.
“MANATEE!”
She nearly topples us over with the exaggerated point at a large shadow moving just ahead of us, and I look just in time to see the large sea cow breach the surface to take a sip of air before diving back under.
It swims right under our kayak, and Amanda squeals with delight, her fingertips trailing the top of the water. “Did you see it?!”
“I saw it,” I say on a chuckle.
“I read about them. They flock to springs and warmer waters in the winter, but usually hang out in the Gulf in the summer.” She looks over her shoulder at me. “Did you know they think manatees are what inspired mermaid legends?”
“I did not know that.”
“Well, now you do,” she says with a satisfied smile. She sighs when she turns back around, paddle dipping into the water. “Day. Made.”
I chuckle behind her and decide pulling her attention back to the shitty date with Samuel wouldn’t be a good move now that she’s happy and smiling. I drop it for now, enjoying the peaceful scene around us as we paddle up the river.
After about an hour, David and Julia pull over on a little sand bar in the sun, dragging their kayak half out of the water to anchor it on the shore while they eat and take a dip. We do the same, parking our kayak right next to them and shaking out our stiff limbs once we’re standing on the little sand bar.
“Brrr!” Amanda says when her feet hit the water. “It’s freezing!”
“It’s not so bad once you get in,” David argues from where he’s swimming in the middle of the cove we found. Tucker is sitting on the sand with Julia, kicking his little legs in the water and laughing at the splash.
Amanda and I work on divvying out the sandwiches and unpacking fruit and nuts and other snacks. We’re just about to eat our own when Josh finds us, pulling his kayak in next to ours.
I note the shift in Amanda instantly, how her body tenses, her eyes on alert.
I wrap my sandwich back up and stand. “Wanna take a dip?”
Her eyes flash wide, eyeing the water that she just announced was freezing, but then her gaze slips to her soon-to-be ex-husband, and that seems to make up her mind.
“Sure,” she says, abandoning her own sandwich.
She seems a bit hesitant once she’s standing, her eyes on the ground, but after a breath, she strips her dress overhead and leaves it in the kayak.
It’s only a split second before she’s in the water, but I soak up that second like it’s the last one I have. My heart races at the sight of her curves stretching the thin black fabric of her top, the high-waisted bottom revealing the supple cheeks of her ass. That glorious sight disappears into the water too soon, Amanda diving headfirst into the river and out toward where David is swimming.
Josh laughs behind me. “Oh look, another manatee!”
I spin, jaw tight as I glare at him, and he just smirks back. Julia rolls her eyes, but seems content to just ignore him.
I, on the other hand, am ready to rip him to shreds.
“What?” he probes, smile turning into a sneer as he reaches for a beer out of the six pack he brought with him. He cracks the top of it and takes a big swig. “You got a problem, kid?”
There are a million things I want to say to that piece of shit, starting with threatening his life if he says another fucking word about Amanda. But the longer I stand there, seething, the more I realize he’s not worth the time or energy.
I feel sorry for him, really.
So, I just shake my head, stripping my shirt overhead and following after Amanda.
I take a deep breath once I’m not facing him anymore — though the breath gets cut short at the frigid iciness of the water. I hiss when it hits my thighs, not excited about where it’ll cover next.
“Just dive in and get it over with,” David calls with a laugh.
I flip him off with a grin, but then I see Amanda, noting the way her own gaze is crawling over my bare abdomen like she wants to lick chocolate off it.
I smirk when her eyes flick to mine, and she flushes, disappearing under the water.
With a chuckle, I take one last breath and plunge in, getting it all over with. I emerge on the surface with a loud curse word that makes Julia scold me from the shore.
“Baby present!” she says, pointing at Tucker.
I laugh and hold my hands up. “S-sorry. C-cold.”
“Pansy,” David teases, splashing me.
“Hey! That got me, too,” Amanda protests.
Then, I launch myself at David, taking him under the water for a tussle before we both break the surface. Amanda swims away from us, laughing as she warns us to leave her out of the splash zone.
David and I share an evil grin, and then we descend on her, her eyes going wide when she sees us closing in like sharks.
“Don’t even think about it,” she warns. But in the next instant, David hauls her up over his shoulders and dunks her under the water, too.