Then I turn my back to her even though all I want to do is see those luscious curves that I’ve just had my hands all over. And while she dresses I put my head down and do a few laps across the pool, willing myself to focus on swimming instead of the release that won’t be coming anytime soon.

Chapter 11

Nell’s To-Do List

• Normal College Thing #1: Hook up with a jock

• Learn some freaking self-control, woman.

For a few moments I just stand there naked and dripping beside my clothes. I should be frantically dressing or finding some way to blot the water off my body. Instead I’m watching Mateo’s sleek naked body cut through the water in the moonlight. Torres, I correct. He needs to stay Torres.

I have never been struck dumb by the naked male form. All the statues in museums of sculpted muscles and curves never really seemed that art-worthy to me. My interest in the body has always been clinical, not aesthetic.

Now I realize that was because I’d never seen it in person. Never seen the powerful way muscles move in action. It goes so far beyond medical. I shake my head before I can start waxing poetic about Torres’s magical muscles. God, it’s like that guy makes me forget I have a brain.

If he hadn’t started talking, there’s no telling what I would have let him do. What if he’d just . . . I don’t know . . . stuck it in, no warning or whatever. Like . . . SURPRISE! Here’s a penis. I picture the scene now. Losing my virginity by sneak attack in the pool, and the vision in my head goes from painful to awkward then back to painful. I can’t even think about the fact that he didn’t have a condom with him in the pool, and I doubt there are pockets in his loincloth.

“You done yet?” he calls from behind me, and I spin around, covering my intimate places with my hands, but he’s got his back to me at the far end of the pool.

“Um, not yet!”

He sets off swimming again and I grab my skirt first. It’s dark and plaid, and can withstand a little water. So I use it to get off as much water as I can, then I go ahead and slip it on. Then I pull up my underwear beneath it and proceed to throw on the rest of my clothes as fast as I can. The fabric catches and sticks on my skin, and uncomfortable doesn’t even begin to describe how I feel.

I slip on my shoes and call out to Torres, “I’m done.”

I guess he doesn’t hear me, so I walk around to the end of the pool he’s approaching and stand in front of him so that maybe he’ll see. He has his head down in the water, but when he touches the wall, he doesn’t turn around and head in the other direction. He rises out of the water, shaking his head to clear his eyes, and looks up at me.

I swallow. Bad idea. Bad, bad idea.

His eyes travel from my ankles at his eye level, up my legs, lingering at the edge of my skirt, and I wonder just how much he can see from his position below me. But then he continues up, pausing at my white shirt, which clings in places to my damp skin, before he finally meets my eyes.

There’s such hunger in his gaze that my knees actually feel a little weak.

Furious that I have so little control of my body, I turn away and say, “I’ll meet you by the swing.”

Then I dart out of the pool area, grab my spiral, and flee.

Well, there’s two more things marked off my list. “Kiss a stranger” and “Hook up with a jock.” I feel fairly confident that what we’d just done qualifies as a hookup, and since this is my list, it’s my judgment call. And now . . . there’s absolutely no reason why I should continue to hang out with Torres. I needed a jock, and I got one, and now everything else can be done without him. I know he said that thing about helping me with the list, but really . . . I doubt he meant it.

That’s just his persona, all smooth moves and exactly the right words. And really, he’s the last person I want to see me do some of the things on this list. Tonight was embarrassing enough.

I wanted a catalyst. He’s more like an atom bomb.

I see him righting the pool fence, struggling to get it latched the way it was, and I panic. What am I going to say to him? Will he expect to know why I stopped us? Or will he want to make god-awful small talk? I’m bad enough at small talk with people I haven’t been naked with.

Deciding to make my way back to the party alone, I grab my bag from where he’d left it by the swing and move as briskly as I can toward the gate, tucking my spiral away as I go. I hear him call my name a second after I’ve closed the gate, and I quicken my pace. Within thirty seconds, I’m back at the downed fence at his house, and I slink back in their yard just in time to come face-to-face with my roommate.

When Dylan sees me, she has this harried look in her eye, and she drops her costume torch to throw herself into my arms.

“Thank God,” she breathes in my ear. “You disappeared, and I couldn’t find you, and you weren’t answering your phone, and we were afraid . . .” She trails off, and pulls away to face me. “We were afraid.”

I see Silas jog up behind her then, and he releases a heavy exhale. “You found her. Good. Where was she?”

I don’t know if it’s the bizarreness of the night up until this point, but their worry makes my throat clog, and it aches when I swallow.

“Good question.” Dylan’s hands are still on my shoulders, and she asks firmly, “Where have you been? And why are you wet?”

I panic, knowing that any second now, Torres is going to enter that gap in the fence that I just came through, and I’ll have a lot more questions to answer. So I pull away and walk past Dylan and Silas toward the house, forcing them to turn and follow me.

“Oh, I just went for a walk. The sprinklers came on in one of the neighbors’ yards as I was passing, and I didn’t react fast enough to avoid getting wet.” I look behind me just in time to see Torres step through the hole in the fence. He freezes when he sees his friends, and I ask Dylan, loud enough for him to hear, “Would you care if I went home? This just really isn’t my scene.”

She frowns. “Sure, of course.”

Silas says, “We were about to kick most everyone out anyway. We’ve got a game tomorrow night, so McClain put a strict curfew on this thing.”

Dylan looks up at him, and I realize she doesn’t want to leave. Can’t really blame her for that.

“You could stay,” I say. “If you don’t mind me taking your car. I can come pick you up tomorrow morning.”