If You Told Me To

Sarah yanked her shirt over her head, depositing it on the sand and squinting into the sun, watching Harry poke one of his toes into the water tentatively. Smirking to herself, she made her way toward the lake, hoping that the stares she felt on her were her paranoia playing tricks on her; after all, the only other people on the beach were a toddler with his mother and a couple of pre-teen girls gossiping over a gossip magazine and giggling loudly every so often.

“There’s no way it can be cold,” Sarah teased when she reached Harry’s hearing range.

He glanced back at her and laughed. “Just making sure. I don’t want to rush into things. I have to pace myself.”

The girls let out guffaws, so Sarah shot them a confused look. They turned red when the gazes connected, their heads snapping back to the pages in front of them as they spoke in muttered words only the two of them could understand.

“What?” Harry asked, following her gaze, before chuckling. “Do you know them or something?”

“Harry, they’re way younger than me. Of course I don’t know them.” Sarah shook her head before heading into the water, putting her confusion behind her. She just didn’t have the courage to tell Harry that she thought the young girls were talking about how cute they thought Harry was, even if they were too young to pose any kind of threat.

“I wasn’t trying to insult you,” Harry insisted as he followed her, wading slowly as he pushed the water away from his body. “You know that, right? I was kidding?”

She shot him a look. “Yes, I caught onto that.”

He didn’t answer, flopping on his back and starting to float around Sarah, who was up past her waist in the only slightly chilly lake water. There were goosebumps covering her entire body, and while she knew she could get rid of them easily by submerging herself completely, she was slightly hesitant, since she was having a fairly good hair day.

“You know, this lake is such a struggle for me,” Harry started musingly, making Sarah laugh. “On one hand, it’s so much cooler here, so it’s perfect for the really, really hot days. But the bad thing is, I look at the quality of this water, and it’s not exactly the cleanest thing I’ve ever swam in.”

Taking his words into consideration, Sarah stared down at her toes. They were barely visible, thanks to the vegetation and such, but she didn’t think it was so bad. She’d grown up in the lake, swimming and spending parts of her summer there, and she had seen some way worse lakes on the internet. “It’s not that bad,” Sarah defended, skimming her fingertips along the surface. “I mean, it’s no pool, but…”

“Well, pools have five hundred chemicals in them to make them clean,” Harry responded. “And it’s not like this lake is filthy; if it was filthy, I wouldn’t even swim in it. I just have a small fear that I’m going to get some parasites in places I don’t think I should mention.”

Sarah blushed furiously, splashing him to silence, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t stop herself from bursting into embarrassingly loud laughter. “Oh my God, Harry, that’s disgusting!”

He chuckled at both his joke and Sarah’s reaction before splashing back, chopping his arm through the water to form a kind of mini-tidal wave. And soon, the fun turned into an all-out war, with both teenagers shoving as much water as possible toward each other. Some of the attacks hurt when they connected with Sarah’s sensitive skin, but she was having too much fun to take the time to care.

Harry must have gotten sick of losing because, before Sarah even had time to react, he wrapped an arm around Sarah’s middle and dragged her under the water, officially destroying the hair she had been trying so hard to maintain.

As Sarah was struggling to break free, shoving Harry away playfully and focused on holding her breath, she couldn’t help but become focused on the warm, shockingly warm, hand on the place where her waist curved softly into her hip. The touch felt so intimate, even though it probably wasn’t to anyone else on the planet, and she was suddenly thankful Harry had pushed her underwater so he wouldn’t see her blush furiously.

When she resurfaced, she took in a deep breath and flipped her hair back, adjusting her top so it wasn’t twisted just slightly to the left. “Harry!” she scolded. “I could have died!”

He laughed loudly and shook his head. “So dramatic. I never took you for that type.”

Sarah narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms in front of her chest. “I’m not being dramatic! Have you ever heard of a certain cause of death called drowning? Or I could have smashed my head against the bottom of the lake if you pushed me any harder.”

Harry rolled his eyes, wading toward her. “I wouldn’t have let you drown, Sarah. Don’t be ridiculous.”

She finally let her fake anger drop and giggled lightly. “Well, I don’t know about you, but I do know that I’m an excellent swimmer.”

“Is that so?” Harry asked cockily, crossing his arms over his chest. “I’d ask you to race me right now, but this lake is too shallow for serious swimming.”

Sarah laughed knowingly and ran her hand across the surface of the water, showing off the fact that it stopped just under her bust. “I’ll have you know that I learned to swim in this lake, so it’s more than suitable for serious swimming.”

Harry didn’t look convinced. “To a five year old kid, I’m sure this lake is perfect for the breaststroke. But for me, who is almost six feet tall, there’s no way I’d be able to go anywhere without smacking my limbs on the bottom.”

Unable to keep the mental image out of her mind, Sarah put a hand to her mouth and giggled. “Okay, maybe. But I’m not that much shorter than you, you know. Only a few inches.”

“I’d say maybe a half a foot,” Harry corrected. “Which is more than a few inches. You swimming away right now still wouldn’t prove me wrong.”

Sarah felt her stomach sink a little, since that was exactly what she was planning on doing. Instead, she took a breath and ran one of her wet hands through her hair, sighing at the unfortunate texture, before glancing over at the preteens on the shore.

They were staring in Sarah and Harry’s direction once again, one of them grimacing. Sarah chuckled before leaning over and whispering in Harry’s ear, “Don’t look now, but I think those girls are drooling over you.”

To Sarah’s surprise, his head didn’t immediately snap in their direction. “Which ones? The ten-year-olds you were staring at earlier?”

She nodded. “I hope they haven’t been watching us the whole time.”

“Probably not. We’re not that entertaining.” Then, subtly, he turned his gaze from Sarah to the young girls and smiled at them broadly enough for his dimples to appear.

The one on the left, the more fair-skinned one, turned bright red, while her tanner friend just looked down at the magazine laid out in front of her, pretending it was the most interesting article she’d ever seen.

“Told you,” Sarah responded with a laugh, still watching. “I don’t know if you ruined or made their lives.”

“Maybe a bit of both. And that’s alright with me.”

The two bantered and dunked under the water a few more times before finally settling on the beach, spreading out towels and air-drying. Sarah stared up at the clear blue sky through her sunglasses and sighed, feeling completely content. It had been too long since they’d gone to the lake, and it felt refreshing to spend a day doing something other than sweating to death.

For a long time, the two were quiet, and Sarah guessed that Harry had fallen asleep in the warm, relaxing sunshine. She started to feel pretty drowsy herself, her breathing slowing to an even rhythm and her eyelids fluttering closed, her arms draped over her slightly-sandy middle.

“Sarah,” Harry spoke suddenly, jarring her awake with a jump and a sharp intake of breath, “we should head back before we burn. We didn’t bring any sunscreen.”

As much as it pained her to agree, she had to follow his lead, climbing to her feet, getting dressed, and starting the journey through the woods. Normally, she would have spent more time debating whether the burn would be worth it, but she didn’t want to disappoint her father, who had lectured her on more than one occasion on the importance of sunblock. Plus, there would be other days to go to the lake, and she would have to make sure she remembered all of the essential materials in the future.