If You Told Me To

Sarah was delighted to see that the truce set up between her and Harry had not been a fluke. It hadn’t managed to dissipate in the next week, even though they spent five out of the seven days together in her barn. Most of the time, she was working on a picture of the grove of trees in Antonia’s backyard while Harry hopped onto her Wi-Fi connection and did whatever teenage boys did on the internet.

Sarah was so sucked into what she was doing that she didn’t notice Harry was trying to communicate with her until he picked up a rock and threw it at her head. The stone collided solidly, sending a jolt of shocked pain through her skull, and she glared at him. “There are more mature ways to get my attention, you know.”

“I know,” he agreed with a smirk. Sarah realized that "mature" could have been taken more than one way and flushed wildly, but Harry didn’t dwell on his manipulation of her words before continuing, “I just wanted to ask you if there was anything else to do around here. Because not that spending time in a barn isn’t super entertaining, but my butt’s falling asleep, and if I sit on it for one more second, it’s going to have to get amputated.”

Sarah giggled and got to her feet, not even bothering to tell Harry what they were about to do. She’d been debating letting him in on a local secret for the past couple of days, and although she’d chickened out every time she tried to tell him about it, his complaining was finally going to be put to good use.

“So am I just supposed to follow you into some booby trap or something?” Harry called from behind her as he hurried to catch up. “Shouldn’t you blindfold me? Just to up the creepy factor a little bit?”

“Are you always this stressed?” Sarah asked conversationally, giving him a sideways glance. “You’re going to give yourself ulcers, you know.”

He cringed for a second, resting his hand on his stomach as if trying to soothe any possible maladies that might have arisen. “I will not,” he argued. “Why is it so bad that I want to know where we’re going? Which involves going through woods. Awesome.”

Sarah rolled her eyes as she silently pushed her way through the prickly brush in front of her, while Harry continued his commentary as he moved. “Oh, shit, I think something just moved. And I just love the feeling of thorns ripping the flesh off my palms. Really, Sarah, I think you picked the perfect distraction. My ass wholeheartedly thanks you. You know, if it had a heart.”

She struggled not to laugh, keeping her eyes solidly in front of her, so as not to encourage his sarcasm any further.

“Oh my God, what did I just squish? If that was some kind of animal shit, I’m going to have to burn these shoes.”

Sarah burst through the last mess of bushes and emerged into the clearing surrounding the huge lake. Because it was in the middle of the woods, no one had touched it, and so it was one of the cleanest bodies of water she’d ever seen in her life. Not that the list was particularly expansive, but her lake was still the cleanest.

“Oh, wow, that’s pretty,” Harry observed plainly, dropping his ongoing complaining and giving her the smallest of smiles. “Unless you’re planning on drowning me in it.”

Sarah laughed. “You just told me the other day that I’ve been continually nice to you, despite your rotten attitude. What makes you think I’d change that now?”

“Everyone has a breaking point.” He grinned at her and then, without missing a beat, stripped off his shirt.

Sarah snapped her head away, blushing furiously, pretending she hadn’t caught sight of the young, faint abs that were present on his tanned stomach. “What are you doing?” she questioned, the flush across her cheeks deepening when her voice came out high-pitched and panicked instead of calm and collected like she’d wanted it to.

Harry immediately chuckled. “Sorry, have you never seen a boy with his shirt off before? You’re even more innocent than I thought you were.”

She glared at him for a second, mustering up the courage for a second, but he was already off toward the water. Thankfully, he had the decency to keep on his khaki shorts, so she didn’t have to see him in his boxers or, worse, briefs, as he ran.

Once he was in the water, he did a kind of belly flop, the slapping noise making her wince. But when Harry emerged, shaking out his curls, he looked overjoyed. “God, I’m so glad this thing exists. It feels so nice to be in cool water on a hot day. I had gotten so used to sweating that I almost forgot.”

Sarah chuckled lightly and headed out to the place where the shifty sand met the lake and sat down, sticking out her legs so her toes just met the water. She had to agree with Harry about the water feeling good, and she wondered why she didn’t make the ten-minute trek more often.

“Are you not coming in?” Harry called to her, cocking his head to the side. “Or are you too afraid?”

She knew he didn’t mean she was afraid of the water and looked down at her shirt. She’d never been shirtless in front of a boy before, and she wasn’t exactly sure that she wanted to start. Granted, what was the difference between wearing just a bra and wearing her favorite blue polka dot bathing suit top? It wasn’t like she had to strip down to her underpants; she could just keep the cutoff jean shorts on her body.

“Fine,” she agreed, though still reluctantly, before taking off her sunset-colored tank top and revealing her nude-colored cotton bra. She knew he was probably totally underwhelmed, since she wasn’t exactly wearing the most glamorous underwear in the world, but it was about swimming, not being a fashion statement.

Still, since Harry never liked to let anything go, he let out a long whistle as she walked toward the lake. Instinctively, she wrapped her arms around her middle and bit her lip, hoping and praying that Harry would stop being a teenage boy and divert his eyes just for a minute.

But a minute later, she waded waist-deep in the water and pulled her legs up so she was floating, submerged to her shoulders and hiding her insecurities from her new friend.

“Now was that so hard?” Harry teased, swimming over to her. “No need to be a prude.”

“I’m not a prude,” she argued before ducking her head under the water to get all of her hair wet, smoothing it back and away from her face. She hoped that she looked pretty doing it, like a model, but she knew she probably looked ridiculous, like she was trying way too hard to impress him. Which she might have been doing.

“I was kidding,” he promised, standing up and skimming his hands along the top of the water. “You know, I think we should come here more often. This is way better than being cooped up in the barn.”

She wanted to argue that the barn was her place of inspiration for drawing, so she didn’t like to leave the area too much. But then she thought about the fact that spending more time at the lake would mean spending more time with Harry, which was something that she certainly wanted, even if he didn’t feel exactly the same way.

“Sure,” she agreed. “As long as I bring my bathing suit next time.”

“If you absolutely insist,” he joked before laughing, which got him a massive splash in the face from Sarah.

The two laughed and joked for a while longer, and Sarah was shocked to realize that her embarrassment about being practically half-naked in front of a boy had completely disappeared. It had slipped her mind so much, in fact, that when they emerged from the lake to dry off and Harry’s eyes wandered, she was confused until she looked down at herself.

“Oh my God,” she mumbled, throwing on her tank top as quickly as possible, which only helped marginally, since it stuck to every surface of her skin.

“Oh, stop,” he told her, lying down on the sand and hooking his hands behind his head as he stared up at the warm sun. “You have nothing to be insecure about.”

Sarah wanted to thank him or at least acknowledge his compliment in some way, but she ended up ignoring it, lying down next to him and crossing her arms loosely over her stomach. And the last statement hung between them, their slow, steady breaths the only sound in the clearing, as the sun evaporated the water from their bodies.