“See? The moment you quit chasing him, that’s when he wants you. He looks jealous. He thinks he’s been replaced.”
Our eyes clashed and I peeled myself off him, trying to play like I’d been kissed a hundred times by a hundred different boys.
Moses’s eyes drifted down to my mouth, and I shoved my hands into my pockets so I wouldn’t be tempted to reach for him again and prove that I could lead as well as he could.
As if he read my mind, Moses nodded toward the horse.
“Go on. You’ve learned your lesson. He doesn’t want to be ridden.”
I flipped around, immediately cured from any desire to kiss him again. I gritted my teeth as I walked back to my horse, my stride long, my hands clenched.
Lucky watched me come. He didn’t shy away or flinch as I drew near, and without allowing myself to hesitate, I grabbed his mane and swung myself immediately back up onto his bare back. He reared up once, spun a little, dancing and prancing, but I was ready for him and I held on.
And he gave in.
As I urged him back toward home, I couldn’t help looking back. Moses stood frozen to the spot, a look of absolute amazement on his face. And it was my turn to laugh.
Moses
I SLEPT ON THE SECOND FLOOR, across the hall from Gi. The old house had no air conditioning, and by the end of the day, the upper rooms were stifling. Gi never seemed to mind, she was always cold, but each night I would open my window, soak my T-shirt with water before putting it on, and then turn the little oscillating fan in the corner on full blast so it blew directly on me, just so I could sleep without drowning in a pool of my own sweat.
Utah had experienced record-breaking temperatures all summer, but the first week of August was unbearable. For the fourth night in a row, I was laying in my bed at midnight, so miserable I considered taking another shower just to cool down, when I heard someone say my name.
I sat up in bed, listening.
“Moses!”
I turned off my fan and waited.
“Moses!”
I ran to the window and looked down to see Georgia in shorts and a tank top, a towel wrapped around her neck and a big, striped pool bag on her shoulder, standing below my window.
She waved merrily, as if her being there in beach wear made total sense.
“I was going to sneak into your house and up the stairs to your room, but I thought maybe you slept naked and I might embarrass you.”
I stared down at her, dumbfounded. She didn’t try to whisper or disguise her voice in any way. I looked toward Gi’s room. The hallway between our rooms was dark and there was no light beneath her door. Still, I put my finger over my lips and shook my head. I had no idea how she even knew which room was mine.
“I’m going to the water tower. Come with me. It’s too damn hot to sleep,” she said, not softening her voice at all.
“Quiet!” I hissed down at her. Georgia just smiled and shook her head.
“The sooner you get down here in some shorts with the keys to your Jeep, the sooner we can go, and the sooner I’ll shut up. We can’t take Myrtle. She’d wake the neighborhood.”
A laugh escaped my nose in an unattractive snort, and Georgia smirked, obviously well aware that if anyone was in danger of waking the neighborhood, or at least my grandma, it was her.
“What the hell. It is too hot to sleep,” I sighed, and her smile widened considerably.
“Meet you out front,” she whispered. Oh, now she was being quiet. Now that she got her way.
I’d never been to the water tower, but Georgia directed me to a little paved road, south of town, that wound its way through the fields and crossed a set of railroad tracks before running past a large metal silo with a ladder running up the side. A sign warned that trespassers would be prosecuted, and a chain link fence with a lock on the gate further discouraged what we were about to do, but Georgia wasn’t the slightest bit fazed.
“It’s easy to climb the fence. I’ve done it a bunch of times. The water tower beats the pond up the canyon, where I usually swim when I’m desperate, but I can’t swim here during the day because I’ll get caught and prosecuted to the ‘full extent of the law,’” Georgia mocked the sign, “but last summer I came here once a week—always around this time, and nobody ever knew. It’s like my own private pool.”
The thought of Georgia coming to a dark water tower late at night, all alone, nobody the wiser, made the gooseflesh rise on my arms. I just shook my head and followed her out of the Jeep, glad I’d worn my sneakers if I was climbing chain link. She handed me her pool bag and scrambled up the gate and over as if she truly had done it a hundred times. I slung the bag over my shoulder and was up and over without a hitch. She didn’t slow, but climbed the silo ladder with confidence, babbling all the way, filling the darkness with cheerful conversation.
A little door opened inward onto a narrow ledge that circled the inside of the water tower. Georgia slid inside and I followed, leaving the door wide open behind us. Thoughts of being locked in the water tower for days had me propping it with my shoes and testing the knob repeatedly.
“It locks from the outside, silly. And the lock is broken, which is why we have this all to ourselves.” Georgia pulled a big LED lantern out of her striped pool bag that still hung over my shoulder, and turned it on, illuminating the interior of the water tower, making it feel like a cavern, complete with hidden pools.
“Now shut the door so no one sees the light.”
I obeyed immediately.
“Cool, huh?”
It was kind of cool, I had to admit. The light threw our shadows across the wall, and Georgia danced in front of it for a second, making us both laugh.