june 13th, 2019

- Andy -

Tom and I were hanging out by the lagoon. He was floating on his back in the water while I dangled my feet in, sitting on a boulder that was on the edge of the lagoon. I was pulling apart flowers and tossing them into the water, mindlessly fumbling with them. It was mid-day, the water was warm and it was a beautiful day out. Not cold. Not hot. Just perfectly warm.

"Can I ask you something?" I said to him, Tom turned up and started treading as he looked back at me.

"Shoot."

I looked down at his chest, he was only wearing his underwear in the water— for obvious reasons. My eyes traveled down to the chain around his neck, a charm hanging off of it that I've never gotten a good look at. "Why do you wear that?" I gestured to the necklace around his neck.

His hand played with the charm and he looked down at the water, a smile growing on his face. "It's an anchor." He said, "Ironic since we nearly sunk to the bottom of the ocean," He chuckled, making me smile. "but, I wear it because I like to be 'grounded' or whatever." He rolled his eyes at himself.

"What is it?" I giggled, leaning forward, I wanted to know more about him.

"It's kind of stupid, the anchor thing." He looked away from me and I scoffed. He turned back.

"Oh, shut up!" I practically yelled with a laugh. "It's not stupid! It's sweet." I smiled. Tom's cheeks pinked up and our eyes caught each other for longer than 10 seconds. I bit my lip, feeling a tension growing.

But, Tom then dunked under the water and disappeared. I tried to follow his shadow over the surface but the sun was sending a glare down that made it rather difficult. Before I knew it, I lost him.

"Tom?" I called, getting suspicious that he was going to try and scare me. No response. "Tom." I said louder, in a more serious tone. "Tom!" I huffed, he was not going to scare me, I refused to let that happen.

Of course, I let it happen anyway. Tom jumped out of the water with a mischievous scream, he grabbed my arms and yanked me down into the water. I broke the surface almost immediately, Tom joining me, he laughed while I glared at him. "What? Oh, c'mon! That was funny." He poked at me, obviously trying to get me to laugh.

"You're ridiculous." I rolled my eyes, splashing him with a wave of water. He splashed me back and it soon became an all out war.

My clothes clung to my body, I wanted so badly take them off because of how uncomfortable it was to swim in them but I didn't want to be half naked in front of Tom. After *I* won our splash war, we settled down and floated on our backs.

"Tom?" My voice croaked.

"Hmm?"

"I.. I like being around you." I don't know where it came from and I don't know why I said it.

Tom was silent and now I wanted to die in a hole. Embarrassment bubbled up inside of me, I kept my eyes staring up at the sky as it now felt even more silent before. I heard the water move, was he leaving the lagoon? Did I scare him off that much that he wanted to ditch the lagoon and me?

I wanted to crawl in a hole, hide in there forever and never come out. I wanted to facepalm. I wanted to sink under the water. I wanted to run away from this conversation (if there was even one left) and hide from my problems.

But, I was surprised when Tom's arms hooked under my body and enclosed me in his chest. I moved my head up, meeting his face and finding it very close to mine. His hot breath hit my neck and his arms moved me so I was treading in his arms. He moved closer, his eyes gazing down to my lips as I did the same. We inched even closer, my body getting engulfed in his arms as he held me tightly.

We were half an inch away from each other's lips, my heart beating so hard that I worried he would hear it. Then, that did happen. The air filled with the sound of my heart pounding, faster and faster. The sound growing as if it were running toward us. But, just as we were about to close the space between us, we both looked up into the sky.

A helicopter.