She silently cursed herself for being so stupid. All she could think about now was how self-conscious she felt, no thanks to her mother’s too-small gray dress covered in mud stains.
“I tripped on my way here.” Another lie.
“I know how to clean your muddy dress,” he said with a growing smile. “You need to get it wet. Come swim with me.” He nodded to the water behind him.
“Right now?” Her eyes went wide.
“I thought you liked swimming.”
“I do, but I’m not swimming with you.” She shook her head. “I don’t even know you.”
“You can call me Trev,” he said, offering his hand out to shake.
“Just Trev?” she said, raising a questioning eyebrow. Usually, men gave their entire formal name.
“Just Trev.” He shrugged.
Renna slowly took his hand and immediately a surge of energy went through her. His eyes flashed to hers as if he felt the chemistry too, and something inside of Renna—something she couldn’t explain—flickered alive.
“What’s your name?” he asked, not dropping her hand.
Yesterday she hadn’t wanted to tell him her name, but today things were different. Today she decided to match whatever game he was playing. “Renna. Just Renna.”
They stood there for a moment like time had evaporated away. Her eyes blinked, remembering why they were holding hands in the first place. She gave a quick shake and pulled her hand out of his grasp.
“Now we’re not strangers,” he explained. “Now you can go swimming with me.”
Renna looked at the water. She did want to swim, but in her mind, her mother’s disapproving voice told her how inappropriate it would be. It was the only thing stopping her from running down the dock and jumping in the water.
She folded her arms over her chest. “I can’t swim in a dress. I told you that yesterday.”
“So take it off.” He smirked.
“I thought the point of getting in the water was to clean my dress.” She raised her shoulders. “If I take it off, there’s no point in swimming.”
“Excuses, excuses,” he said, clucking at her.
Renna let out a rough laugh. “Normal people don’t just strip off their clothes and go swimming in front of strangers.”
“You’re not normal.”
Her jaw dropped. “Yes, I am.”
“The moment I found you faking your own drowning, I knew you weren’t normal.”
Her brows furrowed. He was right.
“Still, I’m not going to take off my dress and swim with you. There are modesty rules in place to keep relationships appropriate.” She held out her hands, her fingers counting as she rattled off some of the guidelines. “Women should wear dresses. They should never wear anything that reveals too much of their shoulders, chest, and back. They should wear a dress color appropriate for their station—”
“I’ve already seen you break one of those rules yesterday by wearing boy clothes,” he said, cutting her off.
Trev was right again. Renna had never cared much about the modesty guidelines. It wasn’t like violators were punished by law. It was more about social scorn than anything. But there was no one here to witness except him.
Slowly Trev began to walk toward her, and Renna recognized the mischievous look in his eyes. She backed away. “Don’t even think about it.”
“You better run,” he said, getting closer.
What else could she do?
She took off running toward the trees, screaming the whole way.
It didn’t help.
Trev came up behind her and grabbed her around the waist. She tried to wriggle free from his wet grasp, but he was too big, too strong. In one quick motion, he pulled her back against his chest and swung her in a circle, her feet kicking out as she spun. She could feel the moisture from his body soak through her back.
Somehow, he managed to sling her writhing body over his shoulder. She pounded on his back with clenched fists as he strode across the grass and back onto the dock.
“You know what? You’re not normal.” It wasn’t normal to go from strangers to throwing a girl over your shoulder. And it definitely wasn’t normal how much she secretly loved it. She hit his back again. “Put me down!”
He kept walking closer to the edge of the dock.
“No!” she screamed, but he was already moving to throw her in the water. She probably deserved it as payback for yesterday, but still, Renna tried to reason with him. “Okay! Okay! I’ll get in, but on my terms.”
“On your terms?”
“Yes.”
“If I put you down, are you going to run?”
“No!” she groaned.
He slid her to her feet and let go, taking a few steps back. “All right.” He gestured to the water. “Get in then.”
She let out a breath. “Fine. Turn around so I can change.”
“I promise I won’t look.” As he turned, the beginnings of a grin formed on his lips. “At least not more than once.” He was joking, but that didn’t stop the red flames from creeping up her face.
Renna pulled her dress over her head and dropped it on the dock beside her. She stood in nothing but her undergarments, feeling exposed and uncomfortable. Even if she thought the modesty rules were stupid, it was still too much to bear. She leaned over and grabbed his shirt, still resting in a clump on the dock beside them. She slipped her arms into the sleeves. It was far too big for her, with the sleeves dangling to her elbows and the hem ending mid-thigh, but it was exactly what she needed to feel comfortable. How could her mother be mad about this?
“You are so slow,” Trev complained, his back still turned.
“Calm down,” Renna said. Then, she took off running down the dock, leaving Trev behind her.
“Is that my shirt?” She faintly heard him yell. Then she leaped from the dock, the rush of water overhead swallowing the sound of his protests.
When she came up, he was beside her, his shoulders glistening with water. He reached out and pinched the fabric of his shirt. “Very funny,” he said sarcastically.
“I wasn’t trying to be funny. I was trying to be modest.”
“Well, you didn’t think that through very well, did you?”
“What do you mean?”
“The shirt is see-through.” His eyes sparkled.
Renna looked down and grimaced. The white shirt clung to her skin, showing the exact outline of her undergarments. Luckily, if she stayed under the water, Trev still wouldn’t see anything.
“Back to the modesty rules. Did you know that, before Desolation, women wore whatever they wanted, even pants?” he said, breaking into her thoughts. “They could wear any color and show as much of their skin as they wanted.” His arms waved back and forth through the water, keeping his body afloat.
“Yeah, I guess they didn’t care much about modesty.”
“Maybe you should’ve been born in that era,” he teased.
“Maybe I should have,” she said with a sly smile.
“Okay, just Renna, what do I need to know about you? You know, so you stop referring to us as strangers.”
“Well,” her smile grew, “I like to swim. Preferably in boy clothes.”