I could also be woman enough to admit that when whatever it was touched me, and I yelled in this high-pitched voice that could have made a dog howl, I jumped.

I jumped in the air.

I projected myself at the closest thing to me despite being hip-deep in the water. That closest thing being six feet two inches of man named Aaron. Except at that point, Aaron hadn’t been facing me or had his back to me, we had been practically beside each other, and it was only his lightning-quick reflexes at hearing me shout that he managed to catch me right before I barreled into him.

“Are you okay?” he asked quickly, his right arm winding around my waist instantly as he tipped that handsome face down to look into the mostly clear water below us. I wasn’t imagining the protective, worried expression that had taken over his features the moment I’d shrieked. It had been there, for sure.

“Yeah, yeah,” I gasped, looking down too, suddenly embarrassed that I’d… done that.

“What happened?” he asked, still sounding worried as he turned us in a half circle to look at another area. “Did you step on a ray? Are you all right?”

I swallowed and tapped his shoulder so he could let me down.

He didn’t. He was still looking around at the water. Still holding me against him.

Of all the things… “Something touched me,” I admitted, sounding just as sheepish as I should have.

He got it.

He stopped, his head rolling up slowly while I was there, for all intents and purposes, on top of him. One of his eyebrows went up and he asked, taking his time with every word, “Something touched you?”

Way to go, Rubes. I fought the urge not to cough and almost lost. I wanted to look away too, but I’d done this to myself. I had to own up to it. “I think it might have been a fish…,” I mumbled just loud enough so chances were in my favor that he didn’t actually hear me.

He did. It was the way he swallowed that told me he’d heard. I could see a brown iris move in my direction. I could feel the tension in his upper body as he kept talking slowly, “There’s no fish around here.”

“It’s the ocean. Of course there are fish around here. He might have just swam off really fast.”

I didn’t need to look directly at his eyes to know he was blinking. His voice was a little hoarse. “You think so?”

He was so full of crap.

“Maybe.”

Those lips went tight together, so tight there was a line of white where they met. His throat bobbed and I knew, I knew he was trying not to laugh. “Ruby,” he practically whispered my name. “Honey, how many times have you been in the ocean?”

I felt myself deflate just a little even though he’d called me honey. Honey. What you’d call a sweet little kid who fell off her bike and eaten asphalt. “A lot.” I cleared my throat and gave him a strong side-eye, seeing him just well enough. “But I’m more of a pool person usually. You know, Houston. You don’t exactly go to Galveston to swim for hours.”

He was pinching his lips together tighter as he nodded, his grip still firm. He’d stopped blinking at some point. The fingers on my hip tightened.

I could tell. I could tell he was about to make a joke about it, so I beat him to it with a “Shut up” that had him swallowing even harder than any time before.

His eyes were closed and he was smiling like an idiot when he said, “The only fish I’ve seen were minnows by the edge of the water.”

“Sure,” I agreed, not hiding my frown of shame as I extended my legs, wanting to get down, and he slowly, finally lowered me until my feet dipped back into the water.

He was still grinning and trying so hard not to laugh when he pointed toward Des and Brittany further ahead of us, already deeper in the water, dog-paddling. He snickered, his voice shaky, “Safety in numbers.”

All I did was give him a dirty look, deciding I deserved that, but walked beside him further into the water until we met up with his friends, my paranoia right there. Brittany smiled brightly at me, her head slightly propped out of the water, from where she was now partially floating on her back. “Did you get stung?”

“Excuse me?” I asked like an idiot.

“Did you get stung by a jellyfish? We heard you yell,” she explained.

My face turned red; without a doubt in my mind, it had to have. There was no way it hadn’t. Where was a big wave when I needed one? “Oh, uh, no. I stepped on something,” I gradually managed to get out, looking straight forward and not at the man at my side.

“It was sharp,” Aaron breathed out from where he stood not even a foot away. “Really sharp.”

If Des or Brittany saw me kick him from the side, neither one of them said a word.

“I know, Mom. I love you too.”

The sigh that came over the receiver had me shaking my head. “If you loved me,” she started to say for about the tenth time in the last fifteen minutes we’d been on the phone.

“I do love you. I’m fine, I promise,” I assured her from my spot sitting cross-legged on the bed of the room that I’d be sleeping in for the rest of the week. “I’m having a good time and you’d like everyone I’m with.”

My mom made a noise that said she didn’t want to believe me, but… “Fine. Okay. I know you’re not a liar, Rubella. Not like these other kids who only call me when they want something.” She muttered something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like Jasmine’s name. “Be careful and text me at least once an hour.”