“Well?” he called out, his voice carrying across the water. “Is it a dare if you don’t go in?”
He didn’t look at Chloe, whose mouth was a perfect O. He looked at Mia. bikini dare
She was standing in the shallows, water lapping at her shins. Her carefully constructed cool had shattered. Her eyes were wide, not with the mockery he expected, but with a raw, naked wonder. She looked at him—not at the suit, but at him —as if she was seeing him for the very first time. “Well
A beat of silence. Then, a snort from his friend Sam. Then a giggle. Then, a full-throated roar of laughter. But it wasn’t mean. It was a wave of pure, delighted shock. People were clapping. Someone wolf-whistled. She was standing in the shallows, water lapping at her shins
It was then that Leo, who usually faded into the background of these moments, heard himself speak. “I’ll do it.”
The summer sun was a molten gold coin pressed flat against the hazy sky, and the lake glittered like a billion tiny, fractured mirrors. For Leo, the annual end-of-summer party at Silver Lake was a ritual of sweet, lazy torture. It was the same every year: the thump of the bass, the smell of charcoal and coconut sunscreen, and the sight of Mia Delgado laughing in the shallows.
Mia had frozen, a grape halfway to her lips. Her eyes darted to the rumpled mess of fabric Chloe dangled from one finger. Her confident smirk flickered. For a split second, Leo saw it: a flash of genuine, animal panic in her eyes. She was terrified.