Ready To Go by Stephanie Mann

pool?”
    “I didn’t ask,” he admitted. “After we put our stuff in the room we can go check it out if you want.”
    “Yeah, sounds good,” she said. She was tired. Relaxing in a warm hot tub sounded great to her. They got to their room, and as Daniel set up the sleeping bag, she rummaged through her suitcase for her swimsuit. Good thing she’d thought to bring that—she really didn’t wear it often. Once she headed into the bathroom to change, Daniel pulled the trunks he’d bought out of the shopping bag and quickly pulled them on.
    They were garishly bright, with a Hawaiian print. When Nicole came out and saw them, she laughed.
    “Hey, they were the only ones my size at the mall,” he said. “Are you even wearing a swimsuit?”
    “Under my clothes,” she replied. She’d put her shirt and jeans back on, just for decency as she walked to the pool. “You really couldn’t do better than orange flowers?”
    “Don’t forget, I didn’t plan on coming,” he replied, heading out the door. “I got the room key. Come on.”
    They went down to the pool together. Nicole cheered when she saw there was, indeed, a hot tub. True, the pool area was small and empty, but the water looked clean and at a comfortable temperature. Daniel went to the deep end of the pool and dove in, his body cutting a line through the blue.
    Once in the water, he didn’t think anymore. He didn’t care that he got himself into a crazy mess by agreeing to take this girl across the country to some unknown destination. He didn’t care that he was probably going to fail out of his classes if he didn’t get online and get some work done soon. He just swam back and forth across the pool, letting the flow of his body clear his head. There was no need to go fast, like there had been in high school. He just had to go back and forth, back and forth.
    As he swam, Nicole stripped down to her bathing suit and climbed into the hot tub. She didn’t want to admit it to Daniel, but she was glad that he’d gone for this hotel. The warm water swirling around her really was nice. She leaned back against the side of the hot tub, and watched Daniel as he swam. He really was attractive without a shirt—it was clear now why her drunk self had gone for him. But then again, she didn’t want to look at him as anything more than a helpful stranger. Maybe a friend. Not some guy that she actually liked. Yet here she was in her bathing suit in front of him. She didn’t have to be dressed like this, but she chose to anyways.
    Her dad had always said she looked nice in that bathing suit. Nicole sank lower into the water. Why had that popped into her head? She shut her eyes and tried to forget about her family and Daniel and everything.
    Daniel didn’t notice Nicole was there until he grew tired of laps, maybe ten minutes later, and he got out of the pool. When he saw her, he walked over to the hot tub and lowered himself in beside her. “Damn, this does feel good,” he said.
    “Shut up and let me relax,” Nicole mumbled. A moment later, without opening her eyes, she said, “And quit staring at me.”
    “I’m not,” Daniel defended. He wasn’t intentionally . “Will you stop acting like I’m a pervert?”
    She opened her eyes and sat up a bit to face him. “Sorry. I just had that feeling that someone was staring at me. Figured you were.”
    “I was looking,” he admitted. “Not staring.”
    She splashed him, and then quickly crossed her arms over her chest. “Same thing!”
    “No it isn’t!” he replied, but he smiled. “I saw you naked last night, remember? And it’s not like your bathing suit’s that revealing.”
    “True,” she said, uncrossing her arms. “You keep talking about the kissing me part and the fact that you didn’t sleep with me like it makes you a saint, I forgot the part where I was actually naked.”
    “I do not keep talking about the kissing,” he said.
    “Yeah you do,” she replied with a laugh. “You keep saying