“Really?” I asked.
“Really,” he said. “Your easel is nearly done—the glue still needs to dry, though, and I don’t want to rush it.”
I felt a warm rush of gratitude for him for taking the trouble to fix it.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll see you in a bit!”
All my good clothes were in the laundry—but I didn’t want to be dressed up today. I was too tired to make the effort and it was hot, hot, HOT. It was time I stopped worrying about what I wore around Vir, anyway.
I dragged on a paint-covered T-shirt and a pair of Vinnie’s old volleyball shorts and turned over the waistband so they wouldn’t slide off—which made them even shorter. They said WESTBURY across the butt, but it was ninety degrees out—at least I’d be cool.
I didn’t have my easel back yet anyway, so I left the paints behind. I wanted to get in a sketch of the Fellsway campus from across the lake—charcoals would do. Vir had said he’d meet us by the topiary garden, so I found a shady spot where a low stone ledge ran along the edge of the water. If I sat on the ledge I was practically invisible to anyone walking along the path, and I could take off my shoes and dangle my bare feet in the cool, clean water of the lake. I planted myself there and opened my sketchpad.
After a peaceful half hour getting some stellar sketches done, I heard footsteps coming my way. Vir! I peered over the edge of the wall just as he walked up to me. But why was he carrying a towel?
“Hey!” he said. “Nice spot!”
My heart rate escalated to the point of being audible, or so it seemed. I took a deep breath.
“It’s cooler here,” I said, and held up my hands to frame the scene I was trying to capture. “And the perfect vantage point.”
“Yes, it is,” he said, and pulled off his shirt to reveal an impressively firm and muscled torso—and caused my heart rate to go from highly escalated to practically flatline.
What was he doing?
He climbed down to the ledge and took off his shoes. Then he sat down next to me and dangled his feet in the water—while I concentrated on not being asphyxiated from the proximity to his extremely attractive and also half-naked self.
“Not bad,” he said, talking about the water temperature, apparently, and waded into the lake, leaving the towel and a pile of his clothes and shoes next to me. “I’m going for a swim.”
I took a gulp of air. “Are you sure the water’s clean?” I asked.
He just laughed and dived deep. He came up ten feet out and clawed away from the edge of the lake with long, muscled arms. The water rippled away from him in circles.
Yogi waded in after him. The water at the edge only came up to his chest. That was as far as he usually went.
Vir treaded water and waved at Yogi. “Come on, Yogi!”
I jumped up. “Vir—no!”
“No?” he asked. “Why not?”
All the nerves I’d felt earlier vanished. “He doesn’t swim. I mean, only if his life depends on it. He fell in once where it was deep and sank out of sight! I thought he was going to drown, but he managed to paddle back. But it kind of put him off the whole thing.”
Vir had swum back while I’d been talking.
“Hey, chill!” he said, wading out of the lake, his wet hair plastered to his neck. “He just needs someone to swim with him. That way he’ll feel safe.”
“Well, I can’t take him to the pool,” I said. “Most beaches on the Cape don’t allow dogs in the summer. And I refuse to get into this water. It’s probably full of germs… and fish poop.”
He laughed. “I swam in the Ganga a few months ago,” he said. “In Haridwar.” He said Ganga, not Ganges, and he pronounced it right. “This looks like drinking water after that. Let Yogi try.… Maybe he’ll swim with me.”
I wasn’t sure a dog as old as Yogi could learn to swim.
“Come on, Yogi,” Vir said. He grabbed a stick floating a little way out and threw it farther. “See the stick? Go get it!”
“No.” I dumped my notepad and pulled off my shoes. “What if he’s forgotten how to swim?”
I waded out until I was next to Vir, fish poop be damned, but he grabbed my hand to stop me from going farther. “He’s doing fine,” he said quietly, “see?”
Yogi was paddling back with the stick clamped between his teeth, looking pleased with himself.
“Yogi! Good dog!” I was so proud I was skipping around in the water. “Good, good dog!” He climbed onto the ledge, dropped the stick, and shook himself—spraying us with lake water.
Vir handed me the stick. “You throw it,” he said.
I flung the stick out and Yogi went right after it again. He really had lost his fear of swimming.
“This is great!” I said. Then promptly lost my footing and slid sideways in sickening slow motion until I slammed into Vir. “Ooops,” I said, grabbing his arm to steady myself, “I’m so sorry.”
“Can you swim, by the way?” he said. “Or do you need instruction? Because I’m kind of good at this, I think.”
He had his arm around my waist and I was inches from his chest. “I can stay afloat,” I said with dignity.
He set me on my feet at arm’s length and looked me over with a silly grin on his face.
“Excuse me,” I said, outraged. “Are you, like, checking me out?”
“Of course!” He grinned wider. “You’re pretty.”
“That’s”—I grasped for words—“that’s just messed up. How can you be so obvious? What would your mom say?” I waved an arm toward the house in the background.
“She’d be fine with it,” he said. “See, the thing is, you can check me out too.”
He struck a pose with both biceps flexed for
