“Who was the most important person in your life yesterday?” Layla asks. “Before I came along?”

“Myself.”

“I’ve bumped you out of the number one spot?”

“Seems that way.”

She moves fluidly and effortlessly onto her back, like she spends more time in a pool than on land. She stares up at the sky again, her arms stretched out wide, her chest rising with a huge intake of air.

I press my back against the side of the pool and stretch my arms out, gripping the concrete ledge. My heart is starting to pound. My blood feels thicker.

I don’t know what kind of drug she gave me, probably Molly or some other kind of upper, because it’s kicking in fast. I’m more aware of everything going on in my torso right now than any other part of my body. My heart feels swollen, like there isn’t enough room for it.

Layla is still floating on her back, but her face is close to my chest. She’s right in front of me. If I leaned forward a little, she wouldn’t be looking at the sky. She’d be looking up at me.

Fuck, this is good shit.

I feel good. I feel confident.

The water is so calm around us it looks like she’s floating on air. Her eyes are closed, but when the top of her head bumps against my chest, she looks up at me, her face upside down from mine, like she’s expecting me to do something.

So I do.

I lean in just enough so that my mouth rests gently against hers. We kiss upside down, her bottom lip between both of mine. Her lips are like a soft explosion, igniting hidden minefields under every inch of my skin. It’s weird and fascinating because she’s still on her back, floating on top of the water. I dip my tongue into her mouth, and for whatever reason, I don’t feel worthy enough to touch her, so I keep my arms where they are—gripping the pool on either side of me.

She keeps her arms outstretched, and the only thing she moves is her mouth. I’m thankful our first kiss is upside down because that leaves a hell of a lot of room to anticipate kissing her right side up for the first time. I’m never going to want to kiss a girl again without being high on whatever it is the bride gave us. It’s like my heart constricts to the size of a penny and then balloons to the size of a drum with every beat.

It isn’t beating like it’s supposed to. There’s no gentle bom bom, bom bom, bom bom anymore. It’s a plink and a BOOM.

Plink BOOM, plink BOOM, plink BOOM.

I can’t keep kissing her upside down like this. It’s making me crazy, like we don’t quite fit, and I want my mouth to fit perfectly against hers. I grab her waist and spin her on top of the water until she’s facing me, and then I pull her to me. Her legs go around my waist, and both of her hands come up out of the water and grip the back of my head, which causes her to sink a little because now I’m the only thing keeping her above water. But my own arms are too busy sliding down her back, so we start to sink and neither of us does anything about it. Our mouths lock together right before we’re submerged. Not a single drop of water passes between our lips.

We sink all the way to the bottom of the pool, still fused together. As soon as we hit bottom, we open our eyes at the same time and pull apart to look at each other. Her hair is floating above her now, and she looks like a sunken angel.

I wish I could take a picture.

Air bubbles cloud the space between us, so we both kick ourselves back to the top.

I break the surface two seconds before she does. We’re facing each other, ready to start the kiss over again. We link together, back into the same position we were in. Our mouths seek each other out, but as soon as I taste the chlorine on her lips, we’re interrupted by chants.

I can hear Garrett over several of the others, all cheering our kiss on from where they’re seated. Layla glances behind her and flips them off.

She separates herself from me and pushes to the side of the pool. “Let’s go,” she says, pulling herself out of the water. She isn’t graceful about it. She pushes up out of the deep end, five feet from the ladder, and has to roll onto the concrete to make it out of the pool. It’s clumsy and perfect. I follow her, and a few seconds later, we’re both running around to the side of the house where it’s darker and more private. The grass is both cold and soft beneath my feet. Like ice . . . but melted.

I guess that would just make it water. But it doesn’t feel like water. It feels like melted ice. Drugs make things hard to explain.

Layla grabs my hand and falls onto the melted ice-grass, pulling me down with her, on top of her. I hold myself up with my elbows so she can breathe, and I stare at her for a moment. She’s got freckles. Not very many, and they’re spread out over the bridge of her nose. A few on her cheeks. I lift my hand and trace them. “Why are you so pretty?”

She laughs. Rightfully so. That was cheesy.

She flips me onto my back, and then she pulls her dress up her thighs so she can straddle me. Her thighs suction to my sides because we’re both sopping wet. I rest my hands on her hips and soak up the intensity of this high.

“Do you know why they call this place the Corazón del País?” she asks.

I don’t know, so I just shake my head and hope it’s a long story so I can hear her talk more than she has. I could listen to her voice all night. In fact, there’s a room inside the bed and breakfast they call the Grand Room, and it’s lined with hundreds of books on every wall. She could read to me all night.

“It translates to Heart of the Country,” she says. There’s excitement in her eyes and voice when she talks. “This location—this very piece of property you’re lying on—is the literal geographical center of the contiguous United States.”

Maybe it’s because I’m very aware of my heartbeat right now, but that doesn’t make sense. “Why would they call it that? The heart isn’t really the center of the body. The stomach is.”

She laughs her sharp, quick laugh again. “True. But Estomago del País doesn’t sound as pretty.”

Fuck. “You speak French?”

“Pretty sure that’s Spanish.”

“Either way, it was hot.”

“I only took one year in high school,” she says. “I have no hidden talents. What you see is what you get.”

“I doubt that.” I roll her off me and pin her wrists to the grass as I roll on top of her. “You’re a talented dancer.”

She laughs. I kiss her.

We kiss for the next several minutes.

We more than kiss. We touch. We move. We moan.

Everything is way too much—like I’m teetering on the edge of death. My heart just might literally explode in my chest. I’m starting to wonder if we should keep doing this. Drugs coupled with making out with Layla is one thing too much. I can’t let her stay wrapped around me for another second, or I’ll pass the fuck out from everything I’m feeling. It’s like every nerve ending grew a nerve ending. I feel everything with double the magnitude.

“I have to stop,” I whisper, unwrapping her legs from around me. “What the hell are we on? I can’t breathe.” I roll onto my back, gasping for air.

“You mean what did my sister give you?”

“The bride is your sister?”

“Yeah, her name is Aspen. She’s three years older than me.” Layla lifts herself up onto her elbow. “Why? Do you like it?”