Maybe it was the swimming scenario hammering him since they'd enjoyed countless hours in his parents' landscaped backyard and kidney-shaped pool growing up. He'd shut down those memories after they split, but now he'd have to learn to live with them bombarding him from more directions than antiaircraft fire.
"Crusty?" Tag shouted. "You with us, man?"
Daniel nodded, rejoining the game, his mind lofting back to the past as surely as the ball sailing through the air.
"I'm not swimming today, Danny."
Daniel stroked his way through the numbingly cold pool. His teenage body hungered for exercise outside the stifling formality of his parents' house. Early spring weather in Savannah made for chilly water, not that he cared. And usually Mary Elise didn't care, either.
"Why not?" He stopped inches from the cement edge where Mary Elise perched gripping her knees. "Scared of a little freezing water?" He flicked drops in her face.
"Yeah, right."
He hauled himself out to sit beside her. "What's the matter? Really? Come on, spill, because I'm not buying the scared-of-cold-water crap for even a second."
She scooped her hand through the pool and flicked his face right back. "Your dad hears you say crap again and you'll be needing that cold water to rinse out the soap."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever. He hasn't tried that since I was in junior high. Now come on. Swim with me. There's an extra suit in the pool house."
He reached to tug the rope of red hair trailing over her shoulder, then paused. When the hell had Mary Elise gotten breasts? Not much to them, but they sure as hell were there. He jerked his hand away.
"I can't, Danny. Can't. Okay? I'm a girl and there are days it's just easier for a girl if she doesn't swim."
He felt the color drain from his face and knew it didn't have anything to do with the freezing water. Some stuff a guy just didn't want to know. "Oh."
"Yeah, oh. Now go swim and enjoy the fact that you're a boy and can swim all thirty-one days of this month. I'll soak my feet here while we talk about something else."
And he wanted to do just that. Well, until he saw the downward tilt to her mouth, the minifurrow on her serious brow.
Who needed to swim laps, anyway?
Standing, he extended his hand without a word while he waited. He could handle this. Sure, he wanted to dive to the bottom of the pool where he wouldn't have to even think about this discussion. But he was a practical guy and, hell, this was Mary Elise after all. They could talk about anything.
Even if she had developed br**sts overnight. He shoved his hand closer.
She eyed his outstretched arm. "What?"
"Chocolate."
"Huh?"
"Let's go get some chocolate. I hear chicks like to eat a boatload of the stuff when they're, uh—" he stifled his wince for Mary Elise's sake "—not swimming."
A smile so perfect crept across her face and right up to her eyes that a charge of victory shot through him until Daniel forgot about the pool behind him and the swim he'd waited all winter to take.
Mary Elise fitted her hand in his and stood. "Yeah, right, now I get it. You've just got your eye on that box of Hostess Ho-Hos in my mom's pantry."
"Busted."
Her laugh swelled then faded as they pushed their way through the ivy-covered gate separating their yards. "You're not totally grossed out?"
"Maybe a little."
She punched his arm.
"Hey, joking!" He rubbed his arm, relaxed. He could always do that with Mary Elise, relax, be himself with nothing to prove. Daniel slung an arm around his best friend's shoulders. "This just means you're gonna be able to have kids someday. Right? Nothing gross about that."
She tipped her face up to his. "Thank you, Danny."