"Switch with me."

I step onto one running board and he steps on the other. The Jet Ski wobbles, reminding me of a soon-to-capsize canoe.

Suddenly it did tip, and the next thing I knew, I was in the water.

I broke the surface and coughed out the water that got caught in my throat when I swallowed a mouthful of the lake's water and gasped in as much air as I could.

FUCK the water was cold.

Within seconds, I was shivering and I knew it would be worse when I got out because I would have the wind whipping against my wet body.

I pushed my hair up off my forehead, before wiping whatever water from my face that I could. I turned to see how far the shore was. If I could swim there, I could get out of the water and run for the warmth of a towel. But it was too far.

"Jamie?"

The worry in Mason's voice caught my attention. I looked up at him. His eyebrows were creased in a furrow. I realized then that he had been calling my name without me hearing.

"Sorry, sorry."

"Hey, it's okay. It's not your fault. I doubt you planned on jumping in the water, considering how cold it is. Here, c'mon."

That's when I noticed that his hand was extended to me this whole time.

I reached up and grabbed his hand, letting him pull me out of the water. I'm so cold I can hardly appreciate the feeling of his hand in mine. It's when I have both feet on the one side do I realize that all of my body weight on one side is just going to tip it again.

Mason caught on as well, and quickly pulling my top half over to the other side to distribute the weight. I instinctively grab something below me to keep me from falling. That something just happened to be Mason's thigh. Dangerously high on his thigh. My face flushes at the contact.

Mason wrapped his arms around my torso to hold me still while the Jet Ski steadies. I'm completely leaning over him and I can feel my face getting even warmer.

"Um," I'm trying to figure out how we're going to get properly seated without one of us in the water again. I shift around as I think through the different options and find the safest one.

Eventually, I decided to shift my weight to one leg and carefully lift the other to swing around behind Mason.

At that moment Mason slides back on the seat to make room for me in front of him.

Unfortunately for me, my leg was already behind him and he knocked it over, almost sending me into the water again, and I grab the nearest thing to prevent that again. Again, that thing is him, and I notice that I'm clinging to him desperately.

"Um, sorry." My face flushes again. Oh god, I'm a mess, I thought miserably.

"Yeah." His voice is tight. Oh god, I've messed everything up again. "Okay, um, how about if we figure out who's going where before either of us move into each other's way and we both end up in the water?" Mason says rationally.

"Yeah. Yeah, good idea."

"Okay. Are you going in front, or behind?"

"Behind."

"Are you not wanting to drive anymore?"

"I'm a bit too cold to try driving."

He looks at my hands and his eyes widen. "Oh. Yeah. Yeah, of course."

I look down and am surprised to see them shaking. Not that I'm surprised that they are shaking, more that I didn't notice that they were. Yeah, that's definitely not a good sign.

"Okay. So, I'll go forward and you can get on behind me."

"Yeah, okay."

Once we're both properly seated again, I let out a sigh of relief. That whole situation was so awkward and the tension was so thick I could've cut it with a knife. I want to lay my head on his shoulder, but I don't want to make it worse.

"You good?"

"Yeah."

And with that, Mason takes off again.

I have to grab onto him to keep myself from falling off, and holy shit, the wind is so cold. Suddenly I don't care how awkward it will be after, I press myself into Mason as much as I can to get his warmth and to shelter myself from the wind (though he's the same size as me and isn't a great shield from the wind.)

By the time we're back at the shore, my hands and cheeks have gone numb. Not good.

An employee meets us at the dock and helps us tie it to keep it from drifting away. She looks at me and asks if I want a towel.

"Y-yes please," I stammer out.

Mason looked back at me with a grin then noticed my shivering, wet form and immediately starting pushing me to the rental building.

"Let's get you inside before you freeze."

"I'm-m already f-frozen."

"Oh, god. Jamie, I am so sorry," he said, eyes wide with worry and a hint of sadness and he quickly gets my sopping life jacket off after I fail to undo the clasp on my third attempt. He gets his off as well and drops them in the used bin.

The employee- Emma, her name tag says- comes back then, with an armful of towels. "Lucky for you, a load in the dryer just finished, so these ones are extra warm!" She leads us over to the couches we sat on when watching the safety video, talking on the way. "You boys sit here and get warmed up. Don't worry about getting water on them, we made sure to get ones that would be fine to get wet. We're at a marina, so that makes sense because people get wet all the time. All it takes is a quick wipe down and they're good as new! Oh gosh, I'm rambling again! I'm so sorry. Here you go."

Mason sits down first and pulls me down on top of him and I let myself fall into his lap. I'm too cold and he's too warm for me to worry about what Emma will think. Mason reached up around me to grab the towels from her and piles them on top of me.

I close my eyes and let the warmth of Mason and the towel envelop me. I'm so focused on getting warm that I don't notice when Emma speaks up on her way out the door. "If you need anything, anything at all, just let me know!"

I can feel Mason's chest rumble and I know that he responded, but I don't know what he said.

I feel Mason rubbing up and down my arms, warming me and drying me at the same time. I hear him saying everything and nothing in my ears, but I don't hear the words he's saying.

I can't stop shaking, and I press myself even closer into Mason, tucking my head up under his chin. He runs a hand through my hair, which is a comfort and I think he lightly kisses the top of my head, but I'm not sure.

My hands have his shirt clenched in my fists, and I briefly think about how I'm getting his clothes wet as well, but I guess he doesn't care about that right now.

Slowly, my shivering lightens as I warm. I feel safe in Mason's arms and I can feel myself falling asleep. I have yet to open my eyes, and the more time that passes, the less I want to open them. The less I have the energy to.

Mason, bless his heart, hasn't stopped rubbing my arms and back. He rests his head on mine and pulls me closer into him and I can feel his steady heartbeat beneath my hands.

"Jamie?" He whispered.

"Hmm." I don't lift my head to look at him. I don't even have the energy to properly form words.

"If you need to sleep, go ahead. I'm here, and I'm not leaving."

For the nth time, I'm grateful that he's stayed with me all these years. I don't know what I'd do without him.

Without responding, I just press my face into the crook of his neck and shoulder, a soft smile on my face, and let myself drift off.

When I wake, my head is fuzzy from sleep, and I keep my face pressed in my pillow as I let my eyes flutter open.

I'm confused when my pillow seems to move, and I slowly prop myself up and open my eyes.

The first thing I notice is that I'm not in my room. And I'm not in Mason's room. I'm on a couch in some unknown room.

I feel something shift below me and I look down to see Mason watching me. I sleepily look down at him for a few moments before I realize that Mason is laying below me, and is watching me.

My eyes widen, and I throw myself into a sitting position, suddenly awake. My momentum is a bit too much, and I accidentally throw myself off the couch we were on. I land on the ground with a yelp and am grateful that most of my body lands on the towels that were draped over me when I was laying on Mason.

I groan as I rub my head where it smacked on the floor.

"What-?" I start to say as I look around the room.

"You okay? That sounded like it hurt," Mason said as he poked his head over the side of the couch.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. Why're we-" I start before the memories come rushing back. I remember falling into the water- freezing water- and then being cuddled by Mason in the marina's video room. "Oh."

My face flushed as I realize that Mason was cuddling with me in a public place. "Oh."

Mason grinned as he sat up. "Yeah. Dude, your eyelashes tickle when you flutter them like that," he chuckled like its no big deal.

My eyes widen. "I- what? I- oh god, I'm so sorry," I stammer out face hotter than its been in a long time.

Mason just grinned and said, "think you're good to go?"

I sat up and nodded as I rubbed the sleep from my eyes. Mason grabbed my hands and pulled me up, holding onto me when I stumbled from a dizzy spell.

"What time is it?"

"Late," is all he says.

We started walking to the door when Emma comes back. "Hey, you're up. I was just coming to let you know that we're closing in five."

"Five minutes?" I cry as I look out the windows. It's dark outside.

"Mace," I grab his arm. "What time is it?" I ask again, playful tone gone.

He bit his lip as he says, "twenty-five after ten."

"What? I told my mom we'd be home by 12! We were supposed to leave over half an hour ago! More like an hour ago!" I'm kind of shouting at him, and I feel bad when his eyes flick to Emma who's picking up the towels (and pointedly not looking at us) before he grabs my hand and drags me outside.

"I know. I know, but you looked like you needed to sleep. Your lips were blue when you drifted off. I didn't want- couldn't wake you before you were warmed up. Completely." He's staring at me earnestly.

I look down to my bare feet. "Sorry," I whispered. "I just," and I stop not knowing what to say.

Mason reached up and swiped away a tear I didn't know was streaking down my cheek.

"It's okay. Don't cry. You're just tired. I mean, you were really cold." He punched my arm lightly. "Don't do that again. You scared the shit out of me."

I sniff and manage to form a half sad, half grateful grin up at him. "Sorry."

The front of my shirt is still damp from where it was pressed against Mason for the few hours I was asleep, and the night air and the sudden breeze is enough to make me shiver again.

Mason sees and pushes me toward my car. One of the few left in the lot.

As well approach it, he pulls my keys from his pocket and when I furrow my eyebrows at him in a silent question, he shrugs.

He unlocked the trunk and grabbed his bag and pulled out a sweater, pressing it into my hands.

I go to pull it on but he stops me. When I just stare at him blankly he rolls his eyes and says "you gotta get out of those wet clothes. They may not be as wet as they were before, but you still need to change before you catch a cold."

I sigh and put down his sweater and go to take off the shirt I'm wearing when I notice he's still staring at me. I stop and look at him, but he only makes a 'hurry up' gesture.

I let out another sigh and try to quickly pull off my wet shirt. It's just my luck that it's just wet enough to cause a problem. It gets stuck over my head and I flail for a few seconds before Mason takes pity on me and helps me get it off and throws it in the trunk.

"Jamie, Jamie, Jaime," he sighs with a laugh. "Only you would be taken down by your own shirt."

I do the mature thing and stick my tongue out at him. He rolls his eyes before they flick to my chest and I realize I'm still shirtless.

I'm about to pull on his sweater when I notice something and hold it to my chest instead.

"Do you not have a shirt I can wear under?"

"Nope," he said quickly and I get a feeling he's hiding something. "Just hurry up and get dressed."

I quickly pull on his sweater and am immediately hit by a strong scent that smells just like Mason. Its warm against my cool skin and I secretly love the feeling of his soft sweater rubbing against my bare chest.

It's a bit baggy on me and long on the hands, falling to my fingertips. Mason is bigger than me- I've noticed that before- but wearing his clothes makes it more obvious.

I look up and see that he's looking at me with a smile.

"What?"

"Nothing."

He hands me my keys and I close the trunk before we both climb in my car.

The first thing I do it turn the keys and crank the heat up.

We sit there for a few minutes before I see my hair in the rearview mirror. My eyes widen and curse as I run a hand through it, only once before Mason says, "it looks fine."

I stop and stare at him in shock. "Fine? Mace, I got major bed head here!" I go to run through it again, but Mason catches my hand when it's halfway up.

"Its cute like that."

I feel my cheeks heat up so much they feel like they're on fire. Mason called my bedhead cute. My bedhead. Cute.

Without meeting my eyes, he plowed on. "I texted Londa and your mom. Explained the situation. Your mom gave us permission to stay at Frank's condo. Said she'd rather us stay there than drive home so late."

My mind is still caught on him calling my bedhead cute that I don't fully understand what he's saying for a few seconds.

"Okay. Yeah, okay." I rub my eyes with one hand, to try and focus. "Wait," I lift my head and look at him again. "When did you text them? You left your phone in my trunk."

"I, uh," he looked down at his hands. "I gave your keys to Emma and asked her to grab it for me while you were out."

I raise an eyebrow at him. He looks up and sees my expression, jumping into an explanation.

"I would've gotten it myself, but I didn't want to disturb you. You were sleeping so soundly."

My mind flashes to imagine Mason reaching into my pockets to grab my keys while I was asleep on top of him.

My cheeks heat up slightly and I shake my head to clear my thoughts.

"Alright, alright." I sigh. "Let's just get to Frank's."

I look at the clock as we pull into the driveway and see its quarter after eleven.

We don't even bother with the lights when we stumble in, using the spare key Frank his for purposes like these. Well, not like these. I doubt he expected two teens to tumble in late at night when it's too late to go home.

I flop on the bed and don't move when Mason follows my lead.

We silently get undressed and climb under the covers. I'd normally be less casual about sharing a bed with Mason, but, hell, I slept on him for a few hours not too long ago.

I bury my face in my pillow- an actual pillow this time- and relax. I took off my jeans but left Mason's sweater on, pulling the hood up. As I turn on my side towards Mason, I bring my cuff-covered hands up and rest my cheek against one palm, the other curled up and pressed in front of my mouth. I subtly take a deep breath of the fabric.

I look up and Mason and see him watching me with a smile.

We stare at each other for a few moments before I whisper into the dark, "my mom's gonna kill me for not telling her where we were, and then hearing from you an hour or two before we were supposed to be back."

"Go to sleep, Jaims. We'll figure it out tomorrow." He patted my cheek and closed his eyes.

I was about to drop off when I feel Mason pull me into his chest.

I was too asleep to pull away and instead push my face into his chest and let myself drift away.