The Exception by Brittany Wynne Page B

I started to pull my hair up in a ponytail when Maya walked into my room while ending a phone call. “Hey, biatch, you ready to get our tan on?” she called out while walking to my bathroom. When she got to my bathroom, she took one look at my black swimsuit and faked wiping away a tear. “I am so proud…I have taught you well, little Emmie.”
    “What are you talking about?” I looked at my best friend like she was crazy.
    “What? Like you didn’t wear that swimsuit on purpose because Jake is coming over later.”
    “Oh crap!” I panicked. “Is this going to make me look like I’m trying too hard?”
    Maya looked amused. “You really didn’t mean to do this on purpose? Oh well. You’re still rocking it. And I don’t know why you’re worried. You wore it to your party thinking he would be there.”
    “No, I didn’t do this on purpose. I was trying to prevent Kenzie from wearing it. She was planning on parading around in front of Ryan. And good point.”
    “Gotta hand it to little Crawford. That girl has balls.”
    I just shook my head as we headed down to the pool. The three of us laid out for a while until we decided that we were hungry. We had just gotten back outside with our snacks when the boys showed up. Early. Typical.
    I hadn’t really thought about today being weird with Gabe until he got here. And it was weird. Luckily, Maya was distracted with Dylan. A little too distracted. I would have to ask her about that later but was thankful for the distraction at the present. Hopefully, now she wouldn’t pick up on me and Gabe. My sister, on the other hand, was completely focused on getting Ryan’s attention, so this could be good. Maybe no one would notice.
    When Gabe saw that Maya and Dylan were completely captivated with each other and Ryan was busy trying to convince my little sister he just wanted to lay by the pool and listen to his music, Gabe walked over to me.
    “Hey, Em,” he said wrapping me up in a bear hug like he always does. “So, are we just going to swim or are we actually going to play tennis?” he asked, glancing around at everyone else.
    “Doesn’t really look like they’re up for tennis, does it?” I said, putting my hands on my hips, evaluating the situation.
    “Swimming it is!” Gabe exclaimed, scooping me up and jumping in the pool.
    When I popped back up, I noticed Gabe had swum to the other side of the deep end. I quickly swam over toward his direction. This means war. “Gabe, I bet you think you are so funny,” I called out once I was closer to where he was.
    “Not too fast princess, you don’t want to pull a muscle.”
    Oh, it was definitely on. When I finally got to where Gabe was, I threw all my weight into dunking him. As he went down, I had the thought that he went under way too easy. But before I could swim away, he had both my legs and was pulling me under with him.
    This time, when we surfaced, we were both out of breath. I looked up to see Ryan yelling “fore” while tossing a float in our direction and then jumping in himself. Gabe grabbed the float and then made sure I could grab on before moving closer to me.
    “Emma, about last night…” he began, at the same time my sister jumped in the pool, practically on top of us.
    “What the heck, Kenz?”
    My sister looked at me and then toward the house. I followed her gaze and saw Jake walking out toward us.
    Oh crap! Oh crap! This probably looks so bad. 
    I quickly swam closer to my sister who mouthed “you’re welcome”. I gave an appreciative smile. The last thing I want to do is complicate the me, Jake, and Gabe situation. Then I realized it’s probably not a good thing if I have a “situation” in the first place. How did I get here?
    I swam over to the edge of the pool as Jake walked up holding his tennis racquet. He came ready to play tennis. It never occurred to me to tell him to wear or bring swim trunks just in case. The guys just always have.
    “Hey, Jake. Sorry, I didn’t think to