[ sneak preview of skinny dipping, or: the first of arguably too many summer camp fics ]
He snags lifeguard duty for that whole first week.
“Are you even certified?” Hermione demands when she sees him sitting in the second deck chair. She’s wearing a bright red one-piece and a pair of white denim cut-offs, a gleaming silver whistle around her neck and a hilariously oversized first-aid kit in her arms.
“Like, for lifeguarding?” Cormac asks.
“Like, for anything,” she retorts, producing a tube of SPF 150 from an interior pocket in her bag. He tells himself he’s not going to watch her put it on, but that’s probably a lie.
“Dunno,” he says innocently, spreading his legs and slouching farther down in his seat, “why don’t you test me?”
“Test you on what? Keg stands?”
“Babe, you don’t have to get me drunk to—”
“Do not finish that sentence,” she interjects, reaching up to tie her hair into a surprisingly messy bun.
Cormac winks. “Not in front of the kids, I get it.”
She sighs. “I really don’t think you do.”
“Anyway,” he goes on, undeterred, “of course I’m certified for—stuff. Like CPR. I’m certified for that.”
She turns—very, very slowly—to look at him. “CPR,” she repeats, something like disbelief coloring her voice. “Is that what you wanted me to test you on?”
He smirks. “You know it.”
Hermione clenches and unclenches her jaw, a dollop of sunscreen streaking the length of her right arm, and he can’t help but notice that her skin is already a deep, dark bronze in the late morning light. Smooth. Silky.
“Look,” she snaps, “I don't—I’m not here to hook up, okay?”
Cormac considers that for a second. “So, like…you want me to take you to dinner first?”
Her eyes narrow. “I want you to leave me alone.”
“Oh,” he says, kind of nonplussed. “Okay. But—just to be, like, clear or whatever—you’re not playing hard to get?”
In hindsight, he doesn’t know why he’s so shocked when she pushes him into the lake.
