I tried to pull myself up farther, working to get more leverage. I managed to get one elbow over, hoisting myself up enough to see that the source of the light I’d been watching was not otherworldly at all, but a swimming pool. It was big and lit up and, I noticed, occupied, a figure cutting through the water doing laps.
Meanwhile, Roscoe was still yapping, and my bag was already in this strange person’s yard, meaning I had little choice but to join it or risk being busted by Jamie. Straining, I pulled myself up so I was hanging over the fence, and tried to throw a leg to the other side. No luck.
"Roscoe? ” I heard Jamie call out from the patio. “Whatcha got there, boy?”
I turned my head, looking back at him, wondering if he could see me. I figured I had about five seconds, if Roscoe didn’t shut up, before he headed out to see what his dog had treed. Or fenced. Another fifteen while he crossed the yard, then maybe a full minute before he’d put it all together.
“Hello? ”
I was so busy doing all these calculations that I hadn’t noticed that the person who’d been swimming laps had, at some point, stopped. Not only that, but he was now at the edge of the pool, looking up at me. It was hard to make out his features, but whoever it was was clearly male and sounded awfully friendly, considering the circumstances.
“Hi,” I muttered back.
“Roscoe?” Jamie called out again, and this time, without even turning around, I could hear he was moving, coming closer. Unless I had a burst of superhuman strength or a black hole opened up and swallowed me whole, I needed a Plan B, and fast.
“Do you—?” the guy in the pool said, raising his voice to be heard over Roscoe, who was still barking.
“No,” I told him as I relaxed my grip. His face disappeared as I slid down my side of the fence, landing on my feet with mere seconds to spare before Jamie ducked under the small row of trees at the edge of the yard and saw me.
“Ruby?” he said. “What are you doing out here?”
He looked so concerned that for a moment, I actually felt a pang of guilt. Like I’d let him down or something. Which was just ridiculous; we didn’t even know each other. “Nothing,” I said.
“Is everything okay?” He looked up at the fence, then back at me, as Roscoe, who’d finally shut up, sniffed around his feet, making snorting noises.
“Yeah,” I said. I was making it a point to speak slowly. Calmly. Tone was everything. “I was just . . .”
Truth was, at that moment, I didn’t know what I was planning to say. I was just hoping for some plausible excuse to pop out of my mouth, which, considering my luck so far, was admittedly kind of a long shot. Still, I was going to go for it. But before I could even open my mouth, there was a thunk from the other side of the fence, and a face appeared above us. It was the guy from the pool, who, in this better light, I could now see was about my age. His hair was blond and wet, and there was a towel around his neck.
“Jamie,” he said. “Hey. What’s up?”
Jamie looked up at him. “Hey,” he replied. To me he said, “So . . . you met Nate?”
I shot a glance at the guy. Oh, well, I thought. It’s better than what I had planned. “Yeah.” I nodded. “I was just—”
“She came to tell me my music was too loud,” the guy— Nate?—told Jamie. Unlike me, he didn’t seem to be straining in the least, holding himself over the top of the fence. I wondered if he was standing on something. To me he added, “Sorry about that. I crank it up so I can hear it under the water.”
“Right,” I said. “I just . . . I couldn’t sleep.”
At my feet, Roscoe suddenly coughed, hacking up something. We all looked at him, and then Jamie said slowly, “Well . . . it’s late. We’ve got an early day tomorrow, so . . .”
“Yeah. I should get to bed, too,” Nate said, reaching down to pull up one edge of his towel and wiping it across his face. He had to be on a deck chair or something, I thought. No one has that kind of upper-body strength. “Nice meeting you, Ruby.”
“You, too,” I replied.
He waved at Jamie, then dropped out of sight. Jamie looked at me for a moment, as if still trying to decipher what had happened. I tried not to flinch as he continued to study my face, only relaxing once he’d slid his hands in his pockets and started across the lawn, Roscoe tagging along at his heels.
I’d just reached the line of trees, following him, when I heard a “Pssst!” from behind me. When I turned around, Nate had pushed open part of the fence and was passing my bag through. “Might need this,” he said.
Like I was supposed to be grateful. Unbelievable, I thought as I walked over, picking up the bag.
“So what’s it to?”
I glanced up at him. He had his hand on the gate and had pulled on a dark-colored T-shirt, and his hair was starting to dry now, sticking up slightly. In the flickering light from the nearby pool I could finally make out his face enough to see that he was kind of cute, but in a rich-boy way, all jocky and smooth edges, not my type at all. “What?” I said.
“The key.” He pointed to my neck. “What’s it to?”
Jamie was going into the house now, leaving the door open for me behind him. I reached up, twining my fingers around the chain hanging there. “Nothing,” I told him.
I shifted my bag behind me, keeping it in my shadow as I headed across the lawn to the back door. So close, I thought. A shorter fence, a fatter dog, and everything would be different. But wasn’t that always the way. It’s never something huge that changes everything, but instead the tiniest of details, irrevocably tweaking the balance of the universe while you’re busy focusing on the big picture.