Prompted Shorties

A Book of Chance

Prompt: Go over to your bookshelf, close your eyes, and pick up the first book you touch. Open the book to a random page, read the first full sentence on that page, and use it as the inspiration for a story or scene. Please include the original line at the beginning or end of your response.

Story:

"Just take a look at this," he said as we ambled with our bikes in the midmorning sun toward the edge of the piazzetta overlooking the rolling hills below.

Page 34 of:

Call Me By Your Name By Andre Aciman

I couldn't stop writing so I made it a two-parter, which is a first for me. Plus this is going in the book I mentioned in the last prompt.
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Part 1 – The Pond

I invited Peter to go to swim at the pond, says he'd be happy to on one condition.

He'll indulge my request only if I sleep over at his house the next time, an extravagant and odd request as it may seem, I agreed to his terms nevertheless. It was most likely an exchange of courtesy between us two, or maybe he just turned this into a competition of whichever has the best bed and/or family wins.

I prefer the former though. It's less messy that way.

But, what do we win if it were turned as such? I haven't the slightest clue.

We rode our bikes to this secluded pond, just a mile from my home. It was quiet, calm, soothing and private. That's what I like about this pond right here, no fishes, no disturbances and the water is so good to swim in that you can carelessly swallow a glass of it and still wouldn't get sick. I like it here, I like it a lot.

This is my place, well, was. Now that he's here too, I can't technically say that it's still my place.

Only now it dawned on me that I had taken him to one of my most private places here in Trevallaño, it's not my favorite, but it does the job very nicely. I come to here read several times, but not as much as the one in Sacraccina.

I didn't knew what compelled me to do this with him in the first place, I'm not the type of person who lashes out his own free will just for the sake of having to spend extra time after hours in a bedroom with some stranger you just met.

I may have gone mad.

Looking at him, he seems to be okay with it, but I'm still deciphering him and I don't know why. He's a bit hard to crack, unlike the people I know where we go back home to when summer and winter isn't gracing my family with its charmless vigor every day.

He was harder to crack, that I know.

I took off everything other than my shorts, same did he. There's a rope that you can cling onto that's attached on a branch of which you can use to swing yourself into the pond. The pond is deep enough to do such a thing to it, but also shallow enough so as to not drown as easily. One of the few things I like about this pond is that it's about the size of my room, multiplied by four. Almost like an Olympic sized swimming pool, which I bet his skin must've already met by now and have come to terms with it.

Must be a nice feeling then.

As he climbed up to the platform, I watched him grab a hold of the rope, his muscles were firm, he told me he didn't worked out, yet his was bigger than mine, bulgy even. I laughed when he splashed down next to me, I can't believe I'm having actual fun.

The longest time I've spent with another guy was fifteen hours, including sleep time and excluding my dad. That person was my cousin Eric, from my mom's sister, my Aunt Rosie. She never cared about the negativity in the world, which is why I loved going to Aunt Rosie's plus she makes the best Lemon meringue pie.