Runaway Baby

 

Lina knows that she is leaning too far out over the deck for only a split second before she tumbles over. For a moment, her life flashes before her eyes in blind panic before she splashes into the cold, clear water of the lake.   Another second later, another much louder splash is heard as a bigger, more muscular body jumps in after her. As Lina breaks the surface, sputtering and shaking wet hair out of her face, she is met with the handsomely worried face of none other than Huang Zitao.   “Are you okay?” he asks immediately, treading water next to her.   “Of course,” she snaps back, rolling her eyes up to the cloudless sky, “I can swim, can’t I?”   Tao breathes a sigh of relief. “I can’t believe you fell into the lake,” he mutters, eyes full of mirth.   Lina glares at him. “Hey, aren’t you supposed to be my bodyguard? Why weren’t you guarding my body?” she asks, splashing him with a face full of water. “What if there were rocks down here, or if I’d hit my head on the dock? What were you even doing?”   Tao lets out an embarrassed cough. “There were some pretty flowers over there,” he mutters, turning away. “I picked some for you.”   Lina looks up and sees that there are indeed pink carnations scattered all over the dock, dropped when Tao had dived into the water after her. She sighs, but can’t find it in herself to be angry or annoyed. Instead, she struggles to hoist herself back onto the deck, only successfully managing to do so after Tao gives her a lift. She flops onto the warm dock ungracefully as Tao hoists himself back onto the dock next to her.   “The Duke and Duchess are not going to be pleased with this,” Tao states as he tries to wring water out of his t-shirt with little success. “How do I explain that their precious daughter fell into the lake under my watch because I was distracted by some pretty pink flowers?”   “Mom doesn’t need to know and Dad won’t care,” Lina replies, sprawling back onto the dock. “We can just wait out here until we’re dry.” Her own white summer dress is completely soaked and partially see through, and she notices Tao politely averting his eyes. “Stop being silly,” she says, pulling him down to sit lay next to her. “Nothing you haven’t seen before.”   Tao blushes all the way to the tips of ears that are sticking out from his bleach blond hair but complies.           The first time Lina meets Huang Zitao, she is nine years old. Her father, the Duke, had decided that she was in need of a comp