Chapter 20
Ali
“The sky is so pretty tonight,” I said, noticing the blazing stars overhead.
We walked out to Gibby’s dock to gaze over the water. It was quiet and peaceful, and I was a little tipsy. The perfect kind of night. I sat down at the edge of the dock and tapped the wood planks next to me. “Have a seat—ow . . . oh damn,” I said quickly as I pulled my hand back from the wood.
“Did you get a sliver?” Jake said as he sat down next to me.
“Ouch. Yes, it got me good,” I said as I pulled my finger to my mouth, biting into the space where the pinch was becoming a throb.
“Here, let me see,” Jake said as he reached for my hand. He shined his light from his phone on my finger, and sure enough a dark fragment of wood sliced into my skin. As he leaned down to look at my finger, I took in his profile.
“This might hurt a little, but I think I can coax it out.” He squeezed the impaled skin and worked the splinter out.
Then he . . . kissed the tips of my fingers.
It was so gentle. Shivers ran up my arm and down my back.
I must have closed my eyes because I opened them and realized he was watching me.
I cleared my throat and pulled my hand away. I needed some distance if I was going to hold back from jumping directly into this man’s lap. We were doing this weird little dance and I forgot again why.
“Thanks,” I said. “What did you call it? A sliver?” I asked, trying to lighten the mood. “I think it’s called a splinter, sir!”
“No way! That was definitely a sliver,” he said playfully.
“And what is the difference?” I asked.
“I think it has to do with where you obtained said wood fragment stab . . . If you’re in the Midwest or Canada, it’s a sliver. Anywhere else in the US, it’s a splinter.” He said splinter with a New England accent. It sounded more like splin-tah.
“That seems like a lot of geography to keep up with,” I said. “I think it’s more about your accent and colloquialisms that you grew up with.”
“I do not have an accent,” he said, emphasizing the word not.
“It’s not as bad as some, but you definitely say some words with a strong Wisconsin tilt,” I teased.
“Like what?”
“Umm . . . bag and tag are standouts,” I said, pronouncing the words in the Wisconsin way, sounding like bayg and tayg—with a long vowel sound.
“Then there’s bubbler. Wis-CAHN-sin, rouff and rout for roof and root.” I was starting to tick them off on my fingers. “Oh, and ope, which is one of my favorites.”
“Okay, okay, I get it. I am from here, don’t cha know.” He added that common phrase at the end, but I actually hadn’t heard him use it much in conversation. Betsy, on the other hand, used it all the time.
“It’s cute. I like the way you talk,” I said.
“Do you?” he asked. I felt the tone becoming more flirty, and I almost groaned in agony. I wanted to throw myself at him. Throw all reason out into the lake and just let him touch me all over.
Our phones lit up with a text from Misha.
KSN for the win. Thanks, Jake. Good night. love you, x
We both looked up after reading his message.
Noticing both of our phones in our hands gave me an idea. “Oooh. Let’s play camera roll roulette.”
“What’s that?” he asked.
“We exchange phones opened to our camera roll, and we both scroll until one of us says stop. Then you open up the random photo you land on. We each explain the story behind the photo.”
“This feels like a trap,” Jake said. “I really don’t have anything interesting on my camera roll.”
“Well then, you should have nothing to hide.” I reached over for his phone and handed him mine. He took it with a small nod of his head.
“And go.” We both swiped our fingers down to scroll the camera roll. “And . . . stop. Okay, now tap into the photo you landed on.”
We took turns explaining each photo. Both were fairly neutral.
His of a wildflower (surprise, surprise).
Mine of me standing in front of my mirror trying on an outfit.
But it gave us each a chance to tell a story about that day or the purpose of the shot.
It was silly, but it felt nice to connect in a normal, everyday kind of way.
“Okay. Ready to do it again. Start from this spot and . . . go . . .”
“And . . . stop.”
“Cute. It’s a selfie of you and Misha. When and where was this taken?” Jake asked.
But I didn’t answer. I was too distracted by the photo frozen on the screen. It was of Jake. Shirtless. Flexing in front of a mirror. Jeans slung low on his hips, his belt undone and his confidence dialed all the way up.
“What? What’s wrong? What did you find?” he asked.
I realized my mouth was wide open like I had just seen a ghost—or a Greek god—in denim. I snapped it shut and forced my brain to reboot.
“Oh ho, hello abs!” I flashed him the screen, trying to sound breezy, playful, not at all like I’d been caught looking at something I wasn’t supposed to see.
Jake groaned—a sound that did not make peeling my eyes away from the photo any easier. “I can’t believe I still have that in my camera roll.”
“Oh . . . I see, you don’t like to keep evidence of your thirst trap era?” I teased. “I sense a good story with this one. Spill it, Dr. Abs.”
He laughed, rubbing the back of his neck. “That was last fall. I sent it to someone I was messaging for a little while.”
Something fluttered deep in my ribs.
It wasn’t jealousy—at least not exactly. More like . . . feeling left out of something.
I knew Jake as kind, steady, and quietly humorous.
The guy who walked Chic in the rain and brought extra napkins to the table without being asked.
He was also measured. I’d only witnessed him lose control twice.
Once during our first kiss, and he reeled himself in and recovered from that very quickly.
And the second was when jealousy turned him into a jackass.
But here, he was cocky and shirtless with come-hither eyes.
Confident enough to hit send. There were parts of him I hadn’t yet seen up close.
That woman, whoever she was, got the abs and the heat behind them.
I couldn’t help but feel a sense of, Lucky her. And, Why not me?
“She asked if I worked out and wanted proof. We’d been flirting over DM, so I went for it,” he said.
I handed his phone back to him. “Well, congratulations, you’ve made most of the guys I’ve dated look scrawny,” I said with a huge grin on my face. “Please tell me this helped seal the deal for you and her.”
“Nah,” he said with a smirk. “She told me not to skip shoulder day and then ghosted. It was . . . weird.”
“I hate online dating,” I said, secretly a little satisfied that she was long forgotten.
“Same.”
A beat passed. He cleared his throat and nodded toward my phone screen. “Okay, so—what about this photo of you and Misha?”
We made our way back to Jake’s living room. Our photo game had turned into Would You Rather.
“I absolutely would rather have my browser history leaked before my high school yearbook quote.” I laughed. “I was such a precocious teen.”
“Petulant too, I bet,” Jake snarked. He was catching up to me in the tipsy department. We were moving through the bottle of champagne and on to a different wine.
“Hey! I was a rule follower in my youth,” I said. “Well . . . at least I never got caught breaking any rules. It was a delicate balance.”
We laughed all night. We teased. Shared stories we hadn’t planned to. He told me about his relationship and breakup with Charlotte. I divulged all the details of how and why I left Chicago. All the details. Even the really ugly parts. The sad parts. The backstory parts.
Between the flirty games, the pouring out of our hearts, and the second bottle of wine, the tension and curiosity that always hummed between us started to rise like steam.
I was lightheaded and loose—a little raw from all the sharing.
He was playful and sweet. And devastatingly handsome.
I felt close to Jake. Not just physically.
The kind of closeness that bonded people.
The kind of closeness that seemed unreal, but also the most real thing I’d ever felt.
My feet ended up in his lap, and he was gently caressing the tops.
I wanted to touch him.
No—I needed to touch him.
Maybe it was the wine. Or maybe it was the way Jake kept looking at me with his quiet, guarded eyes. Like he was waiting for something. Hoping. Fighting it.
I was exhausted with . . . resisting.
Without overthinking, I shifted my body and lifted into his lap—legs straddling his waist, hands braced on his chest. I felt the way his body stilled.
His breath caught. I felt like mine had sprinted ahead of me and was waiting for me to catch up on the other side of a kiss I was trembling with anticipation for.
I leaned in closer. The tips of our noses brushed against each other.
Hovering. Building. My lips pressed into his.
It was soft at first. Just a question. Was this okay? Did he want this too? Were we ready?
He answered with his mouth, warm and hungry against mine.
His hands moved up my back and tangled into my hair.
It wasn’t sweet. It was starved and voracious.
And it matched my pace perfectly. God, I wanted to sink into this so badly.
I wanted him to devour me. Make me forget every wall I’d built up since coming here.
Make me forget all the heartbreak and dismissal I’d felt before him.
Because with Jake all I ever felt was seen. Accepted. Wanted.
He flexed his fingers into my hips as I started to rock steadily, feeling his erection through the layers of clothing between us. The friction sent tingles through me. I was so wet. My body begged for more. More heat. More skin. More him. All over me. I was ready to drown in this man.
But then—he stopped.