CHAPTER 8. Connor #3
Noah shifts his weight and presses forward with fresh determination. Maya wobbles, grunting as she tries to stay upright. Then Noah gives one last shove, and Rick topples backward with a splash, taking Maya down with him.
“Yes!” Noah shouts, throwing both fists into the air, his thighs tightening around my neck. “We did it!”
I turn us in the water with a whoop of triumph. By the time Maya and Rick come back up, sputtering, Noah is still perched on my shoulders, one hand planted on top of my head like some victorious king.
“Lucky shot,” Maya says, pushing wet hair out of her face. “Best of three, remember? We’re just getting started.”
Rick says nothing, but there’s a tightness in his face now. He helps Maya climb back onto his shoulders, and we move into place again.
The second round goes faster. Noah seems to have found his rhythm, and I feel it in the way he moves, more in sync with me now.
Maya’s tough, probably tougher than Noah, but Rick isn’t nearly as good at this as he wanted us to think.
When Noah shoves hard and then suddenly pulls back, stealing Maya’s leverage, Rick loses his balance again and pitches forward, dragging her down with him in a mess of splashing and curses.
“Nice job,” Noah says, leaning down until his face is close to mine. “Let’s do one more, just to humiliate them.”
His breath skims my wet skin, sending a shiver down my spine that has nothing to do with the cold water.
“Let’s finish them,” I say, giving his legs an encouraging squeeze.
The third round turns into a real fight.
Maya is dead set on not losing again, and Rick moves faster this time, making it harder for me to keep us upright.
Above me, Noah and Maya grapple with their hands locked together in what looks like a painful grip.
I can feel the strain in Noah’s body, every muscle tightening as he pushes against her.
For a moment, it looks like we might actually lose this one.
Noah wobbles dangerously as Maya starts gaining ground.
But then I shift my weight and sink lower into the water.
Maya, who’s been throwing her whole body into Noah, loses her leverage all at once.
She pitches forward, her grip slipping, and I move fast, stepping sideways and taking Noah with me.
A second later, she goes down again, crashing into the water with a huge splash.
“Noah and Connor win,” Cassidy announces, smiling. “Three-zero.”
Noah lets out a victorious shout from my shoulders. “Woo-hoo!”
I can’t help laughing. The look on his face is so unguarded, so unlike the Noah I’ve been seeing since we got here. He thumps my chest in celebration, and I pretend that doesn’t send another completely inappropriate shiver through me.
“Alright, champion,” I say, lowering myself into the water so he can slide off. “Time to come down.”
Noah climbs down, and when he’s standing in front of me, his face is flushed from the win, his eyes bright enough to make something twist in my chest.
Then, before I can process what’s happening, he rises onto his toes and presses a quick kiss to my lips.
“Thank you,” he says, pulling back with a grin.
I blink at him, caught off guard. The kiss is so quick I barely have time to register it, but my lips still tingle, and my heart gives an awkward kick in my chest.
“My pleasure,” I manage, hoping my face doesn’t look as hot as it feels.
I glance over and find Rick looking our way as he and Maya wipe water from their faces. That makes the win even sweeter.
Noah follows my gaze, then slips an arm around my waist, pressing into my side.
“You’re shivering,” I say, noticing the tremor in his shoulders.
“It’s cold,” he admits, his teeth starting to chatter.
“Let’s get you warmed up then.” I wrap an arm around him and rub his upper arm. “How about we try those hot tubs your mom was talking about?”
He nods and leans into me even more. “Yes, please.”
We make our way back toward the shore together, and when we step out of the water, Caroline beams at us.
“You two looked like you were having fun out there,” she says, her gaze flicking between us with impossible-to-miss delight. Then she looks at Noah. “Sweetheart, you’re shaking. There are towels in that basket.” She points to a wicker basket off to the side.
I grab two towels and hand one to Noah. He takes it with a grateful look and says, “Thanks,” draping it around his shoulders. But even by the time I finish drying off, he’s still shivering.
“We’re going to try the hot tubs,” I tell Caroline. “Warm up a bit.”
“Oh, wonderful idea,” she says, clapping her hands once. “The one behind your cottage is the nicest. Everything should already be set, but the temperature controls are easy if you want to make it hotter or cooler.”
“Thanks, Caroline,” I say.
Noah gives her a quick smile. “Thanks, Mom.” Then he reaches for my hand. “Come on.”
The touch catches me off guard, but I close my fingers around his and let him lead me back toward the cottage barefoot, leaving the others by the lake.
Noah is quiet beside me, but not in the way he was before.
The silence feels easy, almost intimate.
I glance over at him, watching drops of lake water slide down the back of his neck and disappear into the towel around his shoulders.
“That was fun,” he says after a moment, looking back at me with a small smile. “I almost never won chicken fights before.”
“You were good up there,” I tell him. “Natural fighter.”
He laughs. “Or maybe I just had a better base than Maya.”
“Obviously,” I say, flexing my bicep at him for effect.
Noah giggles and gives my shoulder a light punch, his laugh softening into something almost shy. “Seriously, though. Thanks. It felt good to win.”
“Anytime,” I say.
The hot tub sits on a wooden deck behind our cottage, steam curling off the surface in the cool air. A couple of deck chairs sit off to one side. Noah drops his towel onto one of them and fiddles with the control panel until the water starts bubbling.
“I don’t know what I just did,” he admits, eyeing the water like it might turn on him. “I’ve never actually used one of these before. But it’s bubbling, which seems right.”
“Yeah,” I say, leaning in to look over his shoulder. “That’s usually what you want from a hot tub and not, say, a cursed swamp.”
Noah huffs a laugh, then dips a hand into the water and jerks it back out. “Oh, shit. That’s really hot.”
“That is sort of the hot part of the whole hot tub thing, yeah,” I say.
He rolls his eyes at me, but he’s smiling. “Shut up.”
I glance down at my boxer briefs, dripping onto the deck. “Is it even acceptable to get in wearing your underwear?” I ask, thinking about my swim shorts hanging in our bathroom.
Noah’s brows lift, and a surprised smirk tugs at his mouth. “You want to do it naked?”
Heat shoots straight into my face. “What? No. I meant instead of actual swimwear. I didn’t—”
Noah breaks into laughter, bright and helpless. “Your face,” he says between breaths. “Oh my God, your face.”
I shake my head, still smiling despite my embarrassment. “You’re the worst.”
“I am,” he says, grinning as he steps into the tub. “Oh, shit. That is hot.”
He lowers himself in slowly, wincing as the water climbs over his thighs and up to his waist. I get in after him, the heat almost startling after the lake. It takes a second to adjust, but then it starts to feel incredible, sinking into my muscles and chasing out the cold.
Noah settles across from me and tips his head back against the edge of the tub with a contented sigh. “This was definitely a good idea.”
I nod, trying not to stare at the water beading on his collarbone or the wet curls stuck to his temples. The jets keep the water moving, nudging us closer now and then before drifting us apart again.
“Your skin’s already turning red,” Noah says, watching me with amusement. “It’s been, like, a minute.”
I glance down at my chest, where my pale skin is already flushing pink from the heat. “I’m Irish,” I remind him. “My ancestors preferred freezing to death in stone huts to anything remotely comfortable.”
Noah laughs again, the sound carrying through the cool air. “They’d be horrified to see you now, luxuriating in a hot tub.”
“Deeply ashamed,” I agree. “They’re probably rolling in their cold, damp graves as we speak.”
Noah smiles at me over the water. “And yet here you are. Pink and happy. Like a cute little piglet.”
I gasp and look at him with mock offense. “Cute little piglet? How dare you. You can’t just say things like that to me.”
His smile widens. “Looks like I just did.”
I flick water at him. He splashes me back, and for a minute we’re just two grown men acting like children, sending water over the edges of the tub until we’re both laughing too hard to keep going.
When it quiets again, Noah shifts a little closer, water rippling around his shoulders. There’s something softer in his face now, something warm that makes my pulse kick.
“I’m glad you came with me this weekend,” he says quietly. “I don’t think I could’ve survived this on my own.”
I want to ask what Rick said to him in the woods, what exactly rattled him so badly, but I don’t want to break whatever this is. So I just look at him, a little dazed, suddenly too aware of how close he is. “I’m glad I came too.”
For a moment we just sit there, with nothing between us but the sound of the water. Then, in the distance, I hear voices getting louder. The others must be heading over from the lake.
“The goblins are coming,” Noah says with a quiet laugh, clearly hearing them too, but he doesn’t move away. If anything, he edges closer.
“Yeah,” I say, my voice coming out rougher than I mean it to.
Then it happens.
I don’t know who moves first, him or me, but suddenly Noah is right in front of me, his hand sliding around the back of my neck, his face tilted up toward mine. There’s a beat, one suspended breath where he just looks at me, his eyes asking a question I don’t know how to answer.
Then he kisses me.