Chapter 6 — Hollis Point
Hollis Point
I pulled into the Hollis driveway just after noon, and the place was already nuclear summer.
Games sprawled across the yard in every direction: cornhole boards set up on the grass, giant Jenga stacked near the porch, horseshoes clinking by the water, and some kind of inflatable spikeball thing that Tatum was already jumping on like she was trying to break it before anyone else got a turn.
Music carried from speakers Vince had wired along the dock, something with enough bass that I could feel it through the soles of my boat shoes, and the air smelled like charcoal, sunscreen, and the particular Hollis family scent of cedar smoke and lake water.
Coolers lined the flagstone path. Folding chairs clustered in the shade of the big oak.
Kids I recognized from a dozen summers tore across the lawn with water balloons while parents shouted halfhearted warnings from their lawn chairs.
Normal Hollis chaos, dialed to eleven, and I stood at the edge of it with my hands in my pockets and the distinct feeling that I was about to be handled.
The partner draw happened before I’d made it to the drink table.
Trina Hollis stood on the porch steps with a wicker basket full of colored wristbands, calling everyone over with the cheerful authority of a woman who’d organized enough lake parties to know that structure was the only thing standing between fun and total anarchy.
“Wristbands!” she called. “Find your color, find your partner, play nice, and for God’s sake, no cheating at the water balloon toss. Cooper, I’m looking at you.”
Cooper Bishop raised both hands in mock surrender, and the crowd laughed.
I watched the girls cluster around the basket, their bodies moving in that synchronized way that had become its own language, and when Penny’s hand emerged from the scrum holding a bright blue wristband, the look she gave me was so innocent it could have cured cancer.
“Blue,” she announced, holding it up. “Who’s blue?”
“Me!” Shay’s hand shot into the air, and the performance was so perfectly timed, so utterly seamless, that if I hadn’t spent the last week learning how these women operated, I might have believed it.
Shay bounded over, dark hair flying, vivid blue eyes dancing, and snatched the wristband from Penny’s fingers with a grin that contained exactly zero surprise. She slipped it onto her wrist, then grabbed a second blue band from the basket and walked straight toward me.
“You’re blue,” she said, and it wasn’t a question.
“I’m blue,” I agreed, because what else was I going to say?
That I’d just watched five women stage-manage a random draw with the precision of a Broadway choreographer?
That the word “blue” was now permanently associated in my brain with the memory of Shay’s hand wrapped around my cock in the boat cabin.
The families were watching. Vince was handing out beers ten feet away. This wasn't the moment.
Shay slid the wristband onto my wrist, her fingers lingering on my skin long enough to send a current up my arm, and then she grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the cornhole boards before I could formulate a complete thought.
“Cornhole first,” she said. “I’m fucking lethal at cornhole. Prepare to ride my coattails, Partner Luke.”
We didn’t lose. We won, handily, because Shay was, in fact, fucking lethal at cornhole.
She sank beanbags with a flick of her wrist that made the parents whistle, celebrated each point by bumping her hip against mine, and between throws, her hand found mine and held it.
Not briefly. Not accidentally. She laced her fingers through mine and kept them there while we waited for our turn, swinging our joined hands like we were twelve, except the look she gave me when she caught me staring wasn't twelve.
It was twenty-one, hungry, and completely aware of what she was doing.
“Your turn,” she said, squeezing my hand before letting go.
I threw. I missed. She laughed, that dirty, delighted laugh that turned heads across the yard, and stepped close enough that her breast pressed against my arm as she reached for the next bag.
“Focus, Whitaker. Eyes on the hole.”
The innuendo was so blatant that two of the cousins snickered. Trina, passing with a plate of deviled eggs, shook her head with fond exasperation. “Language, Shay. There are children present.”
“Sorry, Mom. Eyes on the target. Better?”
Trina rolled her eyes and kept walking, and Shay winked at me like we’d gotten away with something.
We moved to giant Jenga next. The tower stood nearly five feet tall, wooden blocks weathered from seasons of lake parties, and the rules were simple: pull a block, don’t knock it over, try not to look like an idiot in front of everyone you’d known since childhood.
Shay went first. She studied the tower with exaggerated concentration, her tongue between her teeth, then selected a block from the middle third and pulled it free with a smooth, steady motion that sent a ripple of impressed murmurs through the crowd.
The tower held. She placed the block on top with a flourish and stepped back into my space, her shoulder pressing against my chest, her ass bumping my hip.
“Your turn, partner.”
I reached for a block. My hand shook, just slightly, and Shay noticed. Of course she noticed. Her eyes tracked the tremor, then found mine, and the smile that spread across her face was pure, unholy delight.
“Nervous, Luke?”
“Focusing.”
“Mm.” She stepped closer, her breast against my arm again, and whispered, “You’re focusing on the wrong thing, and I can prove it.”
The block came free. The tower held. I placed it on top with hands that weren't entirely steady, and Shay’s laugh warmed the space between us like sunlight.
We played spikeball on the inflatable mat by the water.
Shay dove for returns with the reckless physical confidence that made everything she did look like performance art, her body hitting the mat with a bounce that sent her dark hair flying and her tank top riding up to reveal a strip of sun-warmed stomach that my eyes followed without permission.
When she landed beside me after a particularly wild save, she was breathing hard, cheeks flushed, and she didn’t step back.
She stepped into me, her chest against mine, one hand braced on my shoulder for balance, and held the position a beat longer than anyone watching would have called necessary.
“Good save,” I said, and my voice sounded normal. Miraculously.
“Thanks.” She smiled, her breath warm against my jaw. “You’re staring at my stomach.”
“I’m not.”
“You are. I can feel it.” She patted my shoulder and bounced away toward the next point, calling over her shoulder, “Keep staring. I like it.”
By the time we reached the water balloon toss, Shay had established a pattern so consistent it had become invisible to everyone but me.
She held my hand between stations. She climbed into my lap when we were waiting for our turn at horseshoes, settling her weight across my thighs with the casual entitlement of someone who considered my lap an extension of the lawn furniture.
She stole a deviled egg from my plate at the snack table, popping it into her mouth with fingers that brushed my lips, and when I called her on it, she leaned in and whispered, “You can have it back if you want. I’ll share. ”
The families saw nothing suspicious. Why would they?
Shay had always been physical, always affectionate, always the one most likely to drape herself over someone’s shoulders or steal food off a plate or laugh too loud at a joke that wasn’t that funny.
And all six girls had adored me for years.
That was summer-circle fact, as reliable as dock permits and water levels.
The way Kiki smiled at me from across the badminton net, warm and approving.
The way Reese touched my arm when she passed, her fingers tracing that familiar line from wrist to elbow.
The way Penny’s green eyes found mine over the rim of her sunglasses, sharp with amusement.
The way Eden adjusted a speaker volume and gave me a look that said, clear as day, this is going exactly according to plan.
They saw Shay being Shay. I saw something else entirely.
I saw the way her thumb traced circles on the inside of my wrist when she thought no one was looking.
The way her hips rolled against mine when she settled into my lap, a motion so subtle it could have been adjusting for comfort if I didn’t know better.
The way her breath hitched, just slightly, when my hand found the small of her back during the ring toss and my fingers pressed into the warm skin above her waistband.
Every touch was public. Every touch was private. The disconnect should have been funny. It wasn’t. It was heat, building under daylight and family trust with a patience that made my chest tight and my cock hard in my shorts in a way that was becoming its own kind of problem.
We won the cornhole tournament. We placed second in Jenga.
We got thoroughly demolished at spikeball by a team of twelve-year-olds who celebrated their victory by dumping a water balloon on Shay’s head, and she shrieked with laughter and tackled the nearest kid into the grass, and when she came up soaking wet, her tank top plastered to her chest, her dark hair dripping, the look she gave me across the lawn was so hungry it nearly knocked me over.
“Your turn,” she called, and I had no idea if she was talking about the games or something else entirely, but the way her blue eyes held mine said she knew exactly what she meant, and she was counting on me to figure it out.
The afternoon stretched. The sun burned toward the tree line. I walked through a family party with a beautiful woman’s hand in mine and the certain knowledge that every innocent touch was anything but innocent, and the worst part was, I didn’t want it to stop.
I wanted more.
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