Chapter 6 — Hollis Point #3
“Tonight,” she said, and her voice was rough with want. “The bonfire. After the families go home. I’m not waiting anymore, Luke. I’ve waited too long, and you want me too much, and I can feel how hard you're right now and it’s making me insane.”
She stepped back, adjusted her tank top with hands that weren’t entirely steady, and flashed me a smile that was equal parts promise and threat.
“Come find me when it’s dark. Or I’ll find you. Either way, you’re fucked.”
She bounced back toward the party, dark hair flying, and I stood against the pine tree with my cock aching in my shorts and the certain knowledge that whatever happened tonight would change everything, and the worst part was, I wanted it.
I wanted all of it. The jealousy, the heat, the six women moving through my life with a coordination that should have been terrifying and instead felt like coming home.
The party rolled on. The sun burned lower.
And Luke Whitaker, who had spent thirty-eight years building careful, patient things with tweezers in locked rooms, walked back into the chaos with his heart racing and his resolve in pieces and the clear, terrifying understanding that he was no longer neutral about anything.
***
The families started drifting home around eight.
Kids conked out in car seats, parents carrying coolers and folding chairs with the tired satisfaction of people who’d hosted well and were ready for quiet.
Vince built the main bonfire on the beach, a proper Hollis blaze, flames leaping six feet into the darkening sky, and the younger crowd clustered around it with marshmallows and the kind of laughter that carried across water.
I was helping Trina break down the snack table when Shay found me. Her dark hair was loose around her shoulders, still damp from whatever water game had ended the afternoon, and her blue eyes caught the firelight in a way that made my throat tight.
“Hey.” She touched my arm, fingers warm on my skin.
“Dad wants someone to check the private fire ring before the cousins get any ideas about overnighting. You know how Knox is — if we don’t stake it out, he’ll have his whole friend group camping there by midnight.
” She shrugged, the picture of casual concern.
“I told him you’d help me move the blankets and make sure nothing got left behind. That cool?”
It wasn't cool. It was transparent, orchestrated, and so perfectly Shay that I had to fight a smile.
“Sure,” I said. “Where’s the private ring?”
“Hollis Point. Ten-minute walk.” Her fingers trailed down my arm to my wrist, and the touch carried a current that had nothing to do with firewood. “Come on. The sooner we check it, the sooner we can get back to s’mores.”
We said our goodnights to the parents. Vince clapped my shoulder, grateful.
“Thanks, Whitaker. Always counting on you.” Trina kissed Shay’s cheek and reminded her to bring back the good blankets, not the ones the dogs slept on, and the trust in both their faces was so thick I could have built a house with it.
Kiki caught my eye as we turned to leave.
She was sitting by the main fire between Reese and Penny, golden hair glowing in the flames, and the smile she gave me was warm, open, and contained absolutely zero surprise.
She raised her marshmallow stick in a tiny salute, her blue eyes holding mine for one long, deliberate moment, and the message was clear: go. She’s waited long enough.
Eden adjusted a speaker volume. Tatum launched into a story so loud it drew every eye on the beach.
Penny took a phone call that required her to walk toward the house.
The cover was seamless, coordinated, and so thoroughly executed that by the time Shay and I reached the tree line, the main bonfire felt miles away.
We walked the path in silence. Pine needles soft underfoot, lake sound carrying through the trees, the last of the daylight fading to deep blue overhead.
Shay’s hand found mine, fingers threading through my fingers, and the simple warmth of it, her skin against mine, no audience, no performance, settled something in my chest that had been restless all day.
“You okay?” she asked, her voice quieter than I was used to hearing it.
“Yeah. You?”
“Terrified.” She laughed, low and real. “Is that allowed? Can I be terrified?”
“Probably.”
“Good. Because I am. Absolutely shit-scared. My hands are shaking, see?” She held up our joined hands, and they were, slightly, a fine tremor running through her fingers that had nothing to do with the cooling air.
“I’ve been planning this night for approximately six years, and now that it’s happening, I think I might throw up. ”
The honesty landed like something physical. Shay Hollis, who built her entire personality around never being scared of anything, admitting fear in a voice so raw it made my chest ache.
“You don’t have to—”
“I know I don’t have to. I want to. That’s the terrifying part.” She squeezed my hand and kept walking.
Hollis Point emerged from the trees like something from a dream I hadn’t asked to have.
A small clearing at the water’s edge, ringed by pines, the lake stretching beyond it into darkness where the opposite shore was just a suggestion of treeline against star-scattered sky.
A fire pit sat in the center, stone-lined and already laid with kindling and split logs, waiting for a match.
String lights hung from the lower branches of the surrounding pines, soft white bulbs glowing against the deepening blue.
A Bluetooth speaker sat on a flat rock, playing something low and warm that I couldn’t quite place over the sound of water against stone.
Blankets were spread near the fire pit, thick wool, the good ones, not the dog blankets, layered and arranged with the care of someone who’d thought about comfort.
A small folding table held a bottle of champagne in a bucket of ice, two glasses, and a plate of something that looked like the fancy chocolates Trina kept for special occasions.
And beyond the firelight, partly hidden by the trees, a tent stood with its flap open, and through the opening I could see the soft glow of battery-powered lanterns and the unmistakable shape of a blow-up bed, queen-sized, made up with sheets and pillows that didn't belong to a camping trip.
I stopped walking. Shay’s hand was still in mine, warm and trembling slightly, and I turned to look at her in the gathering dark.
“You didn’t do this alone,” I said.
She smiled, that bright, wicked smile that contained absolutely zero regret.
“God, no. Do I look like someone who knows how to set up a tent? Kiki handled the bed. Reese brought the blankets. Penny stole the champagne from her mom’s pantry — don’t ask, it’s a whole thing.
Eden arranged the lights. Tatum was on firewood duty until she got distracted by a frog and Reese had to finish.
” She shrugged, and the casualness of the gesture did nothing to hide the emotion behind it.
“Team effort. They wanted this for me. For us.”
She led me to the fire pit, struck a match with hands that weren’t quite steady, and touched it to the kindling.
Flames caught, small at first, then stronger, climbing the split logs until the clearing filled with warm, jumping light that painted her face in gold and shadow and turned her blue eyes into something I could have stared at for hours.
She poured champagne. Two glasses, handed me one, clinked hers against mine with a smile that was trying very hard to be casual and failing spectacularly.
“To not throwing up,” she said.
“To not throwing up.”
We drank. The champagne was cold and sharp and better than anything that had any business being at a lake party, and Shay set her glass down on the flat rock and climbed onto my lap before I could set mine down.
Not beside me. Not near me. Onto my lap, her thighs straddling mine, her weight settling against me with a certainty that made my cock harden instantly.
Her hands found my face, fingers tracing my jaw, my stubble, the line of my eyebrow, and the look in her eyes was so serious, so stripped of performance, that I barely recognized her.
“I need you to listen,” she said, her voice low and clear in the firelight. “Just for a minute. Can you do that?”
I nodded. My throat was too tight for words.
“I love you, Luke. Not as a crush. Not as a bit. Not because Kiki went first and I wanted to keep up, and not because you’re Hot Luke or Lake Luke or any of the stupid names we’ve been calling you for years.
” Her thumbs brushed my cheeks, and I realized with a start that her hands were still shaking.
“I love you because you’re the steadiest man I’ve ever met, and you look at chaos like it’s something to be solved instead of something to run from, and you build those tiny ships with your big hands and you never show them to anyone because you’re doing it for you, not for praise, and that's the sexiest fucking thing I have ever seen in my life.”
“I don’t want to be a punchline. Or a conquest. Or a story you tell yourself because I pushed hard enough and made it easier to give in.
” Her mouth twisted, trying for a joke and missing it by an inch.
“Don’t make love to a version of me you invented, Luke.
I’m still Shay. I’m still too loud and too much and probably going to say the wrong thing in the middle of something beautiful. But I’m not joking about this.”
She took a breath. Her blue eyes held mine, firelight dancing in them, and the vulnerability on her face was so raw it made my chest hurt.