Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-four
RHETT
Seven Years Ago
The Annual Lake House Trip
The lake house looks more worn than I remember.
Time has peeled the paint from the siding, and the porch boards groan under each step, like they’re warning us to tread carefully.
The air is thick with the scent of pine needles and damp soil.
Somewhere out back, a thin ribbon of smoke curls from a nearby firepit, trailing skyward before dissolving into the morning haze.
We pull up just after sunrise. The sky is a washed-out gray, like it hasn’t made up its mind whether it wants to be day or night.
The gravel crunches under our tires as we park, and even before we fully unload the car, I spot Josh already rummaging through the cooler, pulling out a beer like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
He twists the cap off with one hand and takes a slow pull while he leans back against the side of the deck.
His shoulders are loose, his jaw slack with sleep or peace—I can’t tell which.
He looks like someone who left all his worries on the drive up and has no intention of picking them back up anytime soon.
Rachel steps beside me, her hoodie zipped halfway up, and her hair pulled back in that effortless way that always looks better on her than it ever could on anyone else. She doesn’t say anything at first. She stands there, eyes on Josh.
I can’t tell what she’s thinking.
“You serious right now?” she asks. “It’s seven-thirty in the morning, and you’ve already started drinking?”
Josh turns, barely blinking. “Technically, we’re on vacation. So it’s five o’clock somewhere?”
She scoffs. “That doesn’t magically make it okay for you to start drinking this early. Come on, Margo, tell him.”
Josh leans back on the porch rail, letting the bottle hang from his fingers. “The sun is up, Rach. That’s all I need.”
Margo walks past carrying some groceries. “I’m staying out of it. You know how he gets out here, Rach.”
Rachel drags her bag across the gravel and up the steps. “You’re going to feel like shit by noon.”
Josh gives her a half-shrug. “That’s a problem for future Josh.”
She shakes her head, but I see the smile pull at her mouth before she looks away.
Josh catches it, too. He grins and holds the bottle toward her. “Want one?”
Rachel makes a face. “No thanks. I still haven’t had any caffeine.”
“More for me.” Josh takes a drink again.
She walks past him and pushes the screen door open. It smacks against the frame on the way back like it always does.
Margo stands beside him now. The sunlight hits her hair as she smiles at Josh. She looks at him like he is the only thing in the world that matters.
“It’s like you two revert to being teenagers when you get out by this lake.” She jokes while placing a kiss on Josh’s cheek.
“I just like to rile her up. I’ll be good, I promise.” He gives Margo a classic Josh grin, and she laughs.
After breakfast and a half-hearted attempt at unpacking, we finally make our way down the worn path to the dock. The hours that follow blur into sun and water. We drift between the lake, cooling off, stretching out, and letting the day slow to our rhythm.
The jetski becomes the main event. There is something about the rush of it: the roar of the engine, the way the lake rushes past like it’s alive. Riding solo is good, but riding with Rachel is something else entirely.
She sits behind me, arms wrapped tight around my waist. Her laughter cuts through the wind tickling the back of my neck.
Every sharp turn earns a scream in my ear, but it’s not the scared kind.
It’s breathless and contagious. By the time we circle back toward the dock, my face hurts from smiling.
I’m already wishing for another excuse to take her out again.
I tie the Jetski off on the dock, and Rachel hops into the water.
Josh cannonballs off the dock as he is still a kid at heart. “Last one to the rope swing has to make dinner!”
“You’re not even good at cooking,” Margo calls after him, floating on her back.
“I’m an ideas man!”
“You’re twenty-four, Josh, not twelve. It’s time you learn to cook,” Rachel shouts back at him.
I swim near Rachel, as Margo and Josh are close together, arguing over who will make it to the rope swing the fastest.
Rachel is already up to her shoulders in water, hair piled in a messy bun. The smile on her face is easy. “This feels rigged,” she says, rolling her eyes.
“It always is,” I say, drifting near her.
She looks over, smirking. “So what, you just accept your fate?”
“Yes, personally, I’d like to not catch food poisoning this year. And if Josh is cooking, then my odds increase.”
That earns a quiet laugh from her. She ducks under the water for a moment, then comes back up, blinking against the sun. “Clever.”
Josh has reached the swing and is now standing on the little dock like he was on stage. “Margo! Watch this one. I’m about to secure my legacy.”
“Your legacy is three failed attempts at grilled chicken and a backwards ‘Will You Marry Me’ banner,” she calls, reminding him of how he proposed.
I laugh. “You forgot the time he tried to fix your garbage disposal and blew the fuse in the whole house.”
“Oh my God,” Rachel says, grinning. “That was him?”
“It was a heroic attempt,” Josh shouts before swinging out and letting go. He hits the water with a splash so big it sends ripples to shore.
Rachel raises a brow. “How have you survived him this long?”
“I could ask you the same question.”
Margo swims over to Rachel, splashing her gently. “He’s not so bad. Once you get past the chaos.”
Rachel snorts. “You’re in love. Your judgment is impaired.”
Josh surfaces. “I feel personally attacked, in case any of you cared!”
“No, no,” Margo says sweetly. “We love you. We just don’t trust you with tools or small appliances.”
He flips water at her, and she shrieks, paddling away.
Rachel drifts closer, cutting through the water until she is just within arm’s reach. Sunlight catches on her shoulders, droplets tracing slow paths back into the lake.
“Hey,” she says, voice easy. “I missed you at trivia on Tuesday.”
“You had Margo and Josh,” I toss back, sculling to keep us level. “I’m sure you survived.”
She tilts her head, water lapping against her collarbone. “You know they’re not why I go to trivia.”
The way she says it pulls my attention too sharply. It’s she is testing the distance between us. When I don’t answer fast enough, she fills the silence before I can.
“It was the last one before I go back to campus,” she adds, softer now. “It would’ve been nice to have one last group trivia night.”
I drift closer without meaning to. I see the tightness at the corner of her mouth. The nerves she is pretending not to have about moving back to campus to start her Doctorate program.
“Hey,” I say, keeping my voice low. “If you just wanted an excuse to talk so you’re not spiraling about this next chapter, I’m always around.”
“I’m not anxious,” she says quickly.
“I never said you were.”
She doesn’t meet my eyes. I stop moving, letting the water carry me.
She exhales. “Okay. Fine. I’m a little anxious.” Her shoulders dip under the surface, then rise again. “This is the first time I’m really going to be alone.”
“That’s just lying, Sunny.”
She frowns. “How?”
“Well, for starters,” I say, lifting one shoulder in a half-shrug, “I’m still here. I’m still going to annoy the shit out of you on my days off.”
Her mouth twitches despite herself. “That’s not comforting. That’s a threat.”
“Depends how you look at it.” I tread water, letting myself drift. “You don’t get to call it ‘being alone’ when I’m still very much in your orbit.”
She studies me. “You can’t follow me back to campus.”
“I don’t have to,” I say. “I’m annoying from a distance. Texts. Calls. Unsolicited opinions.”
She laughs, a soft sound, but it fades quickly. “It won’t be the same.”
“No,” I admit. “But different doesn’t always mean worse.”
She dips under the water briefly, like she needs the reset, then comes back up, hair slicked back, eyes more open than before. “You say that like you’re sure.”
“I am.”
She squints at me, weighing something. “What if I call you at three in the morning, complaining about my roommate?”
“You’re living alone.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Okay, I’ll answer.”
“What if I FaceTime you right after I watch Remember Me and I’m all puffy and crying?”
“I will never understand why you like that movie when you know it makes you sad.”
“Sad things can be great, too, Rhett.”
“Fine, I’ll order Cherry Coke and Oreos to your apartment,” I say without missing a beat. “The good Oreos. Not the knockoff kind.”
Her laugh breaks free, bright and surprised. “You wouldn’t.”
“I absolutely would.”
She drifts closer again, slower this time. “What if I’m annoying about it?”
“I’m prepared.”
“What if I do it every week?”
I shrug. “Then I’ll start budgeting for it.”
She watches me carefully now, like she is waiting for the punchline. When it doesn’t come, something in her expression shifts.
“You’re not joking,” she says quietly.
“No,” I admit. The water laps gently against my shoulders. “I’m not.”
“Are you guys coming?” Josh shouts from the hill, his voice cutting across the water and breaking whatever fragile thing was starting to take shape between us.
“Yeah,” I yell back, already shifting away from her, giving the space a name again. “We should head over there.”
She nods, relief and disappointment tangling in the same breath. “Yeah. Wouldn’t want Josh getting impatient.”
She turns and starts swimming ahead of me, taking clean strokes. I follow a beat later, watching the distance reappear between us.
I don’t usually talk like this. I don’t typically offer myself so openly to her. I make jokes, keep things light, pretend there are lines I won’t cross because it’s safer that way.
So why now?