Chapter 14 #2
His jaw tightens. “But you did.”
I nod and see him swallow. When he finally looks at me—really looks at me—something clicks between us again. That unspoken language we keep breaking into with every breath.
“Swim with me?” he gruffly asks and drops his jeans to the dock.
What?
He jumps in first, cutting through the surface like he’s made of it but stays close to the dock.
He makes sure to keep one hand on it. I strip to my bra and panties and wade in slower, feeling the current wrap around my thighs, my ribs, and my throat.
It should scare me, but it doesn’t. He’s there and I know I’m safe.
He won’t let me go.
He dips his head back as I reach him and wraps an arm around me, pulling me close, but not flush against him. He’s right in front of me dripping and glistening, his eyes locked on mine in the moonlight. He mutters, “You’re brave, Blakelyn.”
What?
I laugh under my breath. “You think I’m brave for swimming?”
He mutters, “No, I think you’re brave for staying.”
He touches my face. His palms cup my cheeks. Soft. Reverent. His fingertips dance over my cheekbones, before drifting over my lips, and along the bridge of my nose. I shiver and he brushes water from my lashes. Goosebumps rise all over my skin. Not from cold… from his touch.
He stares at me, and I stare back. Then, holding my gaze, he leans in and kisses me. Our eyes are locked. It’s not about heat. It’s not about want. It’s about belonging.
Before I know what’s happening, we’re both naked.
I strip him down and throw them onto the dock while he unhooked my bra and peeled my panties down my legs, both joining his clothes.
He holds onto the dock with one hand and positions me in the water, cradling me between his arms as he uses the other hand to guide himself into me with an exhale that shakes the stars.
Our mouths stay fused the entire time—whispers and moans and soft, gasping “yeses” melding between us.
My legs wrap around him, helping me anchor us, and we rock, slow and deep, the current curling around our bodies like it’s dancing with us. He groans when I slide over him and grind. I feel him everywhere— Inside me… around me… tethered to my pulse.
“I don’t know how to stop wanting you,” I breathe against his neck as the tremors start.
He presses his forehead to mine. “Don’t… please don’t…”
We come together with the river around us and the stars above us.
Somehow, he manages to haul us both out of the water while we’re still trembling. We collapse onto the dock, breathless, wet, and raw. Closing my eyes, I let the night carry us… the stars are witnesses… and the river keeps our secrets.
What’s between us doesn’t need explanation.
It just is … a nd maybe that’s enough.
For now, it’s enough.
I don’t remember falling asleep, but I must have passed out on the dock.
I wake up in my own bed with his shirt on my pillow, but the bed is still warm. He must have just left.
My collarbone feels tender. My body aches in all the best ways. And for the first time in years, my dreams didn’t chase me.
There was no Tyler.
No shouting. No fists or boots.
No slamming doors.
Just water. And skin. And the sound of Gruene’s voice in the dark whispering, “Don’t… please don’t...”
I pull the shirt over my head, make coffee, and sit on the porch with my feet tucked under me and my knees pulled to my chest.
I don’t check my phone. I don’t open my email. I just watch the way the sun catches the riverbank. The way the wind plays in the branches. The way the door to his cabin stays closed until almost 8AM. And when it finally opens, he’s there, looking at me like I’m a choice he’s already made.
Gruene
I wake before the sun.
The room’s still dark, the kind of heavy silence that feels thick enough to choke on.
Her naked body is curled into mine with one leg thrown across my hip.
Her breath is soft and warm against my chest. She doesn’t stir when I run a hand down her back, slow and steady, tracing the dip of her spine with the tips of my fingers.
I could stay like this forever.
I don’t deserve to.
And… that’s the part that always breaks me.
I wake as she starts to stir, and my eyes instantly widen, staring at the crack in the wooden bean above her bed. I carried her in last night and tucked her in before climbing in beside her. I didn’t mean to fall asleep, but I did.
I stayed. I stayed all night.
Standing, I grab a towel from her bathroom and wrap it around my waist. Our clothes are still on the dock.
After leaving her cabin, I grab them, toss hers onto her porch, and head to my cabin to shower.
Opening the door after stalling all morning, I spot her sitting on the steps of her porch. My heart gallops within my chest as I cross the distance and say, “Morning,” as I lean down to brush a stray strand of hair from where it’s falling over her amber eyes.
She blinks up at me, soft and unguarded in a way I know she doesn’t show many people. “You stayed last night. The spot beside me was warm when I woke.”
I lean back on my heels. “I fell asleep.”
Her lips twitch as she smiles and says, “That’s progress, Gruene.”
I can’t say anything, so I nod. “You want coffee?”
She nods, “I made some. It’s in the pot but I was thinking I could maybe make pancakes.”
I freeze for half a second.
Pancakes. Is she asking me to have breakfast with her? After I slept beside her all night?
Aubree loved pancakes.
I swallow back the ache within my chest. “Sure. I can have some pancakes before I head to the shop. I’ll help.”
She looks at me for a scant second and I feel like she’s inside my head, but she doesn’t say anything but, “I’d like that.”
We head into her cabin.
We work together. She mixes the batter and sets bacon in the oven to crisp, and I pour pancakes into the cast iron skillet and flip them when they bubble.
She’s leaning against the counter, sipping coffee from a chipped mug and looking at me over the rim of the mug while my shirt barely covers her thighs.
Setting it down, her fingers twist the hem like she’s debating whether to say something or let it die in her throat.
“What?” I ask, knowing she’s got something on her mind.
She lifts her gaze to mine. “You’ve never asked me about him...”
“You’ve shared what you needed to. And I figured you’d tell me more when you were ready.”
“I’m not sure I ever will be. But… thank you.”
I take a sip of my own coffee to stop for reaching for her. After setting it in the counter, I reply, “You don’t owe me anything, Blakelyn.” And I plate the pancakes.
She swallows so hard I hear it, then, she murmurs. “Neither do you, I suppose.”
She’s wrong. I do.
She’s the only person I’ve let all the way in since the river took my world… and she’s still here.
From the back of the shop, I pause from stacking tubes and watch her wade into the water behind our cabins.
She doesn’t see me. She’s focused… determined. The sun catches in her hair casting hues of red and turning her skin to gold. She hesitates, glancing down. It’s innocent. She’s only in water to her calves. Something probably brushed against her skin, a limb, a leaf, a turtle.
But sheer panic hits me.
It’s not the spot. It’s not even close.
But it doesn’t matter.
In my head, all I see is the rain… the current… the bend in the river.
The silent, raging water that took my family six years ago.
I freeze. My vision blurs. Icy terror floods my spine, and I bark. “Blakelyn!” It’s louder than I mean it to be. “Back up. Get out of the water! Now!”
She jumps and whirls, tripping in her fear. Stumbling, she takes a step toward the shore. Her eyes are wide and scared “What?—”
“Get out. Now.” My voice is hard. Clipped. Cold.
She doesn’t argue as she looks around, trying to find the danger. But her face crumples just enough to let me know I scared her… that my tone did more damage than the current ever could.
I run, closing the distance fast, splashing through the shallows and gripping her elbow as gently as I can. “You can’t be in there alone.”
She looks up at me, hurt and confusion flashing behind her eyes. “I wasn’t in trouble, Gruene. What the hell?”
“You don’t know that.” I snap.
“I do. I live here. I’m not an idiot. What happened? I don’t understand—” She says.
She’s right. I overreacted. I saw her in the water, but I didn’t actually see her at all. I saw them.
I made love to her in the same river that took my family last night.
What is wrong with me? What kind of man does that?
I exhale sharply and snarl, angry, but at myself. “It’s not about you. It’s the river . It changes fast. You can never trust it, Blakelyn! When are you going to learn that?”
Her chin lifts and her eyes harden. “I’ve learned this river, Gruene.
I know when it’s safe and when it’s not.
I’m not an idiot. And you aren’t mad at me.
But I can’t have you make love to me one night, and then, look at me and see your family’s ghosts hours later.
I thought I could handle this, give you space and time and that you would see me , but you don’t.
You can’t. You’re so goddamn lost in your grief and your misplaced and insane blame that you don’t actually see me at all, do you? ”
What?
No, that’s not…
I see her. I’m looking at her.
But I can’t just forget them! I can’t forget that they’re gone and it’s my fault.
My voice is flat as I say, “I see you, Blakelyn. I see you too fucking clearly. I see you and your face is now overriding theirs and I can’t handle that. I don’t think I could live with myself if something happened to you… and they’re gone because they trusted me .”
Her mouth opens but nothing comes out.
Yeah, that shuts you up.
But not because you agree, right?
You just weren’t expecting me to admit it out loud.
We don’t talk much… not because she’s angry… but because I am. But not at her.
I’m pissed at myself.
At the way I handled it.
At the past that still grips my throat like it owns me.