9. Chapter 9 #2
“Did you know a snapping turtle can bite a wooden broomstick clean in half?” The nibble was probably from a little perch, but I can’t help myself.
“Gina.” His eyes look impossibly huge in the dark as his hands shift underwater to protect his dick. “Why would you tell me that?”
I laugh.
“If anything bites it off, we will not be consummating this marriage,” he warns, abandoning me to hungry fish.
It shouldn’t make me laugh harder, considering how inconvenient this marriage is, but it does.
He heaves himself onto the dock, then kneels to extend a hand to me, and my laughter screeches to a halt. I can’t help it—I look. Shadows make it impossible to pick out details, but I can see the long shape of his cock anyway.
“I’ll close my eyes,” he teases.
Busted. I turn away, my face on fire, though a shiver runs through me at the thought of him lifting me out of the water and pulling me close, our bodies dripping, our skin breaking out in goosebumps, a sliver of night air between us. “I’ll walk around.”
Except by the time I step on shore, I’ve realized the fatal flaw in this plan. I now have to walk the length of the dock to him, naked, cold, and wet.
But Benji turns his back to me as he shakes out his joggers, and I’m desperate enough for my clothes that I don’t stop to stare at his perfect, firm butt.
I multitask, staring at it while I walk. I only trip once as he steps into the pants.
Sliding my wet body into my clothes is a struggle.
I have a moment of panic that he’ll turn around and find me fully on display, arms trapped overhead in my T-shirt.
But my shirt goes on after a brief struggle.
I wiggle into my shorts, then tuck my bandeau bra, socks, and undies into a pocket.
After stuffing my feet into my shoes, I’m ready.
Benji still has his back to me, so I reach out. His arm is cool, the skin pebbled, and he turns toward me with that easy smile.
“Thank you for giving me this,” I say softly. “It was fun.”
He moves closer, cupping my cheek. “Anytime.”
“Really?”
He brushes his thumb, so soft, so tender, over my cheekbone. “Really.”
A mosquito buzzes somewhere near us. We are seconds from annihilation. “The night in Vegas—can we have something like it, without the part where I get so drunk I can’t remember? Just us, for the summer?” One summer of fun. Our little secret, away from the prying eyes of Happy Lake and Havenwood.
He nods slowly while I drown in his eyes. “Summer is a good start.” His head dips toward mine, and my eyes flutter closed. But he doesn’t kiss me. He slaps my arm—lightly—and my eyes fly open. “Mosquito,” he says apologetically.
Annihilation has begun.
“Last one to the cabin gets eaten alive,” I say.
He moves like he’s going to push past me. I turn and run for it. By the time we reach my cabin, we’re laughing and panting, shoving through the door to get away from the bloodsucking bastards. Benji is plastered to my back, his hands tightening on my arms as I freeze.
Milo’s waiting at the kitchen table.
The screen door bounces off Benji’s backside, and he nudges me forward to shut the hungry horde of mosquitoes out.
“I’m going to shower,” he says, releasing me, his fingers trailing reluctantly down my arms.
I take off my shoes with agonizing slowness because I’m a chicken. The bathroom door closes, the shower goes on, and I finally lift my gaze to Milo. He looks devastated.
“Feelings check,” I say, hating the wobble in my voice. We made a bargain when we agreed to go through with this ridiculous engagement that we’d check in anytime we needed to. We’d be careful with each other and open about our feelings in case anything popped up.
Milo does what we’ve agreed to do, and his gaze turns inward momentarily. Then he shakes his head. “I love you as a friend. Nothing more. You?”
“As a friend.” The feelings I’ve kept bottled up weren’t the kind we were worried about, but maybe the quiet resentment that’s been growing since he asked me to do this is more dangerous than catching romantic feelings would be. “I don’t know if I can do this.”
He doesn’t ask if by this I mean our wedding or having Benji here for the summer. Instead, he asks, “Remember when we first met?”
It was one of those teenage days when the emotions were too big to stay indoors. I’d wanted to scream until everything I felt could fit back into the box it belonged in again. So I’d gone walking on Happy Lake’s trails.
There was an angry boy with messy dark hair, a black T-shirt, and ripped-up jeans on my favorite beach. He was skipping stones, one after another, calm and mechanical but with a force I recognized—the same thing bubbled inside my chest.
He whirled around and scowled when I stepped onto the beach. I sat a reasonable distance away and pulled out an old paperback borrowed from the lodge. He went back to skipping his stones.
We ran into each other often after that. He’d sketch, I’d read. I’d fish, he’d nap. We weren’t friends, exactly. We didn’t talk. We didn’t need to. He was wounded, I was suffocating, but in the woods and on the lake, he wasn’t the kid with the record, and I wasn’t the girl trying to be an adult.
The leaves turned red and gold, and we still ran into each other.
The snow came. We borrowed cross-country skis or snowshoes from the lodge.
We took the portable ice house out on the lake a few times, spending hours huddled around the holes waiting for fish to bite. We started talking. We became friends.
Happy Lake was there for us. We can’t let it go, and I can’t let him down. Maybe Milo can’t understand me now, but he used to. He was the only person who ever did.
“I remember,” I say quietly.
“Why do you want him here? You know what we could lose.”
How can I tell him about the connection I feel to Benji? Explaining to Milo that I’m stuck—that I don’t feel like the person I’ve become, and that Benji feels like the key to understanding myself—won’t go over well.
“He needs Happy Lake,” I say, my tone pleading.
“They all do. Did you look at them? They’re us when we first met, but older and with more baggage.
” Briar looks like she’s surviving on adrenaline.
Clay—as cynical and jaded as he seems to want everyone to believe he is, something about him makes me think of a ship in a storm, desperate for a safe harbor.
Benji… he’s wounded, too. I can’t be what he needs, but Happy Lake might be able to help.
“They’re lost,” I say softly. “Let them find themselves here. Like we did.”
Milo gets to his feet with a heavy sigh, heading for the door. “You know where I stand. Please don’t ruin this for us.”
“It’s going to be okay,” I tell him as he slips his shoes on.
He gives me a doubtful look and goes outside to sit by the campfire.
It’s going to be okay , I tell myself. It has to be.