Chapter Twenty-Five
Kei’s brow is furrowed and the corners of his mouth pull down into a small frown.
“So, he cleaned out your bank account and your apartment, and ghosted?”
“That’s not even the worst part.”
“There’s something worse?”
“I co-signed on a loan for him, using my mom’s house as collateral. I now owe First Union bank over a hundred grand.”
Kei pinches the bridge of his nose with his thumb and his forefinger.
“I know,” I say. “I’m an idiot.”
“What do you mean?”
I squeeze my eyes shut to force the tears back in. “I should have known better.” I wipe my nose with the back of my hand. “There were so many signs. But I loved him, and he was there offering me the perfect life, and it’s like I stopped being able to see what was right in front of me.”
Kei reaches his arm around my shoulders. He doesn’t say anything, he just holds on tight.
“There’s no one to blame but myself.”
Kei brushes my hair away from my face. “That’s not true. He betrayed you.”
“I guess,” I say, reaching for the bottle of Prosecco. “But I didn’t even fight it.”
“What do you mean?”
I take a slug of wine, right from the bottle.
I’m ashamed of all of it, but this is the part that gnaws at me.
“After he left, I just shut down. I went to my mom’s and went to bed for, like, a week.
I didn’t even call the cops.” Kei’s eyebrows shoot up.
“I know, I’m an idiot. But I couldn’t say it all out loud.
And I couldn’t handle it if they confirmed that it had, in fact, been all my fault. ”
He shakes his head. “I’m sorry that happened to you,” he says. “It sounds really hard. But it’s definitely not your fault. You need to forgive yourself.”
I swallow back the lump forming in my throat.
Kei stares out across the lake. “Cleo,” he says, cautiously. “Do you want me to kill him? Like murder, first degree?”
An unexpected bubble of laughter bursts out of me, and I’m filled with a sense of lightness. I’m buoyant with the relief of absolution. Even if I don’t fully believe it, it’s something I can latch on to.
I jump up. “Let’s go for a swim.” And then, remembering the cold, dark water, and our lack of bathing suits, I immediately sit back down. “Never mind, that’s a stupid idea.”
But Kei’s eyes are wide with delight. “I was kidding,” I clarify.
“No, let’s do it!”
“But it’s so cold.”
“We’ll warm up by the fire.”
“We don’t have our bathing suits.”
“Do we need them?”
“Whatever, perv,” I say, hoping that’s the end of it.
“You cover your eyes while I go in, and then I’ll cover my eyes while you go in—nothing pervy about it.”
I shake my head. “It’s a hard no for me.”
He gives me a look, like he’s waiting for me to capitulate, but when I don’t, he just shrugs. “Okay, no pressure. But I’m going in.” He stands, pulling off his pyjama top. I try not to look at his chest. “But no peeking at my butt, okay?”
I laugh and cover my eyes. A moment later, he’s whooping as he runs toward the lake. I spread my fingers just the tiniest crack, and just as I suspected, his ass is perfection.
I hear a splash and look up. Kei surfaces, the white of his teeth glowing in the moonlight.
“This feels amazing!” he calls. “Come in!”
“I’m good,” I call back, waving. He dives under again, his legs sticking straight up and then slipping straight down. He reappears about fifteen feet from where he started. He laughs. His profile is lit by the moon, and I can see his huge grin.
“Oh, fuck it,” I mutter to myself. I wait for him to dive under again before pulling off Harmony’s beautiful lingerie. I drape it carefully over a log, covering myself with my arms as I dash into the water.
I yelp as the cold shocks my feet and legs. I dive in, feeling freer than I ever have. The rush of moving water in my ears is comforting and the cold is invigorating. I resurface to find Kei swimming toward me.
“Yes!” he’s yelling. “You did it!”
“It feels so good!”
“I told you! And look at the stars!”
I look up. The night sky is freckled. There’s barely a patch of sky that isn’t illuminated. My dad once told me the light we see from stars is actually ancient, thousands of years old, but the stars are so far away it takes that long for the light to reach the Earth.
Like it’s been there all along, but it just takes a while to see it.
“Hey,” I call to Kei. Maybe it’s the darkness or the nudity or the privacy, but I’m suddenly feeling bold. “So, you’re not in love with Alessandra?”
“I told you, no!” He swims closer. “But I do need to apologize.”
“For what?”
“For breaking my promise to you.”
I watch a droplet of water roll down his forehead and off the tip of his nose. “You don’t want to stick to the plan?”
“That’s not what I mean.” He swims closer again.
“Okay, then what do you mean?”
He gazes back toward the fire smouldering on the beach. “I never promised you I’d stick to the plan.”
“You did. In the storeroom. We shook on it.”
He swims closer, close enough to touch. “That wasn’t it.”
“Yeah, you said—”
“No.” He’s inches away from me now, our naked bodies on an underwater collision course. “You said no catching feelings.”
“Yeah,” I say, the word snagging in my throat.
“And I promised.”
“Oh.” My reply is barely more than a breath as he comes closer.
“I don’t like breaking promises.”
I nod.
“But it’s too late, now.”
He presses his chest up against mine. My heart is pounding, or maybe it’s his—I can’t tell. We swirl in a circle, so close we breathe each other’s breath. My whole body feels electrified, every lap of water against my skin feels like a caress. And then—
“Oh my god!” I’m jolted out of the moment by something cold and slimy against my foot.
“What?” says Kei, alarmed.
“Something touched me! It was so gross!”
“Rude,” he says, grinning sheepishly. “I was just trying to kiss you.”
I burst into laughter, but then his words register. “Wait, what?”
“You heard me,” he says, his voice husky.
This time I swim to him. “Oh shit,” I say, flinching. “It touched me again.”
Kei smiles, that kind, crinkle-eyed smile of his. He puts his hand on my hip and pulls me a little closer. “Are you scared?” he breathes.
I look at his mouth. A mouth I’ve kissed so many times, in front of so many other people. But never just for me, just for us.
“Terrified.”
And then, with no cameras rolling, no one watching, no one voting, just the lake, the moon and us…
He kisses me.