Chapter 13 Annabelle
Annabelle
His feet hit the water with a splash, followed by a very manly hiss. He freezes like the lake just threatened his masculinity.
“Why is this water colder than I expected? It feels like the Polar Plunge,” he says through clenched teeth, inching forward like he’s wading into lava.
What a wuss. The water is cool, but what does he expect, given that it’s fall?
“Summer is over, you poor baby,” I call out, smirking. I wander a little closer to the shoreline, one hand perched sassily on my hip. “Do you need a sweater?”
Sarcasm is my defense mechanism. Like, aggressively so.
I should probably knock it off, but my nerves are doing a dance in my stomach, and I don’t know what else to do with my hands except flap them.
It’s almost as if I don’t know how to be serious in moments like this—when I’m teetering on the edge of what feels intimate.
I shouldn’t be nervous. We’re just two people hanging out. Talking. Doing lake stuff!
Also: He looks good all flustered.
Like—good enough to eat.
He wades deeper, until the water kisses his waist, his jaw tightening with every step. I watch shamelessly. What? The man is built like an outdoorsy Greek god; my very own lumberjack with his broad shoulders and thick hair.
And yes, he’s 90 percent emotionally constipated. But—
He turns his head, catching me flat out ogling. Crap.
“You taking notes over there?” he asks, brow raised, smirk fully activated. “Because you’re staring real hard.”
Hard. Ha!
I blush at being caught staring. Busted! “Nope. Just calculating how fast hypothermia sets in. You know—for science.”
His laugh is low and delicious, and my stomach goes wheeeee!
We both wade in farther, the water surprisingly clear. The sun warms my shoulders, but everything else is chilly, bracing, like the lake is daring us to be brave enough to stay.
And then he says it.
“About last night . . .”
Oh no. I freeze. I am not ready to face the obvious: I have a mad crush on my roommate.
“What about it?” I ask carefully, trying to keep my voice light.
He shrugs, his tone casual, but I don’t miss the tension in his shoulders. “I don’t want it to be weird between us.”
Nope, nope, nope. Don’t wanna talk about it.
“So,” I say, needing to change the subject before I combust. “What exactly are the rules here? Do we do the whole ‘let’s never speak of this again’ thing? Or are we going for a postgame analysis?”
Maverick grins over at me, wading deeper into the water. “I remember your thighs shaking around my face,” he informs me. “That’s stuck in my head.”
My breath catches. He looks as if he’s thinking about walking over and kissing me.
And I wouldn’t stop him.
For someone who prides herself on being chill, you’d think I would be more immune to men with forearms that look carved from marble—and a smile that does dangerous things to my bloodstream. That is a problem.
His grin deepens. “Sure you don’t want to keep talking about it?”
“Nope.” I shake my head emphatically. “What is there to discuss? We were two consenting adults, alone in a cabin, forced into sharing a bed and poor decisions.”
“Speak for yourself,” he says. “I made excellent decisions.”
I open my mouth to deliver some appropriately flirty comeback, but I don’t get the chance—because in the next second, he squeals. A full-body, undignified, borderline-girlish scream.
“Oh my God, something touched me!” he shouts, eyes wide in pure panic. “It brushed against my leg!”
Maverick absolutely loses his shit.
He launches backward in the water as if he’s been harpooned, arms flailing, flapping uncontrollably like he’s single-handedly trying to drain the lake. His voice hits an octave I didn’t even know existed in the male registry—a shriek so dramatic it startles the birds roosting in a nearby tree.
“Help! It’s Got Me,” he shrieks, now thrashing like a cartoon villain caught in a bear trap. “I’m Being Pulled Under!”
I can barely catch my breath. “You are in barely three feet of water.”
His hands slap at the surface, knees flying comically high as he flees whatever ghost fish he thinks touched him below the surface.
“Fuck, Fuck, Fuck!” he screeches. “Tell My Family I Love Them!”
I am doubled over at this point, sinking into the water with a giggle fit. Can hardly breathe when Maverick trips on a submerged rock, stumbles, then belly flops forward with a splash that sends ripples in a thousand directions.
He flops onto the shoreline, body collapsing onto the beach, limbs sprawled, chest heaving like he just survived a shark attack.
Dear Lord. “Are you dying? Do I need to call for help? Should I start CPR?”
He throws a hand over his face and groans. “Don’t talk to me.”
“Too late. I have so many things to say.”
“Please no.”
We both dissolve into more laughter; the kind that makes your cheeks hurt and your ribs cramp, and by the time we finally quiet down, I’m lying next to him on the grass, several inches apart from him, staring up at the blue sky.
Breathless. Smiling.
Still thinking about the way he was thinking about kissing me before the seaweed attack of doom.
He turns his head slightly, and even with damp hair and seaweed clinging to his arm, he’s unfairly cute. “I’m never living that down, am I?”
“Not even a little,” I say.
“Cool, cool,” he replies. “I look forward to your speech at my wedding: ‘I knew Maverick was the one when he screamed like a banshee and ran from a leaf.’”
“Exactly,” I say, eyes twinkling. “It’s your origin story.”
“I saw my life flash before my eyes.”
“Oh yeah?” I roll toward him. “And what did you see?”
“Regret. A montage of poor decisions. The time I bleached my hair blond in middle school. That time I threw up during my rookie training camp for the Sentinels.”
He is too much.
He is . . .
So cute.
Adorable.
He turns his head to look at me, wet hair plastered to his forehead, eyes still wide and ridiculous but somehow . . . sweet.
“You didn’t even try to save me.” When he laughs, it’s a husky, open sound that makes my chest flutter. My breath hitches—stupidly, embarrassingly—because his smile is crooked and boyish and his lashes are too long for a man who screams like a toddler over lake weeds.
Then he makes it worse when he says, “Last night wasn’t a poor decision, you know.”
I go still. The laughter evaporates from my chest like mist.
I glance over at him, my heart knocking awkwardly against my ribs. “Callum—”
“I mean it,” he says, voice low and serious now. “I don’t regret a single second of it.”
My throat goes dry. He shifts onto his side, elbow propping him up, face suddenly way too close.
And just like that, the ridiculousness of the past five minutes is replaced by a spark so potent it crackles in the space between us.
Zip. Zing.
He watches me, eyes flicking to my mouth and back again, like he’s weighing the risk. Like he’s trying to decide whether I’ll kiss him back or not.
I don’t move.
Can’t.
Because now I’m hyperaware of everything—the way his damp hair curls slightly at his temple, the faint scrape of stubble along his jaw, the heat radiating between us despite the lake water still drying on our skin.
He leans in slowly, like he’s giving me time to change my mind, but then his lips brush mine—soft and sure—and the rest of the world disappears.
It’s not a fireworks-and-confetti kind of kiss.
It’s better.
One I think about while we’re paddling back to the cottage. One I think about when I’m in the shower, alone.
One I think about when I walk out of the bathroom and find him at the kitchen table.
“Still wanna crash that wedding?”