Brittany
Morning at the lake smells fresh before wet wood and burned coffee hits my senses.
For a second before I open my eyes, I forget where I am.
I forget the floatel and the hidden closet and the peeper and the way the boat lurched when something hit it.
Then I feel the weight of Oaks and everything rushes back at once.
He’s warm and solid under me, breathing slow under my chin.
My leg is hooked over his thigh. My cheek is pressed to his chest, and I can hear his heartbeat under my ear, steady and strong, too intimate for something that ain’t supposed to be happening.
I freeze and don’t move because if I move I have to admit it’s real.
His arm is heavy around my waist, not tight, possessive, just there like his body decided to guard mine even in its sleep.
Safe. The word should make me feel better. Instead it makes my chest ache.
The cabin is quiet except for a generator humming in the distance and the soft slap of water against docks outside.
Sunlight pushes through thin curtains in pale stripes across the bed.
Across us. I tell myself to sit up. I don’t.
I let myself breathe him in like an idiot, soap and smoke and something darker that always feels like hunger.
I let myself pretend, for one more second, that the world can’t reach me here.
The door bangs open so hard the wall rattles.
Oaks jerks upright in the same instant my heart drops through the mattress. His arm tightens on instinct like he’s shielding me before he even thinks, and then he sits up fully and I see her.
Bethany stands at the end of the bed.
Her hair is half-tamed like she dragged a brush through it on the way down here, but her lipstick is perfect and her eyes are wild with rage. For one long second nobody says anything. Then she laughs, sharp and high and wrong, like the sound itself is meant to cut.
“Well,” she says, voice carrying like she wants it to. “Look at this.”
Oaks’ voice goes low and controlled. “Beth. You need to calm down.”
She doesn’t. Her gaze drags over the bed like she’s memorizing the scene for later, like she’s already rewriting it into a story that makes her the victim and me the punchline.
“Didn’t even make it twenty-four hours,” she says, and then her eyes turn to me with that freezing stare. “Floatel whore must’ve gotten lonely.”
My throat tightens. The words hit harder because the door is open, because I can already hear movement outside, because this ain’t private cruelty. This is a performance.
Bethany turns and walks straight back out onto the porch and she doesn’t stop.
“Oh, y’all!” she calls, loud enough to wake the dead. “Come see this. VP’s got himself a new charity case.”
Oaks mutters something that sounds like a curse and swings his legs off the bed.
I sit there frozen for half a beat, the quilt clutched to my chest like it can shield me from what’s coming.
Then the anger hits, hot and sharp, because if I hide I become what she says I am, and I refuse.
I straighten my shorts with shaking hands and follow Oaks outside.
The camp is awake now. Cabins line the treeline and smoke rises from a fire pit near the water.
A few tents sit farther out, lights still glowing inside, and bikers stand in clusters like they were waiting for something to happen.
Women step onto porches. Prospects freeze mid-step like they’re watching a wreck in slow motion.
Bethany is planted in the center of it, chin lifted, the queen of a court built out of gossip and bitterness.
She turns when she sees me and there’s triumph in her eyes. “Speak of the devil,” she says sweet. “You proud of yourself, honey?”
My throat wants to close but I force air through it. I glance around without meaning to and my stomach drops again because this ain’t just random faces. I know them all now, kind of, even if I’m not part of their world.
Legend stands near the fire with his arms crossed, expression unreadable.
Sophie is beside him, gaze sharp and assessing like she’s already counting consequences.
Royal leans against a post, eyes cool, watching like he’s measuring how this story will spread.
Beckie leans into him, and he kisses her forehead.
Lottie steps out of her cabin with Mason on her hip and Holler right behind her, and the look on Lottie’s face tells me she wants to rip somebody’s throat out.
This ain’t gossip anymore. This is a spectacle.
“I didn’t do anything,” I say, and I’m proud of how steady my voice sounds.
Bethany laughs. “You didn’t do anything? You crawled into my husband’s bed.”
“I didn’t crawl anywhere,” I shoot back, because I’m done playing quiet.
The camp shifts at that. A few murmurs. A few tightened faces. Bethany steps closer, lowering her voice like that makes it more poisonous. “You think you’re special?” she asks. “You think he don’t fuck half the women in this club?”
The humiliation burns because she’s right about part of it, and she knows exactly how to use it. Oaks moves then, stepping between us without touching either of us, just a wall of muscle and control.
“Enough,” he says.
Bethany shoves him. Not hard enough to hurt him. Hard enough to show she can. “You don’t get to ‘enough’ me,” she snaps. “You embarrassed me.”
“I didn’t touch him,” I say louder now, because I’m done being the quiet one. “You’re mad because I didn’t.”
A murmur ripples through the camp, low and sharp. Bethany’s eyes flash and her smile tightens into something ugly. “That’s the problem,” she hisses. “You think you matter to him. You don’t.”
She shoves me. It ain’t a slap. It ain’t a punch. It’s a push to the shoulder, but it’s enough to make me stumble, enough to humiliate, enough to cross a line. Oaks catches my arm before I fall and his grip is firm and protective and visible, and I feel the entire camp register it.
Bethany sees it too.
Something changes in her face. Fury turns into calculation, like she just found the lever that moves him.
“You choosing her?” she demands.
Silence drops like a curtain. Legend’s gaze sharpens. Royal goes still. Sophie doesn’t blink. Lottie’s mouth presses into a thin line.
Oaks doesn’t let go of my arm. He doesn’t look at me. He looks at Bethany and his voice goes quiet, dangerous in a way that makes my skin prickle.
“And you made this public,” he says. “That’s on you.”
It ain’t a declaration, not exactly, but it ain’t a denial either. It’s enough.
Bethany laughs again but it sounds thinner now, like she’s losing control of the story. “Home wrecker,” she spits at me. “Pawn shop trash. Thinking you can climb your way up.”
“I didn’t ask for any of this,” I say, and for once my voice doesn’t shake.
“Yeah,” she says, stepping closer again. “But you want my man.”
There it is. The thing Lottie tried to explain. She’s afraid of him leaving her.
I look to Oaks before I lift my chin. “What if I do?”
“You can’t have him without a fight. You won’t win.”
Oaks’ jaw tightens. “Beth,” he says low. “Walk away.”
She stares at him like she’s memorizing his betrayal, then throws her hands up and turns loud again for the camp. “Fine,” she says. “Enjoy your floatel whore. See how long that lasts.”
She stalks off toward the shoreline with her head high like she thinks she won something, boots crunching gravel, leaving a trail of poison behind her.
The camp holds its breath for a second and then it exhales and conversations start up low and cautious, like the whole place is deciding how to file what they just saw.
Legend gives Oaks one long look before turning back to Sophie. Royal pushes off the post and disappears into the trees with Becki. Lottie comes straight to me and her eyes are bright with anger she’s barely containing.
“You okay?” she asks softly.
I nod even though my chest feels cracked open.
Oaks’ hand is still on my arm. I feel it like a brand.
He realizes it too and drops it slow, and the space between us is charged now, public and unavoidable.
I look around at the camp, at the cabins and tents and faces that will remember this, at the women who will talk and the men who will judge, and I realize there’s no pretending nothing is happening anymore.
Not after this. Not after he stood between us and chose me. Not his wife.
Oaks drags a hand through his hair and exhales hard. “I’m sorry,” he mutters, just for me.
I meet his eyes. “You didn’t do this alone,” I say, because if I’m honest, my body made choices too.
The lake glints behind him in the morning light, dark and watchful. Something moves under the surface, or maybe that’s just my nerves looking for monsters because it’s easier than admitting it might be human. Either way, Hell ain’t done with us.
And now everybody knows it.