Chapter 15 #6
“You said you don’t need saving.”
“I don’t. I’m giving you a hobby.”
Then she jumped.
The splash cracked across the quiet.
I stood there for half a second, looking at the place where she’d gone under.
Then her head broke the surface, hair slicked back, laughing.
“Travers,” she called. “Were you scared?”
I was so gone for her.
That was going to be a problem.
I stripped fast and dove in.
The water was cooler than the air, clean and dark around me. I surfaced a few feet from her, and she splashed me immediately.
“Rude,” I said.
“You took long enough.”
“I was admiring the view.”
She splashed me again.
We swam under the moon like idiots.
She tried to dunk me.
Failed.
I let her think she almost succeeded.
She called me a liar.
I pulled her close by the waist, and her laughter faded into something softer.
Her arms went around my neck.
The water moved around us.
For a second, everything went still.
She looked younger like this. Not childish. Just unarmored. Hair wet. Face bare. Moonlight on her cheeks. No pageant smile. No campus polish. No fake girlfriend performance.
Just Isa.
Mine, some ugly greedy part of me thought.
Not mine, the better part corrected.
Not yet.
Maybe never.
A prickle crawled up the back of my neck.
My eyes lifted toward the house.
One of the upstairs balconies sat in shadow.
The curtain in one room moved.
Maybe from air conditioning.
Maybe from a hand pulling back too late.
My body tightened.
Isa noticed instantly. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Drew.”
I looked back at her.
The last thing I wanted was to pour the Montgomery poison into this water.
But I didn’t like the feeling.
Didn’t like the shadow.
Didn’t like the idea of Beckett or Everett watching what didn’t belong to them.
I cupped the back of her head and kissed her.
Slow first.
Then deeper because she opened for me with a sigh that made the water feel warmer. Her legs brushed mine. Her body floated against me, slick and soft and laughing one second ago, hungry now.
I pulled back before I forgot where we were.
“Careful,” I murmured. “They’re pervs. I don’t want to give them a show.”
Her eyes narrowed.
Then she splashed me directly in the face.
“Isa.”
“You ruined the moment.”
“I protected the moment.”
“You accused your family of dock voyeurism.”
“With reason.”
She splashed me again.
I grabbed her around the waist and spun her through the water until she laughed loud enough that the house could hear it.
Good.
Let them.
Let Richard hear laughter in his perfect backyard and wonder why it had never belonged to him.
Eventually, we climbed out, dripping and breathless. I wrapped her in a towel first, rubbing her arms because she was shivering even while insisting she wasn’t cold.
“I’m fine,” she said through chattering teeth.
“No athlete says that and means anything but catastrophic denial.”
She smiled up at me. “You’re recycling lines now.”
“Good material holds.”
We went inside through the back, quiet enough not to invite company, though I still felt eyes somewhere behind us.
My room was warm after the water.
Too warm.
Or maybe that was her, standing there in a towel, wet hair down her back, looking around my old bedroom like she could see all the versions of me that had hated sleeping here.
I gave her the shower first.
She came out twenty minutes later in one of my shirts and a pair of my boxers rolled at the waist. Her hair was damp. Her face clean. She looked exhausted and soft and so far past beautiful I didn’t have a word for it.
I showered fast because my self-control was apparently being held together with prayer and football tape.
When I came back, she was already under the covers, the TV on low, some holiday movie playing where a woman in a red coat was learning the true meaning of Christmas from a man who owned a tree farm.
“This movie looks terrible,” I said.
“It is.”
“You watching it anyway?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because everyone is emotionally sincere and no one is talking about hedge funds.”
I got into bed beside her.
Carefully.
Like that would help.
She shifted into me almost immediately, head finding my chest, one leg sliding between mine, her hand resting over my stomach like it had always known where to go.
I froze.
Then slowly, carefully, I wrapped my arm around her.
She sighed.
One small sound.
Content.
Sleepy.
Real.
I looked down at the top of her head.
Her hair smelled like my shampoo.
My shirt swallowed her body.
My bed, in the room I hated, suddenly felt less like evidence and more like something I might survive.
On the TV, the Christmas tree farmer kissed the city girl under fake snow.
Isa’s breathing evened out against me.
I pressed my mouth to the top of her head.
“I’m not letting you go at midnight,” I whispered.
The words left my mouth before I could stop them.
My whole body went still.
I looked down at her.
She didn’t move.
Didn’t stiffen.
Didn’t answer.
Her breathing stayed slow and warm against my chest.
Asleep.
I hoped.
I really fucking hoped.
Because if she had heard me, I had no idea how to take it back.
And worse—I didn’t want to.