“Are you okay?” Jett pushes onto his elbow.
A gentle breeze whispers over my bare skin. The softness of the towel beneath me does little to counter the hard roughness of the jetty. It’s morning. The sky is a pretty, rosy hue, and birds are twittering in the trees. Jett is beside me, and we’re both very naked.
Wow. Okay. So last night wasn’t a hyper-realistic wet dream.
“Yeah.” I sit and wince, rubbing my back. “Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to fall asleep out here.”
I don’t remember falling asleep. Is that something anyone ever remembers? My last memories are of holding and kissing Jett.
“You’re grinning,” Jett says.
“Yeah? That’s because I was remembering how amazing last night was.”
“So amazing you’re in pain?”
I wave my hand. “I’ll be fine.” I lean in but stop a centimetre from his lips. “Is this okay?”
He closes the tiny gap and kisses me. “Very okay.”
I caress his face. “You’re being very chill about screwing around with a guy for the first time.”
“It helps that it’s you.”
Smiling, I lower my gaze.
“I’ve known I’m attracted to guys for a while,” Jett says. “I just haven’t had the guts to do anything about it.”
“What changed?”
“You.” He kisses me. “I feel safe with you.”
I shouldn’t take those words and store them in my heart, tied up in a neat little bow, but I do anyway. Even if this is just a weekend fling, I’m going to treasure every second of it.
I sniff. “We both stink of the lake.” My tummy rumbles. “And we missed dinner last night. My stomach is very upset about that.”
“Mine too.” Jett picks up one of the towels as he stands and puts it around his waist. He slides a pair of the too-small flip-flops on and then offers me his hand.
I don’t need help standing, but I’m happy to accept it. I wrap a towel around my waist, put the other pair of flip-flops on, and gather up the spare towels. It doesn’t matter how decent we are. We could walk back to the house naked. No one else comes here. It’s all private land, with no other houses for miles, so it was a good place for Rufus to strand us. He knew we’d have no choice but to stay put. If he finds out Jett and I got sexy, he’s going to want me to thank him. If. I promised Jett everything that happened here would stay between me and him, and I meant it.
The kink in my back works itself out as we amble back to the house, which takes far longer than necessary. Every few metres, we stop and kiss. This behaviour feels more than me helping him experiment, but I doubt that’s true. He said it himself. I’m safe. This place is safe. And it’s ours for a few more hours.
Once we’re back at the house, we shower separately. After, I put all the used towels in the washing machine and set it going. Our clothes have dried, which means we don’t need to wander around the house naked. We make cereal with fresh fruit for breakfast and eat it on the front porch while we listen to birds sing.
“I could get used to this,” I say.
“To what?”
“Living like this.” I close my eyes and breathe in deeply. “I could build an off-the-grid house and grow all my own food. It would be fun.”
“Off the grid?” Jett repeats. “As in, no utilities? No Internet?”
I cackle at the shock in his voice. “That’s exactly what off the grid means.”
“What would you do?”
“You mean aside from tending my awesome vegetable patch?”
He nods.
