“Talking aboutwhat?”Graham snapped, knowing full well what he meant. Did it even matter anymore?
Ryan chuffed, rolled his eyes, and walked away. Had he only come here toscrutinizeGraham? What was his issue? If he was still so fucking bothered by what happened when they wereten,then why did he keep hanging out with Graham’s friend group?
Graham didn’t really care about the answer; he just wanted the guy to get over the past and leave him the hell alone.
When the others boarded the pontoon boat from the dock, Graham stayed behind despite their insistence. He waved them off. “I’m still sick from last night,” he said. “If I go out on the water, I’m going to hurl. I’ll feel better later.”
“Do you want me to stay here with you?” Wendy asked and hugged his waist. “I could help nurse you back to health.” She grinned against his throat.
Graham smiled weakly. “Thanks, but I really just want to lie down for a while.”
“Works for me.” Wendy nuzzled his neck.
“I really am feeling sick,” Graham said. “Go, have fun on the boat. I’ll join you guys later.”
Wendy sighed. “All right.” She turned and stepped onto the boat as Ryan grabbed her hand and helped her aboard. He gave Graham a sly smile, but Graham looked away, unresponsive.
“Get bettersoon,”Deke ordered. “You’re going to party with us tonight, whether you’re sick or not. Just sayin’.” He saluted Graham, then started the boat and pulled away from the dock.
A small relief washed over Graham as they drifted off, though his stomach tightened slightly, too.They shouldn’t be here. They shouldn’t be on the lake.It felt like a violation of his grandpa’s privacy—hissanctuary. A violation of the lake itself.
Graham stood at the end of the dock, gazing down at the water where gentle ripples lapped against the supports of the pier, disappearing beneath the surface. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, “they'll be gone soon.” He lifted his head to watch the pontoon drift toward the lake's center, occupants laughing and shouting. “I hope.” Suddenly, music blared from the boat, causing him to flinch. “I really didn’t need this today.”
Back inside the cabin, Graham sat on the bed and leaned forward, resting his head in his hands. The headache was worsening—his brain felt like it was literally throbbing inside his skull. Instead of lying down, he went to his grandpa’s writing desk and sat in the old chair. In the back of a lower drawer, he found the journals.
He took the oldest journal back to the bed and lay down on his back, opening it. The first entry was right after his grandpa built the cabin:‘The cabin is finished. I will spend my summers here, writing and spending time with Lochlan.’
Graham frowned.Lochlan. He sat forward and crossed his legs as he read the entry aloud. “I can only see him in the summer, but our time together is special.Heis special, so much more than I can put into words. I’ve never felt so connected to another soul. Most wouldn’t understand our love, and that’s okay. He’s my beautiful secret.”
Crawling off the bed, Graham walked to the window and looked out at the lake. He thought about the Lochlan Lake stories. Had his grandfather named the creature in the stories after a secret lover? He remembered his grandpa telling him about the man just before he passed away. But Graham didn’t know his name was Lochlan. It warmed Graham’s heart that his grandpa had someone special in his life.
He returned to the bed and lay down, flipping through the journal pages. He planned to read them more carefully once his headache subsided. However, when he found an entry where his grandpa described a memorable moment with Lochlan, Graham paused, reading it slowly.
The evening was especially warm as I walked down to the lake. Lochlan was waiting for me just beyond the shore. I removed my clothes and entered the water, my heart pounding as it always does whenever I’m with Lochlan. When we’re apart, sometimes I find it hard to breathe—sometimes when we’re together, too, because I love him so much my heart nearly stops.
I waded deeper into the lake as the soft, silty mud of the lakebed pushed between my toes like velvet fingers. The water lapped at my thighs, then my waist, cool silk against my heated skin. Lochlan swam closer, ripples spreading outward from his approach, moonlight catching on the disturbed surface indiamond-bright flashes. His touch—tender and curious—traced the curve of my hip, the hollow beneath my ribs, leaving trails of tingling warmth despite the lake's chill. Though he knew every inch of me by now, each encounter remained fresh and electric, as if we were discovering each other anew. He explored the landscape of my body with reverent attention, his flesh impossibly strong yet yielding against my own.
My desire for him this evening pulsed through me like moonlight through water, leaving me dizzy as he traced the hollows between my ribs with fingertips that weren't quite fingers. He surrounded me completely—his touch simultaneously cool as lake water and hot as summer air against my naked skin. Tendrils of sensation wrapped around my thighs, my waist, the column of my throat. I trembled violently, my body vibrating like a plucked string, even before I felt him push inside me—filling me with a presence both solid and liquid that seemed to reach impossible places. When he moved within me, the trembling became a violent shuddering that started in my core and radiated outward until even my vision blurred. What he does to me—the way my consciousness seems to fragment into shards of pure sensation—defies explanation.
The ecstasy we shared this night transcended anything earthly—like being caught in a storm where lightning struck repeatedly through water. His presence moved inside me like liquid electricity, finding secret chambers of pleasure I never knew my body contained. Each climax built upon the last until colors burst behind my eyelids and my consciousness scattered like light through crystal. When our positions reversed, and I entered him, his body trembled around me, his skin gleaming with otherworldly phosphorescence. Together we discovered impossible rhythms, our bodies pulsing in synchrony until release came in waves—not once but many times, teachingme that the male body, properly awakened, can experience ecstasies as numerous as the stars.
I remained in the lake with him all night, our bodies drifting together beneath a canopy of stars that trembled like teardrops against the black velvet sky. His voice vibrated through the liquid between us, resonating in my chest cavity with words that painted visions across my mind that I will never forget. When he spoke of eternity, I felt it in the iridescent shimmer of his skin against mine that matched the constellations above. My tears mingled with the lake water, indistinguishable yet somehow recognized by him as he gathered them with touches that left trails of blue-white light across my flesh, lingering like memories refusing to fade. The love I feel for him floods every cell until my skin can barely contain it—a pressure behind my ribs that breaks open in silent sobs. I prostrated myself before him on the silty bottom, my worship as natural as breathing, his acceptance of my devotion flowing back through every point where our bodies connected.
I often think about the day we met, and what would have become of me had he not intervened in my life. Would I even be here today? He saved my life… in every way. And showed me a love I would have never believed existed if not for him. He will be a part of me always, in this life and the next.
Graham trembled as he set the journal down on the bed. He blinked, eyes shining with moisture. How his grandpa described Lochlan affected him in ways he couldn’t fully understand—almost as if Lochlan was more than just a man. And his portrayal of their lovemaking... Graham shivered at the beauty of it, impressed by his grandfather’s ability to put his heart and passion into words.
His heart felt like a balloon tethered to an anchor—trying to float upward with elation while being pulled down by heavy despair. The journal’s pages revealed a love so extraordinary it seemed to defy the laws of physics, a connection that blurred the lines between bodies and souls. His grandfather had experienced something miraculous—passion that transformed ordinary lake water into a conduit for ecstasy, turning ordinary nights into eternal communion.
Graham traced the indentations of his grandfather's handwriting as his chest tightened with the certainty that such rapture would never be his. He wouldn’t experience it with Wendy—for several reasons now clear to him. But even when he tried to imagine himself experiencing such a connection withanyone, the image dissolved like frost melting in warm rain, leaving only a hollow ache beneath his ribs.
He lay on his back, tears gathering in the corners of his eyes and streaming into his ears. Was that why his grandfather cherished the lake so much? Because of the moments spent there with Lochlan? Not only at the lake itself but within it? It now felt sacred, more than ever before.
The loud music from the pontoon boat thumped across the water in crashing waves and into the cabin, vibrating through his bones. Graham closed his eyes, feeling uneasy… sick.
I should have told them to leave. They shouldn’t be here.
But would they have takennofor an answer?
