His response is almost instant.
Message:I was hoping you would.
My body hums. I shift slightly in the water, the tension rising in places I wasn’t expecting it to. Another message pings.
Message:This probably isn’t what either of us expected tonight… but it’s kinda hard to stop now.
I smile to myself, heart thudding. I try to come up with something cheeky, but what comes out is softer than I expect.
Me:There’s something about you that just makes it easy.
He replies after a beat.
Message:You don’t know what that does to me.
That one—God. I read it twice. Maybe three times. My skin prickles. My fingers hover. My heart stutters. And still… I keep going.
Me:Then tell me.
Message:I don’t even know what I’m saying right now… but I don’t want to stop.
My stomach flips. My skin tingles under the water. Something about that honesty—unguarded and completely unexpected—sends a rush through me I wasn’t prepared for.
I let my fingers hover over the keyboard, heart hammering, then type before I can second-guess it.
Me:Then don’t… Say whatever you want. I’m listening.
There’s a pause, then three dots. My eyes don’t leave the screen.
Message:You’re messing with me, right? Because I swear if you’re not… I’m thinking about how much I want your body next to mine right now. And how easy it’d be to forget where the line is.
The breath catches in my throat. My legs shift under the water. The heat in the room is nothing compared to the warmth blooming across my chest, lower, deeper. My lips part, my fingers tighten around the phone. My heart is thudding so loud I swear I can feel it in my bones.
I don’t know what I expected. But it wasn’t this. And suddenly, I’m not thinking about Logan. I’m thinking about Matt. His voice, the way he laughs under his breath when he’s pretending not to be smug. The way he watches me when he thinks I don’t notice.
My breath becomes shallow, each inhale sharper than the last. I set the phone down on the ledge, but my eyes keep drifting back to the screen, to those words glowing in the dim light.
I’m thinking about how much I want your body next to mine right now.
The letters blur slightly through the steam rising from the bath. I blink, trying to focus, but all I can see is that sentence. All I can feel is the way it landed in my chest—heavy and molten.
My heart is pounding, actually pounding. The kind of rhythm that makes my whole body feel like it's vibrating, like I'm standing on the edge of something I can't quite name.
I sink lower into the water, letting it rise to my collarbone, letting the heat seep into my muscles, my bones. The bubbles cling to my skin, iridescent in the candlelight, and I close my eyes.
Just for a second.
Just to breathe.
But the moment my eyelids fall, I seehim.
Not Logan.
Matt.
His face materializes behind my closed eyes like he's been waiting there all along. That half-smirk he does when he's trying not to laugh. The way his jaw tightens when he's concentrating. The way he looked at me earlier this week—just for a split second—when he thought I wasn't paying attention. Like he was seeing something he hadn't noticed before.
My stomach twists.
