And then, he was there.
He’d jumped in after me.
His shirt was gone, his hair slicked back, water streaming down his face as his eyes—dark, focused, searching—raked over me like a physical touch.
“You okay?”
I nodded, breathless, still treading water. “Y-yeah. Just cold.”
“You scared the hell out of me,” he said, voice low and tight.
“I didn’t mean to. I was just”—my teeth chattered—“having a moment.”
I expected him to turn around in disgust, to chastise me for being so stupid, but instead, he moved closer. “A good one or a bad one?”
A little smile danced on his lips.
“Good,” I said. “Definitely good.”
He was standing somehow, steady and tall, with the frigid water hitting just below his shoulders, his body like my own personal island.
We’d just meant to go on a little hike, and yet here we were, shivering and soaked to the bone, at the base of a freezing cold waterfall.
So I did the only logical thing a person could do.
I started laughing.
Half joy, half shock, fueled by some sort of crazy adrenaline.
I hadn’t felt like laughing, really laughing, in so long. Not just since the breakup, but going back further, to I didn’t know when.
And I hadn’t even realized I’d been so…unhappy?
The realization squeezed my chest, and good gravy, like someone had flipped a switch in me, I was crying.
Not ugly sobs, just…release. Water streaming from my eyes just as fast as it poured over the rocks above us.
“Hey, hey. It’s okay.” Noah’s arms slid around me, pulling me into him.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
He pulled me closer, and I wrapped my legs around his waist like it was the most natural thing in the world—like my body had decided before my brain had time to weigh in.
His hands were on my back, keeping me from drifting away. Keeping me from sinking.
But then I realized…
My shorts had hiked up, and there was no space between us—just skin against skin, my bare legs flush against his hips.
And suddenly I wasn’t crying anymore.
I could feel the solid slope of his hipbones beneath my legs, the smooth firmness of his lower back where my fingers clung without thinking.
His skin was impossibly warm. How was he warm in glacial water?
But he was. Heated and hard and real in a way that made me want to press closer. And maybe grind a little.
I tilted my head back and blinked up at him through the mist.
