We slip out of our clothes slowly, eyes locked, no rush. The water envelops us—hot, bubbling, wrapping around bare skin like silk. She settles between my legs, back against my chest, her head resting on my shoulder. I wrap my arms around her waist, lips brushing the curve of her neck.
The jets pulse gently, sending ripples across us. Her skin is flushed, slick with water and heat. My hands glide over her—slow, reverent—tracing the lines of her body I’ve memorized in dreams. She sighs, arching into my touch, her fingers lacing through mine.
“I love this,” she murmurs. “I love us.”
The words hit me deep, raw and true. “I love us too,” I whisper against her ear. “So damn much.”
She turns in my arms, water sloshing softly, straddling me. Our foreheads touch. The kiss starts tender—champagne-sweet, lingering—then deepens, hungry but unhurried. Her hands slide up my chest, nails grazing lightly; mine cup her face, then drift lower, pulling her closer until there’s no space left.
The water buoys us, making every movement effortless, weightless. She sinks down slowly, taking me in, her breath catching as we join—perfect, intimate, overwhelming. We move together in a gentle rhythm, the bubbles teasing our skin, jets massaging away every last tension. Her eyes never leave mine, open and trusting, filled with everything we’ve built.
It’s soft, intense—whispers of my name, her fingers tangled in my hair, the quiet gasp when pleasure crests. We comeundone together, clinging, trembling in the warm embrace of water and each other.
After, she curls against me, head on my chest, Pickles somehow asleep on a towel nearby. The fire pops softly. Steam rises around us.
I trace lazy circles on her back and realize it fully, completely:
I don’t have to chase her anymore.
She’s here.
She chose this.
She stayed.
Chapter 28
JADE
Spring doesn’t arrive all at once.
It sneaks in between things—between finals and fittings for graduation gowns, between last home games and senior pranks that don’t feel mean anymore. One day the air stops biting. The next, the magnolia outside the science wing blooms like it’s been waiting its whole life for permission.
And suddenly, we’re here.
Almost done.
Leo gets valedictorian. Of course he does.
When they announce it, the auditorium erupts, and I’m clapping harder than anyone, smiling until my cheeks ache. I don’t feel overshadowed. I don’t feel robbed. I don’t feel like I need the mic anymore.
I already said what I needed to say.
I like being able to step back now. I like watching him stand there—calm, composed, brilliant—without resentment or fear or someone else’s expectations wrapped around his throat.
He earns it.
The cameras still hover sometimes, but I’ve learned how to move through them without letting them take pieces of me. Theytried to film Valentine’s Day. They got as far as the lobby before I shut it down.
Some moments are sacred.
My parents fly in from Ohio a week before graduation. Mom cries the second she sees me. Dad pretends not to, then ruins it by hugging me too tight for too long.
“You did it,” he keeps saying. “You really did it.”
I think about everything it took to get here and realize—he’s right.
Summer looms like a gift and a warning.
