She waves her hand toward the coffee, the porch, the lake still draped in mist. “This. You. All… domestic.”
I tilt my head, amused. “What were you expecting?”
She shrugs, but there’s a glint in her eye. “I don’t know.”
I grin slow, then bite my lip and put on my best over-the-top smolder. “So youthoughtI’d be more of the Thor, sex-god, bringing-the-thunder-twenty-four-seven type?”
She snorts.
Then completely loses it.
She doubles over, laughing so hard she wheezes, her coffee sloshing in her mug. “Oh myGod, stop?—”
I raise an eyebrow, grinning. “That wasn’t a no.”
“I mean, not that you haven’t lived up to the name.”
“You gonna rate my performance now?”
Just then, the screen door creaks open and my mom steps out, holding a cup of coffee in one hand, and shielding her eyes from the sun with the other.
“Well my word,” she says, spotting us. “You two sound like you’re having a time. What’s so funny?”
Faith sits up straighter, trying to collect herself. “Oh, nothing—just your son bragging about being some kind of Norse god.”
Mom huffs a laugh. “Oh honey, I’ve got a better one than that. Did he ever tell you about theTouchdown Jesus incident?”
Faith perks up. “No… but I absolutely need to hear it now.”
I groan, covering my face. “Mom. Please.”
My mom ignores me completely, full of glee. “He was in fifth grade, and they’d just started letting him play tackle football. This one”—she points a thumb at him—“catches a Hail Mary pass in gym class and throws his arms up like this”—she raises both hands to the sky like he’s signaling a field goal—“and yells, ‘TOUCHDOWN JESUS!’ in front of the entire St. Luke’s school assembly. Principal nearly had a stroke.”
Faith lets out another shriek of laughter.
“I thought it was cool,” I mumble into my mug.
“You were eleven,” my mom says, patting his shoulder as she walks by. “You also tried to baptize your GI Joe in the sink.”
“Okay, Mom. That’s enough.”
“No…I’m actually enjoying this.”
“Well, we’d better get on the lake, soon, anyway,” Mom says. “This time of year, the place is filled to the brim with boats! Early bird gets the worm and all that. And the afternoon worm gets a sunburn.”
* * *
The sun’s rising fast,bright and unapologetic, casting gold across the water. I squint out at the horizon, one hand on the wheel, the other resting on my knee—but what I’m really focused on is Faith.
She’s sitting sideways on the bench, legs tucked up, arms bare and glowing. Her hair’s tied back in one of those messy knots that makes me want to undo it just to see what happens. She’s wearing these little sunglasses that make her look like trouble and innocence rolled into one. The kind of girl you’d pray over and sin with in the same damn breath.
And the way she laughs with Daphne? Like she’s known her for years. Like this is all normal.
Except it’s not.
I shouldn’t be in love with someone who doesn’t trust me. But I think I am. And now I’ve got a front-row seat to watching her become part of this little world I always thought was just mine.
She leans closer, stealing a strawberry from the cooler. Her elbow brushes my bicep, and a shiver zips through me like a live wire.
