He sees me staring and winks like we’re already in on the same joke.
I hate him immediately—I love him even faster.
Then Monty arrives.
Alberto Montoya Navarro Wade doesn’t announce himself.He doesn’t need to.He moves through the world like he expects it to bruise him if he missteps.Quiet.Watchful.A goalie’s posture—always ready, always braced, always reading what everyone else misses.His gaze lands on people, and they lower their voices without understanding why, as if his silence is louder than their noise.
He looks like a storm that never makes it to the sky because it learned to stay trapped behind someone’s ribs.
And when his eyes hit mine, it’s not flirtation.
It’s recognition.
Like he’s been waiting too, and he hates that he had to.
And me?
I’m the camp kid.The one who belongs to this place so completely, I think nothing can touch me here.I’m sunshine with a mouth—sweet until provoked, and then I’m teeth.I skate hard.I laugh louder.I talk back to my brothers.I talk back to coaches.I talk back to boys who assume I’m a decoration.
I don’t know what to do with two sixteen-year-olds who look at me like I’m not a girl trying to be heard, but a person worth listening to.
Three summers pass in a blur of rink time and bonfires and stolen candy from the mess hall.Of late-night dares and early-morning practices.Of Cally’s laugh ringing through cabins, of Monty’s silence sitting beside me on dock planks while the lake breathes in the dark.
They become my friends first.
My best friends.
My whole damn heart.
And then the last summer comes—the one my brain tries to smooth over, like if it dulls enough details, the pain will finally get bored and leave me alone.
It doesn’t.
That summer tastes like sun-warmed skin, melted popsicles, and adrenaline.It tastes like risk.
It starts innocently—if anything about us is innocent by then.
Shoulder bumps that linger a beat too long, like they “accidentally” forget how to move away.
Callaway’s laugh hits my ear as his mouth grazes my cheek—barely a kiss, more like a promise he thinks he can tuck inside a joke.Easy to deny.Easy to shrug off with a grin and a “what?”if anyone clocks it.
Except my skin doesn’t shrug it off.
It holds on like it’s keeping score.
Other times, he leans in, lips brushing my cheekbone, and my whole body reacts like it’s been trained.Like I’m waiting for it.
Like I’m going to beg for it.
A hand at my waist when someone shoves past.Except his palm doesn’t leave when the crowd moves on.It stays.Fingers spread.Pressure just firm enough to sayminewithout a single word.I try to laugh it off because if I acknowledge it, I’ll have to admit how badly I want him to keep doing it.
Callaway sits too close to the bonfire, knee pressed to mine like he’s daring me to notice, daring me to flinch.And when I don’t, when I hold still like I’m not secretly lighting up from the contact, he shifts—just slightly—until our thighs line up, heat to heat, and his shoulder knocks into mine again.Lazy.Possessive.Like he belongs there.
Sometimes his mouth finds the corner of my lips.
Not a real kiss.
It lasts half a second, and it wrecks me for the rest of the night.
