“How secret is this place?”
I reach behind my back and unsnap my bra, then slide out of my panties. I glance over my shoulder, walking toward the water, and Carter’s eyes stay locked on me. I dive toward the deep end and swim underwater. I pop back up, laughing.
“Come on. It feels great!”
“You’re like a mermaid.”
He takes it slow, wiggling out of his shorts and boxers, then confidently walks to the end and dives inside. Seconds later, he’s swimming next to me.
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” I tell him when he’s closer.
His hands find my waist under the surface.
“Can I ask you something?” I dip my hair in the water and move it from my face.
“It depends,” he says.
“Are you afraid of water?”
He smiles, but it doesn’t meet his eyes. “I almost drowned as a kid. It’s trauma I’m still working through. Trauma my therapist says I should’ve gotten over years ago.”
Every surf lesson we’ve had together replays at once. The first time he stood at the shoreline, he hesitated at the depth of his ankles. His feet stayed planted, like the sand was safer. I noticed how his breathing had changed, and not once did he mention it. I dragged him into the ocean over and over, teased him, laughed when he wiped out, and the whole time he was fighting his demons.
“I’m sorry. We can get out,” I tell him, swimming away.
“I was on the swim team at university,” he says, pulling me back toward him by my ankle. “I’ve had tons of exposure therapy in the past thirty-two years since it happened. Don’t feel sorry for me. I’ll choose the water every time. Especially if it means being close to you like this.”
I move closer. “Thank you for sharing that with me.”
“You’re welcome.”
Our lips brush together. At first, it’s slow, then desperate, and when we pull away, we’re both breathing harder than we should be.
The waterfall mists across the surface. Droplets catch in his long eyelashes, and he pushes his hair off his forehead. I take his hand, and we float together, naked, in the center of the pool while the rest of the world sits miles away.
“I’m going to miss you,” I tell him.
“If you asked me to stay, I would.”
I close my eyes, imagining a world where I asked him to stay on the island as it settles into fall. We could spend Halloween together, have bonfires, and enjoy the sunsets that always feel like they last longer. Gran would make him help her string lights on the bungalow, and he’d be the second in line to taste Rose’s rum cake—behind me. I laugh, visualize it so clearly that it feels more like a memory.
“I can’t,” I say softly. “I don’t know anything about your life, and asking you to give it up would be the most selfish thing I’ve ever done.”
Every syllable fights its way out because the selfish version of me wants to beg him to stay. The sun moves across the water.
He goes still for a second. “Would you be happy if I stayed?”
“Yes,” I confess, and he kisses me. I pull away. “But let’s enjoy the time we have left, then reconvene later about the future. Something could change.”
“You’re not committing,” he says, calling me out.
“I’m not,” I confirm. “One of us has to keep the rules in place.”
“Rules are made to be broken, Wen,” he says.
“Then try harder to break them.”
He scoffs.
