I spread my towel across the dry grass at the bank, and Max came up beside me, his shadow falling over mine. It usually would’ve scared me to see a shadow looming like that, but a quick poke to my ribs made me yelp. And he laughed, low and easy. The type of laugh that made my heart swell.
“He’s so hot,” one of the girls murmured behind me.
My stomach turned.
“He’s fuckingfiiine.”
“What do you think he’s like in bed? Like, he can’t possibly be a virgin, right? He’s so tall, he’s got to be huge. Like he’d probably rip me apart.”
Their voices were grit in my ears. I didn’t need to look to know all eyes were on him, tracking the casual power of movements, drinking in the broad-shouldered, sun-browned version of him.
A strange possessiveness fell over me. I wanted to throw a towel over him and protect him from their greedy eyes. But he was a grown man now and could take care of himself.
He dropped his towel beside mine, oblivious to their commentary, and leaned back on his palms, legs stretched out. I mirrored him, tilting my face toward the sun. I could hear the crunch of his fingers toying with the grass in between us, and without realizing it, my hand landed over his.
“Oh, sorry,” I said, starting to pull away.
But his fingers closed over mine, and he threaded our hands together.
“Keep it,” he murmured. “You’re not bothering me.”
He was holding onto my hand so tight that it felt intimate. A littletoointimate.
My pulse spiked so hard I felt it in my throat. I prayed my cheeks didn’t betray me, even as his thumb traced lazy, unhurried circles over my skin like he wasn’t thinking about it all. But knowing Max, he absolutely was.
When I glanced at him, the lake light caught in his eyes, and I felt it again. That low, slow ache that had been building between us for seven summers.
Christmas
7 Months Earlier
I was curledunder three blankets in my room, fairy lights dripping gold across the ceiling, when my mom’s voice floated up the stairs.
“Mackenzie! Max is on the phone!”
I was out of bed before she finished the sentence, bare feet hitting cold hardwood. I snatched the landline off my desk.
“Hey.”
“Hey, Trouble.” His voice was so warm. He sounded like a late-night drive during summer. I could hear the curve of his smile through the line. “You sound tired.”
“I am. Ag—uh, my uncle’s been trying to make me eat gluten-free stuffing all day.” I almost slipped and said Agent West, but caught myself. Fear gripped my throat, and an unsettling paranoia crashed through my body.
“Need me to kill him?” His laugh was low.
I didn’t say anything back, but a weird, crippling feeling tugged at my heart. He sensed my hesitancy and said, “I’m kidding. It feels like forever since we talked. I don’t know how to joke with you anymore.”
It had been three days. For us, that was an eternity.
“Did you flip the table?” he asked. “When he told you to eat it? We all know you have anger issues.”
“Almost.” I grinned into the receiver. “And I don’t have anger issues. I’m just persuasive. What about you? How’s Christmas?”
He was in Oklahoma with his sister and her four kids.
“It’s good. They’re wearing me out, though. I don’t know how she manages to survive this every day. They keep asking if I’m married yet. When I tell them I’m eighteen, they look at me like I’m defective and ask, ‘So? You ugly?’”
I laughed, but my stomach twisted. Did he have a girlfriend? We never went there.
