Jamie lunged toward me, arms out, and before I could dodge, she dragged me under. The cold hit again, sharper this time, and when I came back up, I was laughing for real.
Then a flashlight shone across the water.
Ah. Actions meet consequences.
“Hey,” a man yelled. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Jamie swore. Morgan vanished under the surface like she was being hunted. Cris’s hands went flying up to cover her tits.
My brain finally caught up. This was the part where I was supposed to do something smart. De-escalate. Get us out. Protect the idiots I had never agreed to be responsible for.
Instead, I was still standing there, half drunk and waist-deep in a lake, tits hanging free.
“We’re swimming,” I called back. “It’s a lake. That is the whole point, no?” I had not planned to die on this hill, but here we were.
“Get out of there,” he shouted. “This is private property.”
Of course it was. Everything was private property up here. Shoreline maps were studied with the intensity of battle plans. People built docks two inches over a line and fought about it for decades. If you were going to commit public indecency, this was not the region to do it in. These people measured their lawns, for God’s sake.
“Your property touches public water,” I shot back. “That sounds like ayouproblem, buddy.”
Apparently, the part of my brain that cared about self-preservation was as inebriated as the rest of me.
“Get your stupid naked asses out of the water and off my property right fucking now!” The beam of the flashlight jittered, catching bare skin and startled faces.
Before I could escalate further, a large form stepped out of the trees. Another man, tall and solid, moved into the light, putting himself between us and the yelling like it was no big deal.
“Evening,” the man said calmly. “They’re leaving. No need to keep this going.”
The neighbor snorted, but he backed away almost immediately, grumbling. “Unbelievable. No shame anymore. None. Just out here like animals.” He swept the flashlight toward the trees, still talking. “This is why I don’t talk to people. Bunch of damn exhibitionists.” He kept grumbling as he stomped down the trail. “Used to be a quiet place. Used to have standards.”
The light finally vanished, his commentary trailing off with it.
The second man stayed where he was, unruffled. He turned back toward us and stared resolutely at the stars, like this was the most disciplined thing he’d done all night.
The mountains rose dark behind him in a backdrop that made every small human drama feel embarrassing.
For a moment, the world went very still.
I was cold. I was wet. I was surrounded by naked coworkers.
This was not in the employee handbook.
Chapter 2
Liam
The first thingI did every morning was count.
The number of steps from the maintenance shed to the outdoor spa. The cedar-siding panels to my left. The tiles along the pool edge. The stacks of oak and pine by the lounge, split to size and lined up under the overhang, where they stayed dry even when the fog rolled in off the lake.
I did it without thinking. When the numbers lined up, my shoulders eased. When they didn’t, I fixed them. I never saw much point in interrogating the relief once it arrived. Useful was useful.
Today they lined up. That put me in a good mood. I didn’t announce it or anything, but I noticed.
The lake sat fifty yards beyond the tree line, quiet and black at this hour. Southern Adirondack mornings came in layers. First the mist, then light pushing through pine and birch, then the sound of loons somewhere out past the dock, offended at something no one else could see. Pine Hollow marketed itself as peaceful, which was accurate—most of the time. It was also watchful. The forest here paid attention.
Fog rolled in most mornings from the southern edge of the water and crept across the grounds. It swallowed the dockfirst, then the lawn chairs, then the lower cabins. Guests loved it. They called it atmospheric. They took photos and captioned them with words likemagic. They didn’t think about how quickly visibility dropped out here once the sun set or how narrow the two-lane road became when deer decided to cross without warning. The mountains gave you beauty, but they also demanded awareness.
