“Lance…”
“Come here.”
She steps toward me, still cautious, and I catch her wrist and pull her in. Her body settles against mine, muscle memory from mornings of training that always ended with us too close, breathing too hard, pretending the heat between us was just exertion.
We don’t have to pretend anymore.
“I want to show you something,” I say against her hair.
“If it’s another bruise, I don’t want to see it.”
“Smart-ass.” I nod toward the waterfall. “Behind there.”
Her eyes widen. “The alcove?”
“I told you once ‘not today.’” I brush a strand of hair from her face. “It’s today.”
She looks at me the way she did the first time I brought her here, like she’s memorizing the scene.
“Race you,” she says.
And she takes off.
I watch her for half a second, her legs carrying her across the rocks toward the waterfall, and something in my chest unlocks. Something that’s been bolted shut since I was eighteen, rusted and corroded and buried beneath six years of blood and concrete and the sound of crowds cheering for my destruction.
Joy.
I chase her.
The waterfall is a curtain of mist and noise, and the path behind it is narrow, just wide enough for one person to slip through if they press against the rock face. I’ve walked it a hundred times, but never like this. Never with Genevieve ahead of me, laughing, her hand trailing along the wet stone, water catching in her hair and on her eyelashes.
The alcove opens up behind the falls. It’s smaller than I remembered, maybe ten feet across, the ceiling low enough that I have to duck. The rock walls are smooth from centuries of water erosion, and the light that comes through the waterfall is diffused and blue, turning everything into an underwater world.
The sound is enormous. A wall of white noise that swallows everything else, and standing here feels like being inside a heartbeat.
Genevieve turns in a slow circle, her mouth open.
“Lance.”
“Yeah.”
“This is…” She trails off, shaking her head. “How did you keep this from me for this long?”
“I was waiting.”
“For what?”
“For when we could have it and keep it.”
She turns to face me. Water mists across her skin, catchingin the hollow of her throat, and the blue light makes her look like something that belongs here. Like Alex’s Lady of the Lake, except she’s real, and she’s mine, and she chose me when choosing me could have cost her everything.
She reaches up and traces the fading bruise along my jaw with her fingertips. Her touch is light, and it sets every nerve in my body on fire.
“Does it hurt?” she asks.
“No.” I step closer. “Not anymore.”
“Liar,” she whispers. “Everything still hurts. You’re just better at hiding it.”
