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Her fingers had curled into my shirt without her seeming to notice, the fabric bunched in her grip.

When I pulled back, her lips were still slightly parted, her gaze slow to refocus—like someone surfacing from deep water.

Oh, and Kenny looked furious.

Mission accomplished.

9

CONGA LINE OF CONCERNED RELATIVES

Mikayla

By the time I made it back to my room, the sky was velvet black, and the ocean was a chorus of distant waves. My phone displayed three urgent notifications from Andrew, my assistant, which I dutifully answered from the edge of the freshly made bed, feet still sandy from the bonfire. My inbox was a hotbed of legalese, corporate posturing, and twenty fires I had to put out. But as I replied, my mind kept wandering back to the day.

The day.

It glowed around the edges in my memory, golden and bright and slightly fuzzy, like film shot in an old camera.

Every time I blinked, a new reel played.

There was Damon, grinning at me over the top of his sunglasses as we both reached for the same bean bag during the cornhole tournament, and the way he’d teased, “Winner gets bragging rights. Loser owes a dare.” I’d tried to play it cool—okay, maybe I succeeded for the first few rounds, but then he’d purposely thrown the game and insisted I come up with the dare on the spot. In front of everyone. “You’re the worst,” I’d hissed through my teeth. “And you’re on the clock,” he’d fired back, his voice so low and intimate it sent goosebumps down my arms.

And later, after the sun set, at the bonfire, everyone was a little tipsy from spiked cider, he sat next to me on the low wall. We didn’t even talk, just watched the fire. I don’t know why that moment replayed the most. Maybe because of the way his knee kept brushing against mine, not in a creepy way but as if he was reminding me that we were both there, both real and present and⁠—

God, what was wrong with me?

I had to stop waxing poetic about the time we shared together.

This was not real.

So I wasn’t sure why it felt like I discovered a secret shortcut through life, and why I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt so safe and so light.

By the time I’d replied to the final email, I was practically humming with energy. I kicked off my shoes, peeled off Damon’s smoky hoodie, which he’d insisted that I wear since I was shivering, even though that left him in a long-sleeved Henley. I held it to my nose, inhaling his scent, then realized what I was doing and tugged open the bathroom door.

Steam billowed out as I engaged in my one vice, a twenty-minute, skin-scalding shower. I sank into the familiar routine: hair up, face scrub, shaving, lavender body wash. I’d barely finished rinsing off when the pressure in the pipes thrummed and then, with a sound like a dying animal, the showerhead sputtered.

And then exploded.

A howling jet of water shot out, ricocheting off the tiled wall and slamming me dead in the sternum. It was like being hit with a fire hose. I yelped, slipped, and nearly ate the floor.

The spray turned the bathroom into a deathtrap, water sloshing in waves over the lip of the shower enclosure, slapping onto the mat. I fumbled for the faucet to turn it off, but the handle spun freely in my hand, useless. Water kept coming, harder and angrier, like I’d offended it personally.

I staggered out of the spray, sopping wet, the towels on the bar already sodden and sliding to the floor in surrender. I rushed out into the room and grabbed the nearest dry towel in the closet, then wrapped it around myself. Once I was covered I scrambled to the phone on the nightstand. My fingers slipped on the numbers, but I managed to jab out the extension for the front desk.

“Lockhart Ranch, how may I⁠—“

“Maintenance emergency,” I gasped, towel cinched like a lifeline. “In cabin four. The shower’s gone rogue.”

“We’ll send someone up immediately,” the voice replied, and I could practically hear her typing with the urgency of a 911 dispatcher.

I hung up, then sprinted back to the bathroom, where water already pooled around the doorjamb, creeping across the faux-wood floors. I grabbed the trash can, tried to use it as a bucket, sloshed it everywhere, then gave up and started piling towels at the threshold, building a makeshift levee.

Within minutes, a loud knock rattled the door. I yanked it open to find Wes Bennett, the resort’s head of maintenance, holding a battered toolbox in one hand and a mop in the other. He was in his mid-thirties, and from the few times I’d met him, he struck me as eternally unbothered.

Wes didn’t waste a second before heading straight for the bathroom, trailing footprints in his wake and exuding the unhurried confidence of a man who routinely faced much, much worse. “I’ll get this patched up,” he grunted, flicking open the battered red toolbox and pulling out a wrench the size of an infant’s leg.

I started to close the door behind him, but before it could even click shut, someone wedged it open from the other side.