“Hold on. It’s clear up ahead. Gonna kick it up.”
Her heart jumps at the sudden lurch, like the rise and fall of a roller coaster and she laughs, wanting to feel it again.
They have no idea where they’ll sleep tonight. No clue where they’ll finally settle. The destination is Arizona, but what they’ll find on the road between the southeast and the west is anyone’s guess.
* * *
They’re only a couple of hours in when it starts raining. She likes the gentle tap of raindrops on her skin and trusts Wade not to crash them. Would happily stay just like this, but he slows to a stop by an old lakefront motel sprinkled with the dead.
“We should hold up here until the rain quits. The road is slick.”
“Okay, but first I have a better idea.” She’s off the bike a moment later, skirting the fencing around the motel to reach the dock.
She’s chasing a feeling and intending to check a box off a long-ignored list. Kara grabs a few rocks and tosses them in with a splash. No rotten hands reach up from the depths.
Wade waits patiently behind her for an explanation that she offers by unbuttoning her top and hauling it off her shoulders.
“Jesus, Kara,” he gasps, as if she’s offending his honor. “Ain’t even half a day in. We showered this morning.”
He’s already averting his eyes to look up at the sky, despite the tank top she has on, squinting as a wave of rain soaks him.
“So?” She tugs down the zipper on her jeans. “It’s hot. I wanna go swimming and there’s a lake right here. I don’t see the problem. It’s not like we haven’t skinny dipped before.”
Her pants hit the ground, and he curses, turning his back like some doe-eyed virgin while she strips. There are always so many mixed signals between them, and this is no different. Perhaps she wondered if his reaction might change after their declarations, but old habits run deep, and they are experts at withholding what they want from themselves and each other.
Plus, he never disappoints when it comes to making him blush, and did she ever miss that. Hasn’t seen it in forever and doubted he still could, or would. In this moment, it’s like they’re back at the lake when they were teenagers and he’s newly squirming under her attention.
There is a safety in knowing him as well as she does. He’ll look away, be respectful. Never try anything without explicit permission, even if a part of her wishes he would cross the line. It’s easy to be exposed with him because there’s no risk involved. He’s predictable in a good way, and that gives her the freedom to shed all her layers.
Her splash into the water cues him to turn with his mouth hanging open and eyes shifting to her pile of clothes, realization dawning that she’s naked.
She only wants to feel free after so long with various chains holding her back, and who better to experience that with than him?
“You coming in or what? Water’s warm.”
He hesitates. Rubs the bridge of his nose with two fingers and glances back at the rotters by the motel that haven’t even looked their way, far more consumed with a bird in a tree than them.
“I promise I won’t look,” she teases.
Wade has always been good at letting loose and having fun with everyone except her. He was the man at the bonfire telling wild stories, or the one leading a trip to Vegas with dollar bills in his pocket for the strippers. He would harass Cole six ways to Sunday about ‘getting his dick wet’ with a good natured punch to the shoulder and a chuckle, and then date the women Cole failed to ask out. He has been ready and willing to follow his impulses for as long as she’s known him, unless those impulses involve Kara, and then he shutters his inhibitions like a priest.
He reacts to her now the same way he did when she encouraged him to skinny dip the first time, with manufactured resistance. At least, at first. Maybe time has changed them both because he shocks her by whipping his shirt off and working the buckle of his pants in a bold acceptance of the challenge.
She enjoys the sight of that for a loaded second before shifting around to watch the opposite shoreline.
She’s so good at bullshitting that she’s often convinced herself she wasn’t attracted to him but sometimes….sometimes the stars align just right and she can’t deny it, like now, when he jumps in behind her and she knows he’s naked as she is under the murky water.
Why did she ever think this was a good idea? It’s self-torture on a whole new level.
Their I love yous never included plans to take that further. Even if they agreed to, she isn’t sure he’s ready for that kind of contact yet.
“Alright, it’s nice. You win,” he admits, with a lopsided grin that feels like a hard-won victory.
She bites her lower lip, turning the skin pink. “I bet you can’t catch me.”
He gets a face full of splashed water as she swims away, leaving him momentarily stunned.
“It’s on,” he growls, chasing her as best he can in a slow race.
