“Too late. I havesomany things to say.”
“Please no.”
We both dissolve into more laughter; the kind that makes your cheeks hurt and your ribs cramp, and by the time we finally quiet down, I’m lying next to him on the grass, several inches apart from him, staring up at the blue sky.
Breathless. Smiling.
Still thinking about the way he was thinking about kissing me before the seaweed attack of doom.
He turns his head slightly, and even with damp hair and seaweed clinging to his arm, he’s unfairly cute. “I’m never living that down, am I?”
“Not even a little,” I say.
“Cool, cool,” he replies. “I look forward to your speech at my wedding: ‘I knew Maverick was the one when he screamed like a banshee and ran from a leaf.’”
“Exactly,” I say, eyes twinkling. “It’s your origin story.”
“I saw mylifeflash before my eyes.”
“Oh yeah?” I roll toward him. “And what did you see?”
“Regret. A montage of poor decisions. The time I bleached my hair blond in middle school. That time I threw up during my rookie training camp for the Sentinels.”
He is too much.
He is . . .
So cute.
Adorable.
He turns his head to look at me, wet hair plastered to his forehead, eyes still wide and ridiculous but somehow ... sweet.
“You didn’t even try to save me.” When he laughs, it’s a husky, open sound that makes my chest flutter. My breath hitches—stupidly, embarrassingly—because his smile is crooked and boyish and his lashes are too long for a man who screams like a toddler over lake weeds.
Then he makes it worse when he says, “Last night wasn’t a poor decision, you know.”
I go still. The laughter evaporates from my chest like mist.
I glance over at him, my heart knocking awkwardly against my ribs. “Callum—”
“I mean it,” he says, voice low and serious now. “I don’t regret a single second of it.”
My throat goes dry. He shifts onto his side, elbow propping him up, face suddenly way too close.
And just like that, the ridiculousness of the past five minutes is replaced by a spark so potent it crackles in the space between us.
Zip. Zing.
He watches me, eyes flicking to my mouth and back again, like he’s weighing the risk. Like he’s trying to decide whether I’ll kiss him back or not.
I don’t move.
Can’t.
Because now I’m hyperaware of everything—the way his damp hair curls slightly at his temple, the faint scrape of stubble along his jaw, the heat radiating between us despite the lake water still drying on our skin.
He leans in slowly, like he’s giving me time to change my mind, but then his lips brush mine—soft and sure—and the rest of the world disappears.
