Warmth blooms in my chest.
“Don’t sound too proud,” I say. “I’ll get a big head.”
“I am proud.”
My throat tightens. I blink fast and look across the cove.
“Arms in close,” I say.
“Knees soft,” he adds.
“Look across.”
“Breathe.”
Below us, the water waits. This time, I am still afraid. But fear is not the only thing in me.
There is want too -- for the fall… and the after. Want for whatever version of me stands at the edge and does not step back.
Hudson shifts beside me.
“We go together this time,” he says.
My heart kicks. “Together?”
I look at him. Dark hair. Blue eyes. Young enough to be dangerous. Confident and reliable enough to make danger feel like something I can survive.
“Yes,” I say.
His hand finds mine. We stand there, fingers locked, toes at the edge, the sun rising higher over Cady Springs Lake.
For one second, I think of Harold with a strange, gentle goodbye to the woman who waited beside him for a life that never came. Then Hudson squeezes my hand.
“Ready?”
“Ready,” I whisper.
We jump. This time, I do not close my eyes.
Chapter 5
Hudson
The second jump is worse. Not for Layla -- for me.
The first time she jumped, fear drove her over the edge. I saw it in every tight line of her body, in the way she held her breath, in the way her bare toes curled against the rock like they were trying to talk sense into the rest of her. She jumped anyway. That should have been enough to impress me. It did.
But the second time is the one that gets under my skin. Because this time she doesn’t look at me like I’m the reason she’s brave. That’s what knocks the breath out of me.
Layla Whitman jumps because she chooses to.
We hit the water together. Cold closes over my head, familiar and sharp. I drop deeper than she does, then kick up fast, turning toward the burst of bubbles where she went under.
She surfaces with a gasp, hair plastered to her cheek, eyes wide, mouth open. Then she laughs like something locked away finally found a way loose.
“You did it again,” I say.
She wipes water from her eyes, still laughing. “I did it again.”
