I scoff, not buying it. “Come on. It’s been ten years, there must have been someone.”
He lets out a heavy breath. “If there was someone, would I have spent the last three days trying to get you alone on my boat?”
It takes longer than it should for the light bulb to blink on, but when it does, it burns through me like a solar flare. “Wait a minute. What do you mean, alone onyourboat?”
16
Then
So this waslove.
I’d never been in love before, not like this. Sure, I’d had a high school boyfriend, but even then I knew what it was: a relationship of convenience and proximity, an easy way to pass time inside my small-town bubble. I knew it wouldn’t last past graduation. And back in LA, I hadn’t even bothered to date, too focused on jump-starting my career and making ends meet to waste time on masculine distractions.
But with Ryder, I exchanged convenience for combustion. Our chemistry was the kind that rearranged your insides and rewired your brain. The feeling was completely new to me. It felt like the world had shrunk to just the two of us.
We became instantly inseparable, and it was hard to believe we’d ever wasted time “hating” each other. Despite spending every waking moment together (and most of our sleeping ones too), I still couldn’t get enough of him. I craved his lips like air. We spent our days making a movie and our nights making love.
It could have been too much too fast, but somehow, it was just the opposite. Instead of burning out, we only burned brighter. It felt easy and natural, inevitable. Jase was thrilled for us, declaring himself officially retired as our referee—though he did claim watching us moon over each other triggered his acid reflux.
Conventional Hollywood wisdom warned that real-life romances killed the on-screen spark, but Ryder and I proved otherwise. Our connection was electric, and our off-screen dynamic only poured fuel on the fire burning on camera. Every look, every line, every touch crackled with tension because it wasreal, not playacting. Nate was ecstatic—smug, even, like he’d orchestrated the whole thing intentionally just to get that kind of chemistry on film. And who knew? Maybe he had.
Still, we did our best to keep things under wraps. We took Nate’s warning seriously and kept things as professional as possible on set, reserving anything more than fleeting touches for our locked trailers or the relative privacy of Riverview. Not that I think we were fooling anyone. It was hard to hide this level of happiness, especially when I was walking around with an over-the-top perma-grin that told everyoneexactlywhat kind of cardio I’d been up to. I floated around set like a helium balloon. I felt like a bottle of champagne someone had shaken up, fizzy and effervescent, ready to burst.
Our final weeks of filming were a whirlwind. Nate was stressed, scrambling to cram everything in while making up for shoot days that had run long. We posed for promo stills for the movie poster, shot exteriors for montage sequences, and recorded interviews for behind-the-scenes featurettes. Whenwe weren’t filming, we were busy working out the kinks of our new relationship, like how much sex was too much, or how to squeeze in a midday quickie without wrecking my hair and makeup. You know, the important stuff.
When we did manage to come up for air, we made a pact to spend our last few weekends in Seafolly getting the full tourist experience. We biked to the Angel Oak tree, rumored to be over five hundred years old, its snarled, twisting branches unfurling overhead like an enchanted canopy suspended in time. We took a carriage tour through downtown Charleston, admired Rainbow Row in all its pastel glory, and wandered cobblestone streets with ice cream dripping down our wrists. We took long walks on the beach, ogling the waterfront mansions spanning the shoreline, picking our favorites and daydreaming about the ones we’d own when we were “rich and famous.” Ryder even surprised me with a canoe tour of Cypress Gardens, a super romantic spot every Seafolly local we met insisted we visit. It was stunningly beautiful, like something out of a fairy tale—the water still and glassy, lily pads scattering the surface like confetti, Spanish moss hanging from the trees like tinsel, swaying in the warm breeze.
“It’s definitely romantic,” I said dreamily as we passed under a footbridge, soaking up the symphony of swamp sounds—croaking frogs and humming dragonflies, warbling birds, the low, lazy buzz of insects.
“Just as long as an alligator doesn’t decide to join us,” he said, scanning the black water as he rowed. His flexing biceps were putting on a mouthwatering show.
“You have a gator phobia too?” I said innocently, and he poked me with the oar.
“I have a survival instinct. It’s different.” He gestured to the matching oar at my feet. “You could help row, you know.”
“Oh, but you’re doing such a good job,” I said airily, patting his shoulder. “I wouldn’t want to throw off your rhythm.”
“Is that the real reason? Or is it because you lack strength in your opposable thumbs?”
I slow blinked. “Someone wants to be gator bait.”
He grinned at me, eyes crinkled with sunlit affection, and not for the first time, I wished I could stop the clock right here, freeze us in this moment. It was hard to imagine we could ever be happier than we were right now, and I could already feel it: the outside world creeping closer, the ache of knowing something perfect was about to end.
The closer we crawled toward the end of production, the more unsettled I felt. Our lovemaking grew more intense, urgent and needy, as if the uncertainty of our future could be solved by clinging tighter, driving harder, sinking deeper. He spent hours exploring parts of me I’d never thought of as sensual, from the soft spot behind my knees to the dip at the base of my spine to the hinge of my jaw. He seemed to know just how to touch me, where I was most sensitive, how to make me squirm with need. He mapped my body with his hands and mouth, memorizing every inch. He traced the curve of my rib cage and stroked the slope of my back, his touch reverent, like every contour was something sacred.
I found myself studying him constantly, taking mental snapshots so I’d never forget what these last few weeks felt like. I collected every little detail like souvenirs: Ryder, towel drying his shaggy hair after a shower. His preferred brand of shaving cream. His T-shirt collection, which he kept in meticulousretail stacks, while his jeans got tossed on the back of chairs. His encyclopedic knowledge of Tom Cruise’s filmography. The way he dove under a wave with reckless abandon and whipped his hair back when he resurfaced. The way he chewed the inside of his cheek as he contemplated how best to deliver a line. The way he slept with one arm slung over me, heavy and heat trapped, tightening like a seatbelt when I tried to wriggle free. The way he started to smell and taste like the ocean, like our weeks in Seafolly had baked the salt right into his skin.
I wanted to know everything about him, learn every quirk, preference, and stray thought that flickered behind his candlelit brown eyes. One night, I ambushed him with a YouTube deep dive from hisKids Only Clubglory days and forced him to narrate every adorable, mortifying second, making us cackle until we cried. It was a badge of honor, being the one who could pull that kind of lightness out of him, who could coax him out of the serious, intense shell he usually occupied. Every laugh was a tiny triumph, like I’d notched a point on some invisible scoreboard.
Most nights we traded off sleeping at each other’s places, and when I stayed at his, I made a habit of stealing his shirts to sleep in, which he pretended to be annoyed by. In return, I pretended I planned to give them back. I couldn’t help myself—he smelled incredible, and there was nothing better than being wrapped in Ryder’s scent like a second skin.
“Can I help it if Irish Spring is my kryptonite?” I said, snuggling into his side.
“You know you could just steal my soap instead of my shirts.” He brushed his knuckles under the hem of the shirt I’d pilfered, making my breath catch.
“You meanmyshirts,” I said, yelping as he pinched the sensitive skin at my waist. “Besides, then I’d smell like a boy.”
“No,” he murmured, burying his head in my neck and setting fire to my insides. “You’d smell likeme.”}
