The water glittered in front of us. Across the lake, pines climbed the slope, dark and thick against the sky. The public side was nowhere in sight. The P-Patch was back up the trail, tidy and communal and full of signoff sheets, witnesses, and rules.
Here, the quiet settled around my damp hair, my bare knees, and the warm place where his shoulder touched mine.
Zane rested his forearms on his knees. “Tomorrow, you come for your hours like usual.”
I looked at him.
His jaw tightened. “I mean it. Nothing about your signoff changes. Nothing about the work changes. I won’t treat you like you owe me anything.”
“I know.”
“I need to say it anyway.”
He’d walked into the lake in his boots and still remembered to protect the line I’d helped him cross.
“I’m glad you said it,” I said.
His gaze came to mine.
I wanted to joke. I wanted to say something about intermediate string privileges or dangerous bark dust or the civic hazard of his forearms. The words were usually there when I needed them.
For once, no joke came.
Zane reached over and laced his fingers through mine.
My heart gave one hard, stupid kick.
He didn’t call it casual. He didn’t pretend it was simple. He didn’t make a promise the afternoon couldn’t hold.
He just held my hand on the dock while the lake moved below us.
Eventually, the sun shifted enough that the boards cooled under my thighs. I put my bra and tank top back on, then my socks and ruined sneakers. Zane pulled on his shirt, damp and wrinkled now, and shoved his feet into his wet boots with the resigned expression of a man facing the consequences of his own dramatic footwear choices.
I looked at the boots. “They’re making a sound.”
“They’ll live.”
“I’m not sure they’ll forgive you.”
“They knew the risk.”
I smiled, but it came out softer than usual.
We walked back up the path through the pines side by side. Once we reached the fence, Zane kept his hands at his sides. The P-Patch waited through the trees: the blue sign, the raised beds, the shed, and eight hours still on my sheet.
At my car, I stopped with my tote over one shoulder and my hair drying in loose waves around my face. Zane stood a few feet away, hands at his sides again, but his eyes were on me like he knew exactly where his mouth had been.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said.
My fingers curled around the tote strap.
“Tomorrow,” I said.
I got into my car before I could touch him again in full view of the P-Patch sign. Nadine Purcell’s paperwork had never warned me about this part.
When I drove away, Zane stayed near the gate.
I didn’t look back until the road curved.
