“How was your visit?”
“Good—strange—but good.”
She hops up onto the counter, feet swinging, watching me. “You look like you’re thinking about something.”
I lean back against the counter opposite her and meet her eyes. “Brayden said a few things about you. I didn’t like it. And I had to react like your brother. Not like—” I stop.
“Not like my husband,” she says.
“Yeah.”
She nods. “Understandable.”
“I don’t like it. Not one fucking bit. I should be able to put someone on their arse for talking about you like that. Instead I just have to stand there and let it go.”
She watches me for a second. “Come here.”
I cross the space between us. She opens her arms, and I step in, her legs wrapping around my waist, her arms sliding up around my neck. Our foreheads rest together, and I close my eyes for a moment.
“You can’t go around punching people every time they say something you don’t like.”
“I know.”
“There are going to be people who look at me and say things. You can’t fight all of them.”
“I know.”
She tilts her head and kisses me, the tension easing out of me.
“Want to come for a swim with me after dinner? It’s been a while since we’ve had a night swim.”
I look at her, remembering the nights we spent together in the water. “Yeah, I’d like that.”
“It’s a date.”
By the time we finish eating, the sun’s gone. The garden has settled into night, the last of the sky fading above it. The pool is lit from beneath, and we stand on the back step for a moment, just looking at it.
“We don’t have swimmers yet.”
“No, we don’t,” she says, a wicked grin slipping across her face.
She glances at me with that look—half challenge, half knowing—and it tells me everything I need to know.
After a minute, we start shedding clothes, leaving them in a pile by the back step.
Then we head for the pool.
The water’s warm. I surface, push my hair back, and blink the water from my eyes.
She’s already drifted out into the pool, floating on her back, arms loose, her gaze fixed on the night sky above us.
The light’s different here—softer, the glow of the city bleeding into it—but the water feels the same. Familiar in a way nothing else has been since we got back.
“You remember how much time we spent in the water out there?”
How could I forget?
“Yeah.”
