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“I bet you say that to all the girls,” I joke, giving him an affectionate squeeze before letting go.
“He does,” Benji supplies from the water.
Wyatt flips him off before fully releasing me and performing a front flip from the shore into the river.
“Here goes nothing,” I say, tentatively placing a foot in the rushing water.
I’m careful when I enter, but the rocks are slick beneath my Tevas, and my foot starts to slide over the mossy surface. My balance wavers until I feel warm hands collapse around my waist.
“Careful,” Zane warns. He moved from the shore and is now standing closer to me.
I lean back into him, not because I need him for balance, but because he feels so solid behind me. His skin smells clean, like soap today. He grips my hips tighter.
“The rocks are slick,” Zane murmurs in my ear. His voice sounds thick and affected.
I want to close my eyes and sink further into his warmth.
“Here,” Wyatt says, moving closer and extending a hand. The water is swirling around his waist.
I take his hand and ease myself into the current. I relax when I feel the temperature of the water. It’s like a warm bath. I walk closer to the waterfall and trail Benji, Wyatt, and Chelsea as they dive beneath it and into a small cave. Zane appears next, the falling liquid like a translucent curtain surrounding us. I sit on a raised rock floor with the water bobbing around my shouldersand watch a prism of color form when the sunrays hit the flowing stream.
“This is amazing,” I say, my voice echoing around the space.
The area is ethereal and otherworldly.
“Like a built-in hot tub,” Benji adds. He smooths his blond hair away from his face.
“Maybe not quite that warm,” I counter.
Benji just chuckles.
“Have you been here before?” I ask Chelsea.
She nods.
“With these guys?” I ask.
“Yep,” she says, glancing over at Zane. And I wonder again if they’ve crossed the line from friends to something more before. “But just once.”
“When did you meet?” I ask her, referring to all the guys.
“Two summers ago.”
She doesn’t give any more details than that, and I don’t push for more.
Zane climbs onto the rocky ledge further inside the cave, and I notice the scars on his left knee for the first time. I move closer to him, lightly touching the pale, raised skin.
“ACL?” I ask, referring to the main ligament that’s often torn in athletes.
“ACL, PCL, LCL, and my lateral meniscus,” he answers.
I whistle low, and it echoes around the cavernous space. That’s a catastrophic injury to the knee. No wonder it ended his career.
“I’m a physician assistant,” I explain. “I’ve worked for an orthopedic surgeon for six years in the city.”
Or I did.
“We’ve done lots of knee reconstructions over the years. The surgeon I work for covers the football teams at the local universities and some of the high schools.” I pause while still looking at his scars. “Who did your repair?”
