In Waves | ✔️

59 | in moonlight

You almost cheated on Matt.

But you didn't.

You almost kissed Nate.

But you didn't.

Almost is too close.

Almost is too close.

In the dead of night, I'm lying stiff as a board in bed. I don't think I've moved in an hour, yet alone blinked. The line we've steered clear of was so blurred in that moment. My lips are tingling like I've inhaled the spiciest meal on earth. We hardly grazed. It was nothing.

It was everything.

I wince when I swallow. My throat is so dry it feels like needles are lining my airway. I exhale hard, rolling out of bed. The hallway is dark when I pad downstairs, only pools of moonlight glowing through the windows. I slam to a stop in the archway of the dim kitchen. When I see the tall figure. The hair. I turn on my heel, but it's too late.

"Lia."

I spin around slow. "Hi."

"Hi."

"Just... thirsty."

"Yeah, me too," Nate murmurs, pointing to the glass of water in his hand.

We stare at each other in silence. He's wearing a tank top and sweats. His arms are carved marble in the moonlight. His shoulders are so broad. Have his shoulders always been so broad? I edge around the marble island as he reaches into the cabinet, getting a glass for me.

"I'm sorry about earlier," he says, filling it up. "I crossed the line."

I fidget with the hem of my pajama shorts. "Walked it, really."

"A dangerous walk. I should be holding a ten foot pole between us."

"We can just forget it happened, okay? I mean, almost happened. Because nothing did."

He nods in relief. "All right, yeah. Nothing happened."

When he gives me the glass of water, I don't know how, I don't who's at fault, but as soon as we touch it slips away and shatters on the floor. Water splashes our feet and we freeze before we laugh.

"I'll... I'll get the broom," I say, about to step away, but Nate catches my wrist.

"Careful, you're..."

"What?"

He gestures to the tiles. "Floor full of glass. Barefoot. You're not the most coordinated."

"I know how to step over glass," I retort, looking for the gaps on the floor. The tiny shards are spread everywhere. "God, was that the most breakable glass in existence?"

Nate chuckles, giving my wrist a squeeze. "Stand on my feet."

"Huh? No way."

He steps closer. "You wanna spend the whole night stuck in one place?"

"I'm not standing on your feet like a child."

"But you have no problem being stubborn like a child."

My eyes roll and I give in, carefully stepping onto his feet, my arms looping around his neck. "This is ridiculous."

The edge of his mouth lifts as he makes his way through the fragments, his hands settling on my waist while he walks me out of the hazardous zone. It's as smooth and quiet as if we're evading lasers in a museum that could sound the alarm. I watch his focus on the floor. I'm leaning back enough to leave a gap between us, but I feel him tensing under my soles with every movement. Holding me steady.

"There," he says once we're on the other side of the island. "Safe and sound."

I step onto the cool tiles, giving my eyelashes a dramatic flutter. "My hero."

"Make fun, DeMarco. Next time I'll let you get glass in your feet."

"You'd never."

"Wanna bet?" His fingers press on my waist. "I'll carry you back right now."

"Then I'd never let go." I wind my arms tighter around his neck, and he smiles.

"Then my plan would have worked."

It happens fast and slow and all at once. His hands slide to my hips, pulling me in until our lips meet in a fiery collision. Two magnets in the dark, drawn together by a force beyond our control.

His hands grip at my shorts. My chest swells against him. He's exploring the depths of my mouth and I'm letting him. My fingers are knotting in his hair, his dipping under my shirt. It's like he's searing personal pathways over my skin, mapping out the curves of my waist and every inch in between his trails.

And just like that, we're back in the pool house as if no time has passed. When the world fell away and nothing else mattered. But that was then and this is now, and I'm just as caught up as I was that night. It's all rushing back. How the sand looked like snow, how he looked at me, how he tasted like whiskey and how the water droplets hung from his curls. How his heartbeat lulled me to sleep.

I've buried that night away for months, only for him to unearth it in a matter of seconds.

Nate brings me back to the present when he breathes my name, and despite it being the easiest name in the book, it feels like he's the first person to ever say it right. Like the letters and syllables have been shaped just for him, for this moment. And when he drags his lips over mine, I know that they were shaped for me too.

He abruptly lifts me up to sit on the island, and I instinctively wrap my legs around him, clinging onto him like a lifeline. But even that's not enough. I smell the sea salt and I hear the hum in his throat and I want more. I want him to be a part of me, to weave himself into my fibers and thread through my veins. To tangle and knot and become something that's impossible to pry apart.

And right now, with the intense closeness, our bodies pressed, it feels like we might be able to do just that. But when a gruff cough splits the thick air, Nate rips from every inch of me.

Derek is standing in the archway, holding a baseball bat, a dumbstruck expression on his face. "Thought I heard a crash."

I hastily jump off the counter. "That was a glass... um..."

Too tongue tied to talk. Too mortified to think. I must be glowing in the dark.

"You two should get to bed," he simply instructs, eyeballing Nate. "Separately."

I can't look at either of them. I rush out and jog upstairs, my mind racing ahead of me. My heart is in my windpipe, puffing up, choking me.

I ignore my whispered name, almost at my door.

"Lia!" Nate whispers again, catching me before I can escape.

"I can't, Nate. That was so stupid. What were we thinking? We just sprinted over that freaking line! I can't believe-"

His warm mouth covers mine, melting my words. He kisses me deeply, pressing me against the wall as my hands press to his drumming chest. I let him invade my every thought. My every sense.

Our lips move in sync until footsteps thump on the staircase and he breaks away. Holding my gaze, his thumb grazes over my cheek, so delicately that for a moment I'm convinced I'm made of glass. He leans in, kissing me once more. A soft brush of skin against skin. And then the steps are too loud and he's gone too fast, slipping into Rob's room while I slip into mine. I hear Derek walking down the hallway.

I get back into bed and I give a painless swallow, my thirst miraculously quenched.

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a/n: without even processing what just happened, what was your first thought at the end of this chapter?

don't forget to tap the star!