“Everyone else wants to be on Lake Michigan—not just because of the beauty of it but because of the status. Your parents could have afforded to buy one of those fancy houses along Jackson Harbor’s Lakeshore Drive or a luxury condo in Chicago, but instead they bought this place.” I shrug. “It says a lot about them, you know what I mean? They aren’t proud or pretentious. Just real people with very clear priorities—family and time together.” I wince, realizing I’m speaking of Levi’s late father in the present tense. “I mean, that’s what your mom’s like. I assume your dad was the same.”
He’s quiet as he studies me, and then he nods slowly. “He was. I wish you could have met him.”
“Me too.” I look up into Levi’s dark eyes. If I could read his childhood through the lines on his face, I’d study him until the sun set. Levi’s one of my best friends, but I don’t know his secrets or his fears. Suddenly, I want to know it all. “Do you miss him?”
Levi’s shoulders sag. The muscles in his throat move as he swallows. “Some days my grief makes me miss him. On those days, it’s this aching emptiness in my life. He was a big guy with a big laugh and bigger dreams. It’s easy to miss that.”
“And other days?” I ask softly.
“Other days my grief is something to be carried. A heavy coat in the heat that I can’t shake off. A hundred-pound stone I have to lug everywhere. He made everyone better, and when he got sick . . .” Levi turns away and digs a rock from the dirt. He tosses it into the water. “It shook me. It shook all of us. I watched all my brothers and my sister become the best versions of themselves in the light of Dad’s sickness. Brayden stepped into his shoes in the company and worked nonstop. Ethan was a star student in med school. Carter landed a job with the fire department, and Shay started writing articles and publishing years before she was expected to. Maybe they’d have done the same things if he hadn’t been sick, but it felt like they were trying to win him back. As if their achievements could make the cancer go away. But not me. I knew the score. Life’s not a game with a ref who’ll stop the clock when shit’s not fair. We could do everything right, and he was still going to die.”
“So you ran around with Colton and did everything wrong?”
He shrugs, his jaw ticking. “I wasn’t real analytical about it at the time, but pretty much. I did anything that pushed the boundaries of right and wrong, and then I just dove right into wrong.” He sneers. “And Nelson was happy to give Colton and me all the opportunities to do his dirty work. He exploited Colton’s addiction . . . and mine.” He digs another stone from the dirt.
“Addiction?”
“The thrill.” He smirks. “Adrenaline junkie.”
“Aren’t all motocross racers?”
“I imagine. On some level, at least. But not all motocross racers are stealing cars for a man who already had more money than he knew what to do with.”
“He had you stealing cars? Not dealing drugs?”
Levi’s fingers are dirty from digging out rocks, and he stares at them. “Just cars for me. But I don’t know about Colt.” He makes a fist. “He might have made some runs for some people.”
“Colton never told me details, but he alluded to Nelson’s shady friends. Like maybe all his old man’s money wasn’t from being a lawyer.”
“Oh, hell no. Nelson’s dirty down to the muck where he’s locked away his soul, and there’s gangster shit in there somewhere. He’s the polite, high-society face of the shitty people he protects in court. Nelson was responsible for laundering mob money.”
I close my eyes. Not because I don’t want to believe it, but because it’s so clear now. “That’s why he opened the art gallery.”
“You can’t buy your wife a fancy house with cash you make from selling smack. The bank wants to see the money trail.” Bitterness drips from Levi’s every word.
“Colton could have been working for his dad again.” I turn the puzzle pieces in my mind. “Maybe they got involved with the wrong guy, and something went south?”
He shakes his head. “He hadn’t done shit for Nelson in years. Not since he met you.”
I drag my hands over my face, then cringe when I feel how sweaty I’ve gotten. “When did it get so hot out here?”
“Are you okay? Do you want to go back?”
“I’m fine. Just hoping I don’t look like a clown with makeup smeared down my face.”
His expression softens as he studies me. “I think you look beautiful, but we can go back whenever you’re ready.”
“No, this is good.” I grin. “It’s nice to give you a chance to thaw out after this morning.”
He cocks a brow. “This morning?”
“I was afraid you were mildly hypothermic after that shower.” I bite back a laugh.
“I’m glad I amuse you.”
“I just didn’t think cold showers were a thing anymore. I mean, at least not for men who know how to take care of business. Why not take a hot shower and jack off?” I try to keep a straight face, but laughter bubbles out of me. “It was surprising. That’s all.”
“You think I haven’t jacked off to the thought of you before?”
My eyes go wide and I turn my face away, too embarrassed to look at him.
“What? You brought it up.” He leans closer and lowers his mouth to my ear. “The thought of you under me has gotten me off more times than I can count.”
I meet his eyes. They’re as dark and intense as the day he came to Dyer to see me, but now I see a hunger in them too, and a chill races through me. “So what was different this morning? The cold shower, I mean.”
“You were thinking about him.” His gaze drops to my mouth and his full lips part with his slow exhale. “It screwed with my head. Call me old-fashioned, but I wasn’t real interested in getting off on thoughts of a girl who was fantasizing about another man.”
“Just because I was dreaming of Colton doesn’t mean I don’t have feelings for you.” The words are a pale reflection of the complicated, unnamed tangle in my chest, but right now they’re the best I can give. It’s not that I don’t feel more for Levi. I do—love, attraction, connection. It’s that I don’t understand what I’m supposed to do with it.
His gaze locks on my mouth for a beat before he tears it away. He doesn’t move, but he might as well. He withdraws, and the emotional barrier he throws up between us is as distancing as a physical wall. He’s working hard to hold himself back, and I’m sitting here wishing he wouldn’t.
The tree behind us has a long rope tied to a high branch. “Does that swing out over the water?” I ask, standing.
“Yeah, but . . .”
“Cool.” I pull my shirt off over my head then unzip my skirt, letting it fall to the ground.
Levi
Ellie is standing in front of me in a white lace bra and panties, looking like an image stolen straight from my fantasies.
She grabs the rope that dangles over the rock, wraps herself around it, and swings right out over the lake. The splash of her body hitting the water is followed immediately by her sharp squeal.
I grin when she surfaces. “You’re nuts.”
“Probably. The water is freezing!” she shouts. But instead of swimming back, she flips over and starts doing the backstroke toward the middle of the lake.
I strip out of my shirt and jeans as fast as I can and use the rope to swing in after her.
The water hits me like a bucket of ice. It’s been a warm autumn and the lake isn’t huge, so it’s not as cold as it could be, but swimming in Michigan in October is never a wise decision.
She giggles when I surface. “Race you to the dock!” she shouts, and then she’s swimming.
She has a fifty-yard lead, but I swam in high school and college. Catching her is no problem. When I pull even with her, I shorten my strokes so I can stay near her all the way to the dock. I slow just before we reach it, letting her pull herself onto the dock before me.
She stands in the middle of the dock with her arms wide in the air over her head. “I beat you.”
I take my time climbing the ladder and then make a big show of collapsing onto the dock, pressing my hand against my chest to exaggerate my exertion.