She puts our trophies in her bag before she picks up my shirt, holds it out to me, and watches as I pull it over my head. With a smile that says she’s won this battle, she grabs her shirt and pulls it over her head. Then she takes a pair of shorts from her bag and pulls them on. I had no idea she even had them in there. The triumph on her face when she meets my gaze says it all. She’d planned to be fully dressed the entire time, even before my insistence. Without a second thought, I thrust my arms around her waist and push her back up against the tree trunk.
“You constantly put me in my place,” I murmur against her lips. “And I wouldn’t change it for the world.”
“I can be myself when I’m with you. You accept me for who I really am,” she whispers back. “I wouldn’t change you for the world.”
Our lips meet, tenderly at first, matching the moment we just shared. Her hands slide up my arms, shoulders, and neck until she’s holding my face. Her lips part slightly and I seize the opportunity to fully claim her mouth when my tongue slides inside. Softly stroking her tongue with mine, I feel her entire body relax and meld with mine. The urge to say those three words has never been stronger. I don’t know if she’s really ready to hear it yet, but every cell in my body screams at me to tell her.
Tell her now, because the next second may be too late.
Tell her now, so she’ll want to stay past the end of summer.
Tell her now, because she deserves to hear it, feel it, and know it.
We’ve had the perfect day together and I don’t want anything to ruin it. What if she runs after I tell her? What if it scares her off after what her ex did to her? Doubts run through my mind and steal my words. The words that were just on the tip of my tongue before I gave them to her with a kiss.
“Hey, Ace,” a male voice I recognize all too well calls out from behind me. “Since you’re not busy, you mind helping us get all these floats out of the water?”
Laughter fills the air all around us and we break off our kiss. I turn to Justin and glower at him. The opportune moment is gone. I let it pass by because I wimped out on telling her exactly how I feel about her. If everyone was watching us before Justin so rudely interrupted, I was blissfully unaware. Now that I know everyone is watching and waiting to see what happens next, the intimacy has vanished like a vapor in the wind.
Layne reaches down to grab her bag and smiles sheepishly at me. “Go ahead and help them. I’ll be waiting at the swings with Lily, River, and Zoe.”
Justin deserves an ass-kicking for this. His shit-eating smirk pisses me off, but I don’t let it show as I approach him. He’s already changed into his dry clothes, but he’s standing in shin-high water, grabbing one tube after the other and tossing them onto the bank. When he pivots to grab another one, his balance shifts forward toward the water. With a little extra shove from behind, I help him reach the float.
The fact that he fell through the middle and is now soaked from head to toe is just a bonus.
Chapter Fourteen
Layne
Our trophies have a prominent position on the mantle directly over the fireplace as a constant reminder of how quickly everything can change. In the past two weeks since the day of the race, every day has felt like I’m in a dream. My life changed drastically on that otherwise ordinary day. Nothing is set in stone yet, so I try to control my emotions, not get my hopes up, and keep myself grounded. Yet, I still have to pull myself out of my daydreams and focus on the task at hand every few minutes.
That day, while Ace helped the other guys remove the inner tubes from the water, deflate them, and load them into the county truck, I spent time with Zoe, Lily, and River on the playground. Lily and I seemed to click right away in one of those instant friendships that made me feel like I’d known her for years. If I lived here, I could easily see the two of us becoming the sister neither ever had.
As she pushed River on the swing, she chatted easily with me. “Looks like things are getting pretty serious between you and Ace.”
Her Southern accent and sweet demeanor made the conversation feel so natural that it didn’t bother me a near stranger was prying into my personal business. In New York, I’d always been on guard and suspicious of anyone who stuck their noses into subjects they had no business knowing. But I sensed there was no hidden agenda with Lily, no angle that she was trying to play. She genuinely liked me and she obviously loves her brother and niece.
“I wish I could tell the future,” I admitted, thinking of the amount of time that had already passed and how much time was left in the summer. “I’m crazy about him, but I don’t know what’ll happen at the end of the summer.”
“Why does that matter?” Zoe asked.