Colt’s parents’ house is chaotic and loud, but still warm and inviting. His aunt and uncle sit at the kitchen table, sipping tea and eating croissants while his cousin, Lane, ys video games with Colt’s nephew, Simon. Simon is the spitting image of Gabriel—he has a darkplexion with dark brown hair like his dad, but he has his mom’s pale eyes.


    I know he said that sometimes his nephewes down to Boston with his parents, and it makes me wonder how Colt feels every time he sees Simon, who is the literal embodiment of his brother’s betrayal. He’s also an incredibly good-natured teenage boy, and from what I can tell, he seems like he really looks up to his uncle.


    Colt said yesterday that everything worked out exactly as it should have, which makes me think of the saying my mom used a lot:Everything happens for a reason.After she died, I hated that saying with the burning passion of a thousand<span id="page_284">suns. It felt like azy way to dismiss real pain and suffering with a casual promise of a better future.


    But now, when I look at Colt’s family and think about how different his life would have been if that baby had been his, or I think about how different my life would have been if my parents had both survived my mom’s illness and my brother hadn’t retired from hockey to raise us...I don’t know that I disagree with the saying as much as I used to.


    Both of those things led to good. Not that our lives wouldn’t have each been good without those catastrophic events, but they’d be different. We definitely wouldn’t be in thisplicated as hell situation we’re in...but it’s feeling lessplicated, and more real, by the minute.


    Colt tightens his arm around my shoulder where we stand, leaning against the kitchen counter near the stove where his mom is heating the kettle to brew more tea.


    “I got you that cinnamon kind you like,” she tells Colt, and then asks me if I drink tea.


    “Sometimes? I drink it like my dad used to, with some milk and sugar.”


    “How very Irish of you,” Colt says and kisses the top of my head. “You want to try my favorite kind? I’m sure it’s good with milk and sugar.”


    “Sure.” I rx into his side, feeling more at peace than I’ve felt in a long time, despite the fact that Gabriel and Cheri are standing on the other side of the ind. Based on their history, it should be awkward, but Colt seems more okay with it than he was yesterday. I’m trying not to read too much into it, though it does seem that me being here with him is what’s making the difference.


    “How are you feeling about round two of the yoffs?”<span id="page_285">Gabriel asks him. Next to me, Colt stiffens the tiniest amount—it would be imperceptible to anyone not touching him.


    “Good. Carolina’s got a really strong defense this year, but so do we.”


    They talk for a few minutes about the game, and based on some of the details he mentions, I realize that Gabriel must follow his brother’s career closely. As his mom hands us our mugs of tea, I wonder if Colt is picking up on this too.


    “Jules and I are going to take our tea down to the pond. I want to show her where I learned to skate. But also,” he says specifically to Gabriel, “I got tickets for Mom and Dad toe see the game on Thursday. I realize you guys probably have work and Simon probably has school, but I could get three more tickets if you guys want to join them.”


    Gabriel looks at Cheri, and her mouth pops open, but she seems lost for words.


    “You don’t have to decide now,” Colt says quickly. “Just let me know.”


    And with that, he moves his hand to the small of my back and guides me through the sliding ss door that leads to a raised deck. We follow the stairs down to the ground, and then take the steps built into the steep hillside to the pond below. When we get to the dock, Colt unfurls a heavy wool nket that he must have grabbed on our way out.


    The crisp spring morning air smells damp, the way soil does after it rains. He wraps the nket around his shoulders and then sides so that his butt is on the nket and there’s just enough space between his legs for me to sit on it too. I settle in, leaning back against him and sipping my tea as he pulls the nket around us to ward off the chill<span id="page_286">.


    “I’m proud of you for what you did back there,” I say.


    “Inviting them to the game?”


    “Yeah. I know it took a lot for you to extend that olive branch.”


    He exhales and his breath skims the top of my head and then condenses with the mist surrounding us. “It was a lot easier than I’d worked it up to be in my mind.”


    “I think that, maybe, that’s what moving on feels like.”


    “Yeah . . . maybe.”


    Sitting on the dock watching the miste off the water and the sun try to peek through the grey clouds, I marvel at the fact that I’m in Colt’s arms...and have been for thest few hours. I was still ravenous for him after that single mind-blowing orgasm early this morning, but he wouldn’t let me take it any further than we had.


    Instead, he wrapped me in his arms and fucking cuddled me, and I fell back asleep while pressed up against his chest with his arms around me. I woke up at some point when he got up and went into the bathroom, and I’m pretty sure he took care of that erection that had been pushed up against me when I fell asleep because it was absent, and he was more rxed when he came back to bed to pull me right back into his arms.


    When the rm went off a few hours ago, I was afraid things would be awkward, especially since the only other time I’d ever woken up in a guy’s bed had been a nightmare. But everything has felt so natural, so easy, that part of me is waiting for the other shoe to drop.


    “So you learned to skate on this pond in the winters, I assume?” I ask after a few moments of silence.


    “Yeah. I probably spent more hours of my life on this<span id="page_287">pond, skating in the winter and swimming in the summer, than anywhere else, ever.”


    I look out across the “pond,” which is actuallyrger than a lot ofkes in New Ennd. “When I was a kid, my mom used to take us up to her aunt’s house on Lake Sunapee in the summers. Sometimes we’d just go for the weekend, and other times we’d stay for a week or two. It was this amazing old hunting lodge overlooking the water, and I’d go down to the dock and just sit there in the shade and read in the mornings. It was my absolute favorite ce in the world, but I haven’t been back in years.”


    “What happened to it?”


    “Nothing. It’s still in the family, but my dad never took us up there once Mom died—he never got along well with her family. I inquired about buying the housest year. I’d love to remodel it and make it something that could be enjoyed year-round. I had all these visions of going up there with my whole family for holidays and such. But my great-aunt’s kids are not interested in selling. Apparently, it’s their favorite ce, too.”


    “I love that you have a favorite ce,” he says. “But I’m sorry you don’t get to go there anymore.”


    I shrug against him, and he hugs me tighter. “Is this your favorite ce?”


    “I don’t think I have a favorite ce. I loved it here when I was a kid, but this is my first time sitting on this dock in fifteen years. It’s not even the same dock. The old one was long, narrow, and wooden. This new one is quite a bit nicer.”


    I nce along the floating tform that we’re sitting on, which is connected to the shore by a short, permanent dock.<span id="page_288">It’s coated in droplets of water and, despite the nket beneath me, I realize that my jeans are damp.


    “Did it rain overnight?” I ask. I didn’t hear the rain, but there’s ayer of moisture clinging to everything, and I can’t tell if it’s just from the mist.


    “Not sure,” he says, his whispered words brushing up against my ear. “I was too busy listening to you scream my name to notice whether it was raining.”


    “First of all, that was this morning, notst night. And second, I didnotscream your name.”


    “Want me to demonstrate what you sounded like?” His voice is husky as he smooths his hand against my stomach, anchoring me back against his chest. “Or maybe”—he toys with the button at the top of my jeans—“I should just slide my hand in here and do it again? You’ll have to be quieter this time, because sound carries over water, and if we go back to talking at a normal volume, they’ll be able to hear everything up at the house, and across the pond, too.”


    “Don’t you dare,” I whisper, even as my hips tilt forward, seeking out his hand. I know they can’t see us from the house because of the trees, but I didn’t realize they could hear us. “I do not need the mortification of everyone listening to me having an orgasm on your parents’ dock.”


    “Jules, now that I’ve given youone, I kind of want to see how many times I can make youe. I bet I could get at least two out of you right in a row, maybe more.”


    An uneasy feeling washes over me. I can’t exin where ites from, but the uncertainty and mistrust are there, rearing their ugly heads. “Why? Do youpare notes with your teammates to see who can dole out the most orgasms in one go, or something?” I’m joking—it’s not like I really<span id="page_289">believe he does this. But guysdotalk, and I don’t want to be the subject of their conversations.


    The sudden clink of his mug on the dock sends a few birds scattering out of the tree above us, their ck wings taking shape against the misting off the water as they swoop low over the pond. Colt uses both hands to grip my waist, lifting and turning me so I’m sitting on his knees. I reach down and set my mug on the dock as well, thankful I’d almost finished my tea so I didn’t spill it everywhere.


    “Do youreallythink I’d do something like that, Jules?” Annoyed notes of frustration ring out in his quiet, but tense, voice.


    “What can I say? I know hockey yers.” I give a little shrug to hide how ufortable I am. It was so much easier to talk about my pastst night, shrouded in the darkness. Sitting a foot from him and looking him dead in the eye in broad daylight is different.


    “Really?” The word is skepticisme alive. “So your brother, then?”


    “No, obviously not him. I’m sure he slept around a fair bit before Lauren, but I’m confident he doesn’t talk about their sex life with other people.”


    “Jameson’s always been incredibly discreet,” he confirms. “So what about Drew, then?”


    “God no, he was so gone for Audrey the minute he saw her again. He’s like a goddamn golden retriever with the way he needs all her love and attention.”


    “Okay, so what other hockey yers do you know?”


    I lift an eyebrow but don’t say anything.


    “If this is about Brock fucking Lester, and you’re lumping me in with him, I’ve got some thoughts about that.” His jaw<span id="page_290">clenches so tightly I’m afraid he’s going to shatter some teeth, so I cup his face in my hands and smooth my thumbs over his cheeks, hoping he’ll rx a bit.


    “I hate that what he did has colored my perception of all men, but it is what it is. He wrecked my confidence and my ability to trust myself.”


    “Jules, let’s get one thing straight. Brock is an asshole and what he did was wrong. He was too fucking blind to see what he had right in front of him?—”


    “Story of my life.” I don’t mean for that to slip out, to reference that Colt, also, apparently couldn’t see me right there in front of him, despite how desperate I was for him to notice me. But ites out anyway.


    “Don’t you darepare me to him,” Colt practically growls in an attempt to keep his voice low. “Isawyou. But you were my best friend’s little sister, and I was never nning to let myself see youlike that. I also wasn’t at a ce in my life where I could trust any woman enough to let her get close to me, and there was no way in hell I’d have slept with you and then just never talked to you again, which was what ny percent of my hookups were.”


    “And the other ten percent?” I ask, letting my curiosity get the best of me.


    “I definitely had some repeat hookups, but that’s all they ever were to me.”


    “And now? What about us?”


    I’m so fucking proud of myself for asking this question. It would be so easy to give in to the fear of discussing the future of this rtionship, to ride out this high and wait to see where it goes. But I deserve to know where we stand right now, even if that might evolve and change over time<span id="page_291">.


    He brushes his lips against the bridge of my nose. “We’re not ready for this conversation, Tink. I know you think we are. Hell, maybe you are, but I’m not. You’ve got work to do to be able to trust me enough for this to be real, and I’ve got work to do to prove to you that I’m worth trusting.”


    What does that even mean?Just as I’m about to ask, a throat clears from behind me and the floating dock rocks as someone steps onto it.


    “Ummmm,” Gabriel’s uncertain voice sounds from behind us, “I’m supposed to tell you that apparently there’s cake? And Mom and Dad would like you to join us for it.”


    I turn my head, and he’s got his arm bent over his head as she scratches the back of his neck, clearly ufortable to have interrupted our conversation. It seems impossible that we didn’t hear himing, so either he’s some sort of stealthy ninja, or we must have been intently focused on each other. I pray that we were quiet enough that he didn’t hear what we were saying, since the whole point of this ruse was that he and Cheri would think Colt was happily engaged and had moved on.


    “Okay,” Colt says as I stand, “we’reing.” He gets up, but I don’t miss the wince as he stands, and when my eyes flick over to Gabriel, I see that he didn’t miss it either.


    “Thanks,” Gabriel says, “for the ticket offer. I have to see if I can get someone to cover my shift at the hospital and make sure Simon can miss school on Thursday and Friday. But as long as that works out, we’d love to be there for the game.”


    Colt’s gaze is locked on his brother, and I watch his throat bob as he swallows down whatever emotions he’s working through. I’m not sure what he’s feeling, but it<span id="page_292">certainly seems like these two are long overdue for a private conversation.


    “You know what,” I say quickly. “I’m going to run up to the house so I can use the bathroom before we have cake. You guys take your time.” Turning, I practically sprint up the dock, across the outcropping of rocks, and up the staircase built into the hillside, all the while hoping that giving them a few minutes alone is the right choice.