The deck lights cast warm halos across Karma’s blond hair as she leaned back in her chair, swirling whatever amber liquid she’d poured herself. I’d stopped tracking my own drinks after round two. The glass caught the light like trapped honey.

“Never have I ever…,” Karma said, lifting her chin. She had a way of commanding attention without seeming to try—a skill honed over fifteen years as queen bee on every charter boat below the Mason-Dixon line.

“Never have I ever gone skinny-dipping,” she finished, grinning. Her mouth curled, showing teeth in a look that was both feral and pleased. She watched the reactions ripple through our circle. We were scattered between picnic tables and weathered Adirondack chairs.

I snorted, nearly choking on the vodka-cranberry-pineapple thing Kash had mixed for me. It was dangerously strong, and I thought it was better not to ask what was in it.

Kash managed to say what we were all thinking. “Skinny-dipping? Seriously? We can do better than that. Even Eva will drink to that… and she is practically a Girl Scout.”

I grumped. “I was a Girl Scout.”

The guys laughed.

“Kash joined in. “Never have I ever dove naked.”

Karma, Kash, Mario, and Braden all raised their glasses.

“And some of us are exhibitionists,” Mario muttered. Kash snorted and nudged him in the ribs, a silent, comfortable exchange that spoke of shared history.

Karma stated a bit defensively, “It was Hedo. Everyone dives naked there. It’s practically the uniform.”

Braden raised his glass, the motion unhurried and deliberate. Even a simple gesture seemed to carry a calculated precision, a practiced ease that looked instinctive. He drank, and I watched his throat work, the bob of his Adam’s apple above the open collar of his shirt. He hadn’t bothered with the top buttons, revealing a tan line and a ridiculously perfect chest.

I raised my glass. “Never have I ever won a game of ‘Never Have I Ever’.” Laughter erupted, breaking a tension that had been building under the surface.

The rain that had been threatening for hours started in earnest, sending us scattering.

Karma collected the empty bottles. I took a hard look at the empty pizza boxes, stacked into a monument to poor impulse control, grease stains blooming through the cardboard like Rorschach blots.

I gathered them against my chest, the stale warmth of congealed cheese pressing through my thin T-shirt, and tried to pretend I wasn’t drunk and completely over social interaction.

“Need a hand?”

His voice came from behind me, low and unhurried, like he had all the time in the world. I turned to find him leaning against the other picnic table, arms crossed, in a casual posture that suggested he’d been standing there longer than I’d noticed.

Even before I turned around, I knew who it was. His dark blonde hair fell across his forehead, and in the dim dock light, his sapphire eyes held a startling intensity, a depth that seemed to pull at the air between us.

“I’ve got it,” I said, adjusting my grip on the pizza box tower. A corner dipped dangerously. “I’m perfectly capable.”

“I can see that.” He pushed off the table. Three strides and he was in front of me, crossing a distance my drunken brain insisted should have taken five. “Where are we going?”

“The dumpster. Behind the building. It’s a trek.” The rain shellacked my hair to my face. He brushed it back, gently, ignoring how the rain was plastering his own hair.

“I’ll navigate.” He plucked the top four boxes from my stack with one hand, his fingers barely curling around the cardboard.

The dumpster sat at the end of a gravel path close to the road, its lid propped open with a cinder block. I hoisted my remaining boxes, preparing for the awkward overhand toss that would probably leave grease stains on my shirt and send a box bouncing off the rim.

Braden didn’t give me the chance.

He lifted his boxes and, one after another, sent them sailing—not overhand, not sidearm, but with a flick of the wrist that looked almost lazy. The boxes sailed in a perfect arc and landed flat inside the dumpster with a muffled thud. No bounce. No wobble. Like he’d calculated the trajectory, velocity, and rotation before his arm even started moving.

“Show-off,” I muttered.

“Lucky throws.” He turned to me, winked, and the corner of his mouth quirked up in a way that made my stomach twist into a tight, inconvenient knot. He nodded at my boxes. “Shall I?”

I was drunk enough to believe I could make that impossible toss. “I can do it myself.”

I tossed one of the boxes. It didn’t even make it half the distance.

“Solid effort,” he said, and I couldn’t tell if he was being generous or sarcastic, which was somehow more annoying than either option alone.

“Okay, I guess not.” He took the remaining boxes from my hands and jogged to retrieve the one I’d thrown. He tossed the rest in the dark dumpster.

Despite the rain and the wind, we walked back through the quiet, broken only by the crunch of gravel under our feet, the call of tree frogs from the marsh, and the distant sound of a boat horn. His hand found mine somewhere along the path, his fingers sliding between mine with a quiet certainty that settled deep in my chest, his palm warm against my cold, damp one.

The simple weight of his hand felt more significant than it had any right to.

And I couldn’t bring myself to pull away.