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TheIand theloveand theyou.

I fucking love you, Jess.

I turned those words over in my mind. The way he’d easily said them—with a smile on his face. The way they sounded as they fell from his lips, and the unfiltered honesty I saw in his eyes when they did.

And then the way he’d quickly taken them back in embarrassment, like maybe there was more truth in that moment than he wanted to let on.

I pushed my hands through the water, forward and back, again and again. At some point Greyson turned to face me, and when I looked into his eyes, I saw that same raw honesty in them. Like maybe he’d been turning these things over in his mind, too.

And it should have been awkward, standing there, staring at each other for that long without saying a word, but it wasn’t.

I think an entire conversation passed between our eyes.

Thank you for sharing that with me, Jess.

Yeah, you too. It means a lot to me. That you did.

It means a lot to me, too.

I took a deep breath.I really like you, Greyson.

I know. I really like you, too.

I know.

And I know I said I couldn’t do this. But…I want to, Jess.

I know.

Badly.

I know.I smiled.

And what I said before, earlier?

Yeah?

I think I might’ve meant it.

I know. And Greyson?

Yeah?

I’m pretty sure I feel that way, too.

His lips tilted in a slow smile, the color of his eyes shifting with the light of his pool, brightening and dimming into a hundred different shades of green.

My heart was racing again—for a completely different reason. It was hard to breathe, hard to swallow. I wanted to reach out and touch him, hold him, kiss him,feelhim. I wanted it more in that moment than in the million times that had come before it, and the look in his eyes told me that maybe he wanted the same thing.

But instead of closing that last foot of space between us, he closed his eyes, took a deep breath. “I should go inside now,” he finally said.

“Why?” I asked, a soft whisper.

He licked his lips, swallowed, and when he opened his eyes…there was a heat in them I’d never seen before. And then he stepped towards me, his body gliding through the water, and I think it was all the answer I needed.

His chest touched mine, expanding with deep breaths. I could feel the pounding of his heart beating a relentless rhythm against my own. Our hearts warred with each other. Hammering, and pounding, and waiting. Waiting for whatever it was that would happen next.

He pulled his hand up out of the water and slid it across my cheek, before sliding it into my hair. I stopped breathing. Nearly choked on the knotted ball of anticipation that was lodged in my throat, because the way he was looking at me…