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I lift my glass. “I needed water.”
His gaze dips briefly to my tank top and sleep shorts—bare legs, barely-there fabric—before flicking back up to my face. Something unreadable passes through his expression before he turns his attention back to the waves.
“Couldn’t sleep?” I ask, moving closer until I’m standing next to him. The only thing between us is a couple inches of midnight air.
He exhales slowly, rolling the glass in his hand. “I have a hard time falling asleep. My mind doesn’t shut off easily.” His voice is lower at night, rougher. “The waves help.”
I nod, understanding. “It was a good evening.”
“Yeah?” He turns to look at me, and in the moonlight, his eyes are darker than usual. “You seemed comfortable with them.”
“They make it easy. They clearly love you.”
“They’re family.” He pauses. “I hate lying to them.”
The confession hangs in the air between us. I touch his arm without thinking. “I know.”
His muscles tense under my fingers, but he doesn’t pull away.
For a moment, we just stand there. The air around us thickens, charged with something I can’t name. It’s strange, being here like this—away from the cameras, the pretense, the roles we’re supposed to be playing.
Here, in this quiet moment, there’s no script. No rules. Just us.
I shift, removing my hand and crossing my arms loosely over my chest. “I didn’t expect your home to be so…” I search for the right word, “Still.”
His lips quirk slightly, but there’s a hint of something guarded in his eyes. “You thought I lived in chaos?”
I shrug, taking another sip of water. “You’re a rockstar drummer in a world-famous band. It wouldn’t have been a crazy assumption.”
Nate huffs a quiet laugh. “That’s the job. This is where I breathe.”
Something in the way he says it makes my chest tighten. I get it. There is a need for separation, for space that belongs only to you. For a place that lets you shed the expectations and the weight of who the world thinks you are.
And I realize this is his true life. Not the interviews, the crowds, or the public persona. This house, this view, the quiet that fills the air—this is the true Nate.
I don’t know why, but that realization does something to me.
The silence stretches, the sound of the waves filling the space between us.
Nate turns slightly, his body angling toward me. Not close enough to touch, but close enough to feel the warmth radiating from his skin.
“You don’t have to stay up, you know,” he murmurs.
I raise a brow. “Neither do you.”
His gaze holds mine for a second too long. My breath catches. Something is happening here—something neither of us planned. I should step away. Break the tension. Say something light and easy, make a joke, anything.
But I don’t.
Instead, I take a slow, deliberate sip of my water, suddenly hyperaware of the way his eyes flick to my throat as I swallow.
“You stare a lot,” I murmur.
His lips twitch, but there’s an edge of heat in his voice when he says, “So do you.”
My pulse jumps. It’s nothing. It should be nothing. But my body betrays me. The warmth of him so close, the scent of whiskey,and something undeniably him. I swallow, turning my gaze back to the ocean, willing the rush of heat in my veins to settle.
“You know,” I say, voice lighter than I feel, “we’re supposed to be madly in love.”