Page 61 of Switching Skates

“My mom only gave us the place for the first year, and then we have to move because she’s going to be selling it.”

“What?” he asks firmly. “To who?”

I rock us in the swing. “Well, we don’t know yet. But I’m sure someone will snatch this place up. It’s the best.”

“Hmm.” He gets lost in thought. “It’s better with you.”

His admission catches me off guard.

“Mason.”

“What?” he asks, turning to face me, his cheeks pink.

“You can’t say things like that,” I murmur, my gaze falling to my twiddling thumbs in my lap.

His hand slides under my chin, and he turns my head to look down at him. “I shouldn’t tell you the truth? About how this place is beautiful but anyplace with you in it would be?Or how I’ve thought about you every day since I left?” He wets his lips and sits up taller, leaning closer to me. “I’ve watched every sunset since that night because the fiery sky reminds me of you.” Our bodies pull toward one another from some invisible connection. “I’ve told myself all this time that I got over you, but the truth is, I never will, and I don’t want to.”

The only word I can form on my lips yet again is his name. This time, it comes out sounding like a desperate plea. “Mason.”

“You drive me crazy, Daphne.” Our foreheads gradually fall against one another. “Don’t overthink it tonight. Who knows what tomorrow will hold?” His warm breath hits my lips. “I just needed to tell you because it’s been eating me alive since I saw you again.”

I whisper against his parted lips, “You scare me, Mason.”

My heart thumps in my ears, blood pounding, mixing with the crickets and soft splashes of animals on the lake.

Screw it.

One moment.

Thismoment.

Consequences be damned.

In one swift movement, I roll my forehead and kiss him tenderly, feeling a spark at the touch. He doesn’t hesitate kissing me back, his hand slipping into my hair and yanking me closer, making the butterflies in my stomach soar to life.

Right now, we don’t care about anything other than us. We don’t care that we’re switched. That our lips aren’t our own. It doesn’t matter. Because the feelings are real regardless of who we are right now.

He kisses me like it might be the last time, and I’m not entirely sure that it won’t be.

There is no present or future, just a kiss. No promises, no expectations. This is just the breaking point of the tension that has been building between us since the minute I got here.

Pulling away ever so slightly, I rest my forehead against his, our breathing heavy and loud, echoing around us.

We don’t say anything to one another. Not because we don’t want to, but because we don’t need to.

He rests his head on my shoulder, and we rock in the chair until our eyes become heavy and the crickets are too loud to stand.

When we finally head to bed, my stomach twists into knots as I realize I have a new problem to face—I think I’m truly falling back in love with him, and I’m absolutely terrified.

Rolling over, I blindly shut my alarm off and scoot to the edge of the bed, lowering myself down with my eyes still glued shut.

“Oh shit,” I curse as I crash to the ground, tripping on something. Blinking the sleepiness away, I look down, and my heart stops in my chest at the sight before me. “No way. No fucking way.”

Turning around, I see that I didn’t wake in Daphne’s bed. I’m in the spare bedroom, where Daphne went to sleep last night in my body. Running out of the room, I race to the bathroom as fast as I possibly can, not bothering to look at any part of me, out of fear that I might be hallucinating.

My reflection greets me kindly.My reflection. “YES!”

My hands assault my body, fluttering up and down my chest and stomach, touching every part of me, as if to check if this is real and not some vision.