Page 95 of The Ampersand Effect

Maren’s eyes widened. Alix practically yelled, “You’re shitting me!”Grier sat, unmoving, shifting her eyes between her friends before delivering the final detail. “With a swimming hole.”

Maren leaned forward, already sensing this wasn’t the most important detail—and determined not to miss a single word as Grier shared her story over the din of the crowded bar.

Alix gripped the edge of the table with both hands, “Tell me you went swimming. Grier. Tell me you got naked and went swimming!” Their stage whisper landed somewhere between a standard yell and a theatrical plea—nowhere near the level required for discreet discussion.

“Alix!” Maren tried to corral them.

Grier looked around, checking if anyone nearby had overheard. “Keep your voice down!” she hissed again.

Unconvincingly contrite, Alix stage-whispered an anxious response. “You expect to tell me that you were hiking, with a woman you’ve been pining over for weeks, and she takes youto a mysterious waterfall-slash-swimming hole, and I’mnotsupposed to lose my shit that you’re drawing out arguably the mostmovie-esquepotential sex scene in the history of ever—and keep my voice down?” They pushed themself back against the booth in surrender. “How, exactly, am I supposed to react?”

Despite the potential for prying ears to overhear, Grier was rather enjoying the tortured looks on her friends’ faces. This part of the date was something she could share—something shewouldshare—regardless of what had happened later. It had been fun, flirty, playful. Nothing too emotionally revealing had occurred while they were hiking.

Yes, she’d felt something shift between her and Tobin—a shift that cascaded like the waterfall and pooled low in her stomach, warm and inviting, beseeching her to explore the feelings, to drop the pretense that they were taking things slow. They both knew there was no fighting what was building between them.

This wasn’t chemicals.

This wasn’t lust. Although, lust was definitively not in short supply.

She wasn’t ready to admit what exactly this was, but she knew it was so much…more.

More than anything she’d experienced in the past. More than anything she dreamed of.

More than anything her typically very active imagination could’ve conjured.

Reality was proving to be far better than her imagination right now, anyway.

“We didn’t have sex at the swimming hole,” she cajoled, remaining as stoic as she could while watching both of her friends visibly deflate—right before she delivered the line she knew they were waiting for.

“But I did strip to my undies and tell her to join me… right before I ran and jumped off the cliff into the water!”

Her friends both shouted “What?” simultaneously—definitely garnering a few irritated (and interested) stares from nearby patrons.

Grier took a sip of water, trying to calm herself, though her own excitement was growing at their invested interested. She nearly choked when Maren, completely out of character for her typically articulate personality, blurted, “Fuck, Grier. How did the rest of your clothes come off?”

After her coughing fit—now red-faced and flushed with embarrassment—Grier leaned in and whispered, “They didn’t. We were, um… interrupted. By the storm. We put our clothes back on and hurried back to her place.”

“Andthenyou got naked!” Alix hissed excitedly, having apparentlyfinallylearned to keep their voice down.

There was no stopping the heat spreading across Grier’s chest and neck. She vividly remembered the racing thoughts she’d experienced while waiting in Tobin’s kitchen for her to return with dry clothes. She recalled, with clarity, walking to the bottom of the stairs—understanding coiling in the pit of her stomach—knowing she could no longer resist her own desires. She also recalled, with steady certainty, how she knew she would have respected Tobin if she had deferred—still uncertain, still fearful. Still beautifully broken.

She shrugged, adopting an air of nonchalance despite the memories roiling inside her being sointenselyfar from that. “More or less.”

“More or less?Moreorless?”Alix was agitated, throwing their hands around before running them through their short, dark hair and tugging at the roots.

“You spent the whole weekend there, honey. I think there’s a period of a whole lot less clothing and a whole lotmoreyou’re not telling us,” Maren pressed.

Grier was starting to rethink how she viewed her friend, because the woman clearly was not reading Grier’s cues that she didn’t want to say more. Maren was usually so perceptive—so willing to help subdue Alix’s more persistent jabs. Apparently not tonight. Because Grier felt like she and her weekend were being dissected while she was still conscious on the lab table, trying to fend off the scrutiny of her friends’ prying eyes.

Resigning herself to the idea that they weren’t going to relent, she gave them just a little more. “We slept together. It was… hot, and heady, sometimes heavy, always sensual, emotional, exhilarating, and… perfect.”

She looked at her friends—who apparently chose this moment to lose their voices. Both sat hushed, looking unusually awed.

Neither of them spoke. Grier began to feel self-conscious. She hadn’t really given specific details—just how she felt about the weekend. She didn’t understand. “What?”

Maren cleared her throat gently. “That sounds an awful lot like something more than sex, honey.”

“You went all withdrawn and quiet the more you described it,” Alix said, supporting Maren’s thoughts.