Page 34 of The Forbidden Summer (Pathfinders Lake #2)

Waylon

Van's insatiable.

Every look turns into a kiss, and every kiss turns into… Hands wandering, breath quickening, bodies pressed close like they can't ever get close enough.

He touches me like he’s starving, but careful too—like I’m something sacred. Every look and touch carries heat and reverence, every kiss deepens until we forget where we are, or who we were before this.

One brush of his lips and I’m gone. One sound from his throat and I’m aching.

He murmurs my name between kisses, like a question and an answer all at once, and I can’t stop—don’t want to. The way he tastes, the way he moves, the way he wants me—it undoes me.

And I want to give him everything. Again and again.

He stirs beside me, and I can just make out his form in the moonlight spilling through the window. His foot touches mine, then slides more surely up my calf. He wiggles his perfect ass, scooting back against my body.

“Père?” he asks softly.

“Van,” I sigh, knowing if I reach between his legs, I’ll find him rock-hard. “Can’t sleep?”

The boy is horny all the time, even in his sleep.

“Will you… Can we…”

“I’m an old man, Evander. Old men need sleep. They can’t fuck all night long into the wee hours of the morning.” But God, how I wish I still could. I would live inside of him.

Flopping onto my back, Van follows, snuggling up to my side. He palms my cock, testing to see if I’m hard, or if he can make me hard.

“Don’t say you're old. You’re only fifty-six. Thirty-four years difference in our age isn’t enough to make your dick stop working.”

I can’t help but laugh at his logic. Pressing a kiss to his soft hair, I pull him tighter against my side. “Tomorrow, I’ll fuck you out on the dock, under the sun. But for now,” I say, pressing another kiss to his temple, “we sleep.”

Van grumbles predictably, snuggles deeper into my side, and I listen as his breathing evens out.

The weight of him is perfect, grounding me in this moment. His hand rests over my heart, his legs tangled with mine, as if he’s trying to anchor himself to me even in sleep. I press my lips to his hair, inhaling the scent of him—soap, skin, and something that’s just Van.

The moonlight spills through the open window, painting soft shadows across his face. His lashes flutter faintly, and I wonder what he’s dreaming about. Something good, I hope. Something that makes him feel safe and loved.

My hand drifts to his back, tracing slow, lazy circles. It’s not to wake him—he needs the rest—but because I can’t help myself. Holding him like this feels like the only right thing in a world that so often feels wrong.

I close my eyes, one arm wrapped tight around him, and let myself believe, for just a little while, that maybe this isn’t something we’ll have to give up. That maybe love like this can hold, even in the real world.

But even if it can’t, I have this. This moment. This night. This summer.

Our forbidden summer.

And Van, warm and safe in my arms.

The morning light filters in through the curtains in pale streaks, warm across our tangled limbs. Van moves beside me, mumbling something unintelligible into my shoulder before going still again. His hand is splayed across my ribs, thumb twitching like he’s dreaming.

I lie still as I watch him sleep, drinking in his beautiful features .

The way the sunlight kisses his cheek.

The way his hair curls messily against his forehead.

The way his mouth is slightly parted, soft, unguarded.

Eventually, he stirs. Hazel eyes blink open slowly, then settle on me.

“Morning,” he rasps, voice rough and sleep-heavy.

“Hey,” I whisper, brushing his hair back.

He smiles lazily. “You’re still here.”

“Not going anywhere.”

His eyes search mine like he’s trying to be sure. “Promise?”

I nod, leaning in to kiss the corner of his mouth. “Promise.”

He stretches, then curls back into me with a sigh. “We should probably get up.”

“We should,” I agree, not moving an inch.

Neither of us does. Not yet. Not while we have this quiet, golden sliver of time before the world finds us again.

The kitchen is filled with the soft clatter of breakfast—forks scraping plates, the occasional sizzle from the pan, the low hum of the radio playing some old country song in the background.

Van sits barefoot at the table, hair still messy from sleep, a smear of jam on his cheek he hasn’t noticed.

He’s halfway through his eggs when I finally say it.

“I’ve been thinking about selling the house.”

He pauses, fork hovering midair. “What house?”

I glance at him, then back at my coffee. “My house, back home. The one Estelle and I bought after we married.”

Van lowers his fork, brows pulling tight. “You mean... the house? The one I—grew up in? ”

I nod. “Yeah. That one.” For all intents and purposes, Van spent his childhood in that house with his grandmother and me.

There’s a long pause. He leans back in his chair, eyes scanning my face. “Why now?”

“It doesn’t feel like home anymore,” I say gently. “It hasn't in a long time. It’s full of things that don’t fit who I am now. Ghosts I’ve made peace with. And keeping it… it’s like I’m trying to hold on to a version of life that’s already gone.”

Van’s quiet, working his jaw the way he does when he’s thinking hard. “It just feels sudden.”

“I know.” I reach across the table and rest my hand on his. “You have a lot of memories in that house. So do I. But the life I want now—it’s not in that place. It’s here. This cabin. You. Us.”

His throat moves with a swallow. “It’s not just about the house,” he says softly. “It’s the last piece of what we were before everything got so... complicated.”

I squeeze his hand. “We don’t lose those memories, Van. We carry them. But I don’t want to live in a museum. I want to live in the present. With you, if you’ll have me.”

He gives a shaky smile, blinking fast. “You already know the answer to that.”

“Still felt good to ask.”

He laughs, sniffles once, then picks up his fork again. “Well... if you’re selling it, I’m claiming the rocking chair and that weird lamp I always liked.”

“Deal. But I get the record player. For the cabin.”

“Fine,” he grins. “But only if we dance to every album.”

“Every last one,” I promise. “Van,” I start, watching him eat. “What if we hit the road for the winter?”

“Hit the road? Where to? ”

“It gets cold here. Hella fuckin’ cold. I’m old, remember?” I wink, grinning at him playfully. “My bones creak in the cold. We could get an RV and travel somewhere warmer, and come back in the spring.”

Van’s eyes light up with something wild and wondering. “Like snowbirds?” he says around a mouthful of toast. “Just take off and chase the sun?”

“Exactly that.” I sip my coffee, watching him take it in. “You could carve along the way. Set up at little markets, sell your work. I’ll drive, cook, and keep you fed.”

He laughs, setting his fork down. “You’re serious.”

“As a heart attack.”

“An RV, huh…” He leans back in his chair, gazing out the window like he can already see the open road waiting for us. “I always thought those were for retired couples.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Are you saying we’re not a retired couple?”

He snorts, cheeks flushed. “Maybe a hot one.”

“Damn right,” I say, reaching across to brush crumbs from his lips. “We’d park by the ocean. Find places with live music. Make love with the windows open.”

His smile fades into something softer, more stunned. “You really want that? With me?”

“There’s no one else I’d want to wake up next to in the desert or fall asleep beside under the stars.”

Van gets up slowly, rounds the table, and drops into my lap like he was made to fit there. His arms loop around my neck, forehead pressed to mine. “Let’s do it.”

“We will,” I whisper, holding him tight. “Spring’s a long way off. But we’ve got time. And a map to fill. ”

Van grins, eyes dancing with mischief. “I want to see the world’s biggest ball of yarn and the oldest tree in America.”

I laugh, wrapping my arms around his waist. “That’s your dream itinerary? Yarn and bark?”

He nods solemnly, though there’s a twitch at the corner of his mouth. “And every weird roadside attraction in between. I want to take pictures with giant fiberglass cows and sleep in a teepee-shaped motel. I want to eat pie in every state.”

“I’ll make us a checklist,” I say, already picturing the two of us standing in front of some kitschy tourist trap, sunburned and laughing.

“You better. And I want you to take a thousand photos of me pretending to hold up mountains and hug dinosaurs.”

I press a kiss to his cheek. “Done. But I’m making you take some of me, too. I want proof that I let you talk me into this.”

Van nestles into my shoulder. “It’s not just about the yarn or the trees. I want to see everything with you.”

I tighten my hold around him, his words landing like a quiet promise. “Then we will. Every winding road, every dumb statue, every sunrise. We’ll collect them all.”

“For us,” Van whispers against my skin, lips brushing just beneath my ear, “and for Harold and Elliot.”

The idea settles into me like an anchor and a buoy all at once—grounding me in the moment, lifting something in my chest I didn’t know I was holding.

I nod, throat tight. “Yeah,” I murmur, pressing a kiss to the curve of his shoulder. “We’ll go where they couldn’t. Carry them with us.”

Van pulls back just enough to look at me, eyes shining with something fierce and tender. “We get to write the ending they didn’t. ”

“And the sequel,” I say, half smiling through the ache in my chest.

He lets out a soft laugh, wiping at the corner of his eye with the heel of his hand. “I like the sound of that.”

I kiss him, slow and sure, sealing the promise. This love won’t be a quiet secret tucked into a drawer or a stone added to a pile of regrets in a monument to forbidden and unfulfilled love. It’ll be a story worth telling. A road worth taking. A map full of maybes and every mile, ours.

Van curls into me again, his head tucked beneath my chin, arms around my waist like he’s staking a claim.

“We’ll need a journal,” he says suddenly, voice muffled against my chest. “To keep track of every place we go. What we see. Who we meet.”

“And what we eat,” I add. “You know I won’t remember a single landmark, but I’ll know exactly where we had the best pie.”

Van snorts, the sound warm against my skin. “You’re such an old man.”

“You’re the one who wants to visit the biggest ball of yarn,” I tease, running a hand down his warm, bare back.

He hums contentedly. “It’s not about the yarn.”

“I know,” I whisper.

It’s about freedom. About making new memories to balance the ones that hurt. It’s about choosing each other over and over, no matter where the road bends.

He lifts his head, eyes soft and wide open. “Let’s start now.”

“Now?”

“Yeah.” He kisses me, his soft tongue tangling with mine for the briefest moment before he pulls away, leaving me hungry for more. “Even if we don’t leave for weeks. Let’s live like we already chose this life.”

A slow smile spreads across my face. “We did.”

Van stands, pulls me up with him, and together we step outside, barefoot on the porch, the lake winking in the distance. The world is wide open.

He laces his fingers through mine.

The first chapter begins.