Page 47 of The One Month Boyfriend (Wildwood Society)

There are lakes so deep that we’ve never found the bottom. Lakes that sink further into the earth than anyone knows. Lakes that keep their secrets in cold, still water. The kind of lakes that might still have monsters under the surface. Lurking. Waiting. Moving silently through the depths.

Silas’s eyes are that kind of blue.

“You’re supposed to be showing off your great new boyfriend, right?” he says, eyebrows going up.

“Right,” I manage, trying not to think of sharp teeth and tails with fins and something dangerous swimming through the depths.

“Then don’t look at him,” he says, and that smile is still there but his voice is low and serious and there’s a rasp to it I’ve never heard before. “Look at me. Tell me something so I can laugh.”

His hand is still on my shoulder, his thumb stroking my skin, like he’s already developed the habit. I don’t want to tell him something. I want to kiss him again and I want to not want that.

“There’s a log that’s been floating upright in Crater Lake for over a hundred years,” I say.

He doesn’t laugh, but he does raise his eyebrows again.

“Upright?”

“Yup,” I say, and grab my glass, thankful for something to do with my hands as I bob the straw up and down, demonstrating. “It’s buoyant enough for people to stand on the end.”

I point to the relevant part of the straw.

“It’s called the old man of the lake, it’s a hemlock tree, and it was first referenced in 1896. Just… floating around the lake. As one does.”

“I had no idea.”

I put my mostly-empty drink back on the table, push my bangs to the side, adjust my glasses.

“Well, you wouldn’t if you’re not pretty deep in the lake fact community,” I say, glancing over the crowd.

“Don’t look at him,” Silas says. His voice goes lower, and there’s that rasp again, a quality I certainly don’t feel in my skin.

“I’m not.”

“That was his direction.”

“That’s everyone’s direction,” I point out, turning to him, his arm still slung over me. “What, are you jealous?”

“I’m mission-oriented and very focused on achieving my stated goals,” he says, and the rasp is gone.

“So it doesn’t bother you when I look.”

“It bothers me that you might fuck up our carefully-laid plans and render this whole operation moot,” he says.

“And that’s all?”

He leans in the tiniest bit. My depth perception isn’t wonderful at the best of times and certainly not after three drinks in an hour, but I can feel the way the air ripples, the way the pressure of the room changes, the way the space between us turns liquid.

“You getting at something, Kat?”

“Just asking questions,” I say, and I sound shockingly calm to my own ears.

A song ends. Everyone claps and cheers. I clap, glad for the distraction, and Silas claps, and I finish my drink, and someone else gets on stage. A song starts, something I don’t recognize, and glasses or no I’m too far to see the teleprompter screen.

“Did you put a song in?” I ask.

“I did.”

“What song?”