He looked back over his shoulder and smiled. “You’re dragging your feet, Callahan. Too old to keep up?”
I grinned. “I’m enjoying the view.”
He flushed, then rolled his eyes and turned away quickly. But I caught the way his shoulders relaxed, the way his steps lightened just a little more.
We set our things down near the shoreline. The beach was quiet. Families had packed up for the night, the volleyball nets were empty, and the city behind us glowed in soft gold and blue, fading as twilight crept in.
Without fanfare, Shane peeled his shirt off in one fluid motion.
I stood there, stunned, as if I hadn’t already seen him shirtless a hundred times: sweaty after a workout, breathless after sex, half-asleep in my bed. But this was different. There was no hesitation, no tugging at the hem, no subtle angling away from the world. Though rather empty, this beach still contained enough strangers who would have made my old Shane fidget.
Lean and lightly tanned, freckles scattered along his collarbone, an old scar on his left side like a piece of punctuation. He stretched, arms raised above his head, and the gesture was so casual, so confident, I nearly forgot to breathe.
Six months ago, he would’ve worn long sleeves to the beach. Six months ago, he would’ve pretended he wasn’t watching everyone else.
Today, he knew he was being watched.
And he let me.
“Are you coming or just gonna stand there like a creep?” he called over his shoulder, wading into the lake.
I blinked, my mouth twitching into a grin. “Creep’s a strong word.”
He shrugged. “So is boyfriend. But here we are.”
I stripped down and jogged after him, splashing into the water with a yelp at the initial cold. He laughed, already knee-deep, his hair wind-blown and slightly damp from sweat.
“You’re stalling,” he teased.
“I’m still enjoying the view,” I said again, closing the distance and wrapping my arms around his waist. “Different verbs.”
He tilted his chin toward me, brown eyes soft and open. “Then enjoy properly.”
I kissed him, slow and deep, the lake curling around our calves and our bodies melting together like the world had been waiting for this.
The kiss tasted like sun and sweat and water. Like him. Always him.
Later, we sprawled side by side on our towels, towels barely long enough for both of us, but that had never stopped me from pulling him half onto mine.
His legs were still wet, sand clinging to his calves and the edges of his shorts. He leaned into me, bare chest pressed against my side, his head resting on my shoulder as I combed fingers absently through his hair.
His hand played with mine, fingers tracing idle lines along my wrist. I looked down at him, heart tripping stupidly over itself the way it always did when he touched me like this.
“Remember the first time you came to the beach with me?” I asked.
He snorted. “You mean when I told you I hated the beach and how I always spent the whole time in a hoodie pretending to be allergic to sunlight? Thank God it was winter.”
We stayed there for a while, watching the sky shift through pink and gold and into something quieter, more blue. A few joggers passed in the distance. Someone played acoustic guitar further up the beach. It felt like a movie, but we weren’t pretending.
Shane sat up after a while, brushing sand off his thighs. “You know, if I rewrote the thesis now, it’d just say: ‘Hopelessly in love with my subject.’”
I laughed. “You better not. That’s private data.”
He turned toward me, his grin lopsided. “Oh, you mean like your full-frontal exhibitionism in the locker room?”
“You’re never letting that go, are you?”
“Not a chance.” He batted his long eyelashes at me. “I’d love to see more of it.”
