Page 82 of When Stars Fall

When Haven swims closer, he releases me so quickly I’d have stumbled if we were on land. The water saves me from looking like too much of a fool.

“Again?” he asks her, grinning.

“And again, and again, and again.” Haven’s smile matches his. “This is so fun.”

He picks her up, and the muscles in his back ripple. After he’s released her, he says to me over his shoulder, “Haven said something about a tube?”

“Oh.” I’m startled out of my thoughts about his thick muscles, and his toned back. He’s so good with our daughter—a natural, as though the years without him never happened. My mind is going to places, to memories it has no business journeying to. “I’ll get it.”

He takes my wrist, drawing me close again so his lips graze my ear. “Let me get it. If I seem familiar with where things are, anyone watching will think I’ve been here a lot.”

“Right.” I stare at his chest, afraid to make eye contact. He’ll realize what I’ve been thinking. Reading me, when he was sober enough, was second nature.

“Ellie.” His voice dips low, the tone weakening my knees.

My name from his lips has always sounded so much better than from anyone else. Unable to resist, I glance up, and my heart lodges in my throat. I long to rise onto my toes, press my lips to his, see if the chemistry is still there. It is. Has to be. Parts of me have already ignited at the mere thought of his exploratory hands.

A knowing smirk quirks up one corner of his lips. “Where’s the tube?”

“In the little storage shed, on the far corner of the cliff face.” My voice hasn’t sounded turned on like that without me doing it on purpose in years.I could rip his clothes off right here.My eyes half flutter when he dips his head into my neck.

“Got it,” he murmurs against the sensitive skin. A shiver plays the most fantastic notes along my spine. I clutch his impressive biceps to keep myself upright. The skin-to-skin contact is delicious.

“Again?” Haven calls out, just before she goes under and comes up next to us. Her reappearance snaps me into reality.

I step back from Wyatt as though I’ve been stung. He yanks at his swim shorts, which are mostly concealed by the water. I’m not the only one with my engine revving, nowhere to go. He winks at me as he turns to Haven. “What about this tube?”

“Oh yeah.” Haven jumps around. “The anchor is really heavy, though.”

“Too heavy for me?”

Haven turns to me for confirmation. “I’m sure Wyatt will be fine.” Nikki and I always cart out the anchor for the giant tube together, but I doubt Wyatt will have the same trouble. He just came off filming a superhero movie, and if his Instagram pictures are anything to go by, he lifted a lot more weight than the anchor in preparation for the role. I spent far too many nights scrolling through those pictures.

Haven and Wyatt wade to the shed and then make short work of digging out the tube and inflating it. Wyatt lets Haven drag the tube through the water to me. He follows with the anchor cradled in his arms.

“Too heavy?” I call out.

He chuckles and changes his grip to hoist it over his head.

“Guess not.” Every time his arms flex, my heart pumps heat into areas of my body that haven’t felt this way in ten years. I take a deep breath.Get a grip, Ellie.Lust. That’s all this is. Supercharged lust. He doesn’t even like me right now. But these last few days, when I stare at myself in the mirror, there’s a change in me.

I’m awake. The hibernation is over.

For another hour, we jump on and off the tube, float in the ocean, flirt, laugh, pretend. The easiness isn’t an act for me. I’ve almost convinced myself we’ve always been this way when Haven starts to shiver. She’s so petite the cold hits her hard. The sun has disappeared behind some clouds. Wyatt wraps her in a towel and carries her up to the house with me trailing behind.

When the door to the outside closes, the chill follows us in.

Haven and Wyatt spend the rest of the day ignoring me unless Haven wants to know where something is, when a particular experience happened, or how old she was when she did something. Sometimes I catch Wyatt observing me, but I’m terrible at deciphering his thoughtful moods. Ideas are bubbling below his surface, but I have no idea what they are.

Nikki comes into the kitchen as I’m putting items away after Wyatt’s complicated snack. “He’s better with her than I expected.” Nikki takes a seat at the island.

“He is.” I can’t dispute that. Parenting is hard, sometimes really hard, but he’s taken to it with ease.

“What are you going to do?”

“What do you mean?” I stop cleaning, cloth in hand.

“He leaves tomorrow.” She checks her phone.

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