Page 24 of The Lies Always Told

“You.”

She turns around, climbing my body and straddling me. She sits right on my lap and holds my face in her hands. “You can’t say things like that and expect me to not think about you after tomorrow.”

She looks at me with an intensity I can only compare to lust, because if I think beyond it, I could call it yearning, wanting,needing, and we can’t have that.Shecan’t have that. I have so much going on, so much that will always haunt me. A load that is just mine, one nobody else deserves to carry. My health is complicated, and she doesn’t deserve the burden. Nobody does.

“You can’t think about me after tomorrow, but…I’m just being honest.”

“Maybe sugarcoat it for me next time and tell me it’s the sky or something.” She tries to laugh it off, tries to cover the pain with humor, but her eyes tell me another story. As if she can tell, she lowers her gaze.

“You want me to lie, Nellie?” I bring my hand to her chin, lifting her face up to look at me again.Come on, Nellie.Don’t leave me. What a fucking hypocrite I am, but damn it, maybe I need to be a selfish asshole for once and go for what I want.

She sighs. “I want you to be easy with my heart. If all you can give me is today, I want it fully, but I don’t want to hurt past tomorrow. So please, just be easy on me, okay?”

“I can do that.”

“Promise?” she asks, caressing my cheek and smiling sadly at me.

“Promise.” Leave it up to me to find comfort and connection in the one girl I shouldn’t. Leave it up to me to be so close to saying “fuck it all”, to see what else could happen beyond tomorrow. I don’t have time to ponder it anymore, because Nellie pops up from my lap and turns to look at the water.

“The water is calling me. Wanna swim?” Nellie asks.

“I didn’t really come prepared to swim. I have swim trunks and towels, but I don’t have anything for you. I was only planning on staying half a day, if that.”

She looks at the water, and I can see it calling for her just like she said. I can see it in her face how she’s dying to jump and let it consume her. She walks closer to the rail and then turns around, smiling and motioning me to her with her fingers.

Her smile is wicked. Her eyes are inviting, and whatever she’s thinking, I know I will agree with.

“You know…there’s nobody else here, so I don’t think there’s a problem if we just jump in…naked.”

Fuck. “Nellie…” She steps out of the oversized tee I let her borrow last night and stands in front of me in her underwear. “You are so much trouble.”

“What’s trouble if I’m by myself? Or you can join, and then we can both get in trouble together.” She moves her hands behind her back, and in a split second, her bra is on the deck, her beautiful breasts on display. I’m dumbfounded bythe whole thing, frozen in place. What did she call it? I’m awestruck by this woman. There’s nobody out here, so I’m not worried about her being seen, and neither is she, clearly, but damn. What a move. She pulls her underwear down, and with a quick jump, she gets into the water.

“Nellie!” I shout, rushing to the edge as she disappears. I hold the rail and look over at the same time she pops her head out and laughs loudly. Her laugh is vibrant and pure, reaching every bit of my nerve endings and sparking a fire in my soul. Just one laugh, and I feel more alive than I’ve felt in a long time.

“Nellie, come back up.”

“Why?! The water is perfect. It’s early enough that we can swim for a while and still be back in time to explore more like you said you wanted. Come on, Gus. Come swim.”

“It would be irresponsible of me.”

“What would? Jumping in the water with me? Why? Because I’m naked? News flash, my guy—you’ve seen me naked.”

I shake my head and snicker. “Both of us in the water without clothes. What if something happens?”

“What’s going to happen, Gus? I won’t bite, and I’m a strong swimmer. If you’re worried about drowning, I got you.” She lays her head back, letting her legs come up, floating away from the boat and taking all my rational thoughts with her. What I do next has no logic at all. I remove my pants, and I jump in the water with her.

The water is perfectly warm. It’s too salty for my eyes, but the temperature is perfect. I tread water, waiting for Nellie to swim back to me, and she does with a big smile on her face. Her soaked hair falls over her shoulders, and her smile brighter than the sun itself.

“Hi, handsome,” she whispers, treading water in front of me, only her shoulders out of the water, the rest hidden under the waves.A wave. She has a little wave tattooed rightunder her collarbone. I’ve been so focused on all ofher, I’ve missed the little details. I missed how her green eyes have golden and brown specks intertwined with the most perfect green, how she has two small freckles right above her full lips. Her little wave tattoo and the little three dots between her breasts. The latter, I’ve noticed before, but not like now, with the water brushing over it. The lack of tan lines or, better yet, faint ones that indicate she either sunbathes naked or tans. Her beautiful ears don’t have anything adorning them. Her damn smile—the one she’s flashing me right now.

“Hola, hermosa,” I reply, out of breath, and not because of the physical exertion. She steals my breath away.

“Promise me you won’t ever stop looking at me like that,” she says, smiling bigger and reaching for my body with her hands.

“Like what?” I curl my hands around her hips and wrap her legs around my body.

“Like I’m the most beautiful girl you’ve ever seen.”

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