Page 5 of Say You Love Me

I drag my feet through the water and flick droplets into the air.

He chuckles. “I was probably a little harsh.”

For the first time, he looks at me properly. His gaze flicks from one eye to the other and then slips down my face. He makes no effort to hide the way his eyes skim across my lips and fall down my neck, nor does he conceal the way he swallows and runs his teeth over his bottom lip.

He clears his throat a little. “The truth is always better than a lie, don’t you think?” He tilts his head as he looks at me.

I look up to see if I can find the Finity Star. “Not always.”

“You think I should have lied to her? Let her think I’m interested?”

“No. That would have been just as cruel.”

He grins and scoots across the boards so he can prop his back against the pillar along the dock. He leaves one leg dangling in the water and folds the other to his chest, looping his arms around it.

“Have you never heard the saying, ‘sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind?’” He chuckles and the sound does something to my insides. I can’t help but smile as it echoes off the boats and skims across the water.

“You didn’t need to tell her she wasn’t a girl.”

“I never said—” He falls silent, replaying the conversation in his head. “I really did say that, didn’t I?

I nod slowly, then twist to look at him better. He stretches his leg out along the dock, resting his head against the pillar. His foot almost touches me and the small space between our bodies burns as though the air itself is heated.

“She’s not my type.” He says it as though he owes me an explanation.

I glance over and there must be something in my expression which makes him think I don’t believe him because he laughs and holds up his hands in innocence.

“I swear she’s not my type. She’s too…”

“Too pretty?” I suggest. “Too young?”

He falls silent as he studies me. I glance at him, but I can’t bear the intensity of his gaze, so I look back at where my feet dangle in the water.

“She’s not you.”

It’s my turn to laugh then. “You don’t know me.”

He slides closer, folding one leg in on itself while the other still dangles in the water. “No, but I’d like to.”

I roll my eyes. “Smooth.”

“What’s your name?”

Leaning forward, I slip my hands under my thighs like he was doing before. I didn’t come here to talk to strangers. I came here to be alone with my memories. But there’s something about the way he’s looking at me, something magnetic, as though we already know who we will become to each other. As though it’s already been written in the stars.

“Seriously,” he says. “Tell me your name. It’s suddenly become very important that I know.”

I keep looking out over the water. “Finity.”

“Finity? Like infinity but without the ‘in’?”

I nod. It’s what everyone says when they hear my name. “Exactly.”

“Unusual name.”

I don’t tell him it’s the name my father chose for me. I don’t tell him that my mother hates it or that most people call me Fin. I don’t tell him that I liked the way it sounded on his lips.

“So, Finity.” His eyes skip over my face as though he’s trying to figure me out. “I haven’t seen you around here. Are you renting one of the lake houses?”

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