Page 77 of Just Friends

“Oh, I’m absolutely bringing it up at breakfast tomorrow.”

I spin around to face him, and we’re both still sporting matching crazy grins. “You wouldn’t.”

One dark eyebrow quirks. “You really think they wouldn’t do the same if they had come outside ten minutes later?”

His insinuation hangs in the air between us, and my heartbeat quickens. I’m still pressed up against the door, the wood grain imprinting on the palms of my hands.

I know I shouldn’t ask. I know I should let the moment die, protect that last shard over my heart, trust my self-preservation instincts, but I’m also feeling reckless and heady from his full attention fixed squarely on me and the memories of his skin against mine in the darkness. “What would they have seen?”

Alex’s throat bobs, his eyes swallowed up by the blackness of his pupils. His own palms come against the door, but they’re on either side of my head, caging me in. I don’t think I’m breathing as he leans in closer, his breath warm against my already burning face.

“They wouldn’t have seen anything,” he says after a long pause, as if he’s carefully choosing his words. His voice is like gravel. “They wouldn’t have seen anything because nothing is going to happen until we have a talk, Hazel. You’re too important to me to not make sure we’re on the same page.”

His words aren’t at all what I expected, but they do more for me than any detailed description could have. They’re a balm to my soul, filling in all my gaps and warming the places inside me that have been coated with ice for far too long.

My throat is thick as I try to respond, and it takes a few tries, but Alex waits patiently, his eyes never leaving mine, as if he knows how hard this is for me. “Thank you,” I finally say. “Thank you for understanding.”

Alex leans forward, and his lips brush my forehead, just a whisper against skin, like he can’t hold himself back. The gesture is so soft, so tender, I want to cry. “I know you, Hazel Lane.”

It’s both terrifying and comforting how true that is.

EverythingsmellslikeHazel.Not the assortment of perfumes she chooses from on any given day, but the scent that is uniquely her—Herbal Essences shampoo that she told me she can’t part with even though her hair stylist keeps begging her to, the apple-scented lotion she stocks up on every time she visits home, and the turpentine and paint that always seem to be faintly clinging to her.

It takes me a moment to remember where I am as I blink awake. The first rays of pale sunshine seep through the windows, and the early morning breeze ruffles the linen curtains, carrying in the smell of a brewing summer storm.

I’m in Wes and Lo’s lake house, on a surprisingly comfortable couch bed, a pillowy white duvet thrown over me. Hazel is curled into my side, her deep breaths tickling the space where my neck meets my shoulder. Our legs are a tangle beneath the blanket, and the tips of my fingers tingle, going numb from the weight of her head resting on my bicep. She feels so ridiculously perfect here that I don’t want to move a muscle and risk waking her up, risk making her regret the way she migrated toward me in the night like magnets.

A small breath escapes me, and I allow myself one touch, my fingers trailing across the smooth skin of her arm. It’s wrapped around my torso like she’s holding on to me for dear life. She stirs, tightening her hold on me before her breathing slows again.

I know staying here for another second is a bad idea. Any moment, our friends will wake up and tromp down the stairs to make breakfast, and our day will disappear under the sunshine—loud music and splashing water, sunburned noses and damp swimsuits—and Hazel and I will never have a chance to talk. And Ineedto talk to her. Because as I stood there last night with Hazel on a dock in the moonlight, I realized she held my entire heart in her small hands. It’s not fair to either of us to pretend like she doesn’t. I need to tell her how I feel and face the consequences.

My chest lifts in a deep breath, and my arm tightens around Hazel’s shoulder. She nuzzles closer to me, her nose brushing against the thin fabric of my worn T-shirt.

“Hazel,” I whisper, my voice low and crackled with sleep. My gaze drifts over her, marveling at the way she looks drenched in sunrise, lit up in pinks and oranges. Her skin has tanned with all the time she’s spent in the sun recently, turning golden. Unlike mine, which has only dotted with pale, faint freckles. Even her hair has changed, bronzing and lightening each day. She looks so different from how she looked last summer. Then, she was a shell of herself, still piecing herself back together after Sebastian. Now, she looksalive, and it cracks something in my chest. Love and tenderness seep into every fiber of my being until I’m coursing with it.

Hazel stirs, all her soft curves brushing against me, and her eyelids flutter. In the early morning light, her eyes are impossibly blue, like looking up from the bottom of the lake and seeing the sun glinting over the surface.

I expect her to sit up, pink coloring her cheeks, when she realizes the position we settled into while we slept, but she doesn’t. Her hair falls like a golden sheet around her as she tilts her head back, lips stretching in a sleepy smile.

“Morning,” she murmurs, and I know right then that her drowsy voice is the first thing I want to hear every morning for the rest of my life. I want her just like this, creases indenting her cheeks, hair a mess, legs draped over my own. I can’t imagine anything better than Hazel Lane waking up next to me for eternity.

“Morning,” I say back, and her eyes drift in a lazy pattern over my face, pausing on the dips of my cheekbones and the fringe of my lashes and curve of my lips. I wonder if she’s cataloging this moment for the same reason I am, because it’s the first of many, or if it’s because she wants to keep this memory tucked in her back pocket to pull out later, when we’re back to being just friends, the blurry lines between us reinforced with steel.

“We should talk,” I say finally, and her eyes snag on mine. So many emotions flicker through them, and I want to pull each out to consider them. But her throat bobs in a swallow, and she nods, easing back. She wraps the blanket around her shoulders, hiding the mustard yellow pajama set that threatened all my self-control last night, and I have to force my thoughts back to the moment at hand, my pulse racing.

Hazel stands at the foot of the pull-out bed, the blanket pulled around her like a life jacket. She looks so vulnerable that my heart aches. Without thinking, I rub at the soreness, and she tracks the movement, her eyes softening.

“Outside?” she asks, voice soft as silk, and I nod.

Wordlessly, I follow her out the back door. It squeaks on its hinges, and Hazel’s blanket drags across the worn, weathered wooden planks of the back porch. Just last night, we followed this same path, but things were different then.

Hazel sits on the top porch step, and my shoulder brushes against hers as I squeeze myself down next to her. The morning air is heavy with the humidity of incoming rain, but it’s surprisingly cool, and I wrap my arms around myself. Whether to keep for warmth or to keep myself from reaching for her, I’m not entirely sure.

We’re quiet as we stare out at the lake. The muted sunrise peeks through the heavy gray clouds and glitters on the water, sending every shade back at us like a disco ball. There’s only the sound of the wind rustling the trees, their branches waving in a slow dance, sending leaves skittering to the ground and across the dock.

It’s peaceful, the way only nature can be. It’s so much bigger than us, making all of our problems seem infinitesimal by comparison. Amid the grandeur, I almost convince myself to keep quiet. But that clawing sensation is back in my throat, words begging to break free.

My eyes drift over the planes of Hazel’s face. A lock of sun-bronzed hair catches in the breeze before drifting back across her forehead. Her cheeks are dusted in the palest constellation of freckles, ones you can only see if you’re a breath away, everything but her features blurring at the edges. She’s got one of those noses people pay for, short and curved at the tip, just like the corners of her mouth, like she’s always just a heartbeat from smiling.