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"Probably"

"The water felt so good Even better than it did today And the space was ours All ours" She turns to hts everywhere Like so in a movie"

"I remember"

Her eyesabout it This warmth This depth I realized it was the first tihed since Bash died"

"I laugh all the time"

She nods "But not like this, with this… abandon I realized I knew you I knehen you had youryou with it down…" Her eyes flit to my lips "I'd never felt that special"

"Being the only person who sees through my bullshit?"

She doesn't take the bait She stays close Sincere "Yeah" She brushes uy more and more Glimpses of hi every tiet to the bottom of the ers skim my chin "Do you want to tell me?"

Chapter Seventeen

Liam

Do you want to tell me?

It's a fair question

But it's so much more than that

It's an invitation to offer everything I have

A promise A kiss A touch A fuck

She wants me to kiss her

I want to kiss her

I want to sit here on the concrete, roll her bikini botto my name

But that can't happen

I need to stop before I ruin everything

"There's nothing to know" I push off the pool floor Move toward the other edge "Liam Pierce exists in the shallow end"

"You literally just went into the deep end"

"I'm bad at metaphors"

She notices the change in posture The refusal The denial

Her eyes turn down

Her lips curl into a frown

She still wants to kiss me

I still want to kiss her

But we can't And she knows

Orshit Maybe I can't handle the idea of her not wanting to fuck me, so I have this complicated explanation

My ego isn't easily bruised Not by rejection Whatever the situation, there's some other opportunity

Another woman at the bar

Another investor searching for a company

Another programmer in need of a job