The warm air of our base building hit me as soon as I stepped inside and left the cool coastal fog behind me. I loved this feeling— the warmth overcoming my body as I entered a room.

Though, it felt especially good today.

Everything felt especially good today… after last night.

I was in such a good mood that I truly couldn’t contain myself. All the tension that had been building up with Finn for so long had finally been released. It was a tension I hadn’t even thought could have been released because I hadn’t opened myself up to the possibility that Finn could have had feelings for me.

But he did—he so did. And the thought elated me.

We had both been wasted last night, so that was probably a big part of why it had happened in the first place. The alcohol had really allowed us to let loose a bit. But, it also meant that we hadn’t done a lot of talking. Last night had really been an action night. Which was great, but I was also really excited to see where this was going to lead romantically.

At least, I had been really excited… until I walked into our locker room.

“Hey, there’s the man of the hour!” Anthony said with a pat on the back and a smile on his face. I had no idea to what he was referring until Shawn spoke up.

“Good for you, man, you and Finn always did look cute together.”

I jerked my head toward him. “What are you talking about?”

He looked confused. “You know… you and Finn. Glad you guys finally went for it. The sexual tension was killing us all.”

The other guys laughed, and I forced a tense smile. But, really, I wasn’t too happy to be having this conversation publicly, particularly when I hadn’t even talked to Finn yet.

I wasn’t sure how they knew. Maybe they’d seen us kiss at the bar, but I wasn’t about to ask. I just wanted to exit the conversation as quickly as possible and find Finn.

“Speaking of Finn, have you seen him?” I asked.

Apparently he’d left the house early this morning, and I’d assumed it was to go to the library, but, to my surprise, I learned he wasn’t here.

“Nah, man, he’s out doing some stuff. I don’t know what, though. He was kind of cryptic,” Anthony answered.

So, if he hadn’t left to go to the library… what had been his hurry this morning?

This worried me. I hadn’t expected him to rush off anywhere after the night we’d experienced together. Didn’t he want to figure this out with me? Wasn’t he just as eager as I was to talk about this turn in our relationship?

Unless he wasn’t—unless he was having regrets. Maybe last night had just been a drunken mistake.

I shuddered at the thought. I’d be humiliated if he changed his mind. Because my feelings for him definitely hadn’t changed when the alcohol had worn off.

At least I didn’t have long to worry about it, because I had a busy day ahead. Camden, the geologist, and a few of us guard members were going out to see the anomaly. Camden and the geologist hadn’t seen it, and I didn’t think some of the boys had, either. Which made this both nerve-racking and pretty intense. I wondered what their reaction was going to be.

I was even nervous about returning to it myself. I had a knot at the bottom of my stomach. When I’d seen it the first time, it had made me severely uneasy, and I had no doubt it was going to bother me a second time, too.

But I hadn’t been expecting things to have gotten as bad as they were.

I’d thought that we’d be going out on some motor boats, driving out to the anomaly, but, as soon as we reached the shore, it was clear that was not going to be necessary…

You could see it from the shore. The thing had ballooned massively. It hadn’t reached the shore, but it was immediately visible from it.

“What the hell…” Camden muttered as we saw it.

Anthony looked nervous. “What the hell is that?”

I shared his nervousness. It made absolutely no sense that this thing had gotten as big as it had. It hadn’t been that long since Finn and I had discovered it. The fact that it was already this big…

It couldn’t be good.

“This is a threat to us, right, Commander?” Shawn asked.

“Oh yes… it’s a threat. Whatever it is, the rate at which it’s growing… I think it’s dangerous to us,” Camden answered, as he looked at the geologist. “What do you think this is?”

The geologist looked equally as stunned, but he still offered up an explanation. “Well, it appears to be a volcano.”

“A volcano?” Shawn asked, sounding a little relieved.

“Yes, it has to be. For it to provide this much steam… it must be erupting underneath the ocean’s surface.”

But he didn’t sound too sure about that. Something in his voice just told me this answer didn’t hold his full confidence.

“And is this normal for volcanoes? For them to grow like this? For the heat to increase this much?” Camden asked.

“Normal? No. But… it’s certainly possible,” he answered.

Again, certain was the last thing he seemed.

I wanted to argue with Camden and him, suggest that maybe there was a magical reason behind this, but frankly I didn’t know enough to refute the geologist. I would have sounded like an idiot if I said anything.

But, deep down, I had this weird inkling that Finn really was right. This wasn’t natural— something natural didn’t grow at this rate. Something strange was definitely happening, though I couldn’t put my finger on what.

We were out there quite a while. Camden wanted photos, videos, measurements. He sent the flying shifters out to collect more data, though none of them flew directly in to the column of steam. They were all told not to do so.

When we finally finished up and got to base, I was relieved to see Finn in the entryway corridor.

A little less relieved when I saw how nervous he looked after glancing up at me.

The rest of the guys walked further inside, but I stepped toward him.

“Hey, can we talk?” I asked quietly.

“Sure,” he nodded, “but not here. In the library?”

“Sure.”

We walked into the library, and, our entire way there, his posture never softened. He didn’t ease. He was tense the entire damn time.

I prayed it wasn’t because of me.

When we were in the library, he closed the door behind him.

“So, what do you want to talk about?” he asked, trying to sound perky and failing.

“Uh…” What a weird question to ask. “Shouldn’t you know what I want to talk about?”

He just stared at me blankly.

I sighed. “About last night, about what happened between us.”

“Oh, right… what about it?” he asked.

Okay, so he definitely was uncomfortable about what we’d done last night.

“What’s going on, man? I mean, first you disappear this morning. Now you’re acting all shifty. Are you like… ashamed of what happened?”

“No, no, it’s not that,” he assured me.

But it didn’t assure me at all. Clearly something was bothering him, and he wasn’t being even remotely open about it.

“Okay… then what is it?”

“I really had to go this morning to do something important,” he answered, not even touching on the subject of us.

“Okay, and? What was it?”

“Well, I went to the Stelline University Library. I had exhausted all the info I could find at our own library, so I figured I’d take a look around and see if they had any useable information.”

As much as I wanted to know about us and direct the conversation back to our relationship, now that I’d seen how the anomaly had grown, I was just as interested in knowing what it was.

“And? Did you find anything?” I asked.

He nodded slowly. “I did. Something exactly like this has happened before.”

“Okay, and?”

“And… I don’t know. I really have to do more research. But, that’s why I had to leave. I wasn’t just running away from you— I had something important to do. And, I still have something important to do, so I’m going home for the day. I’m going to do some more thinking, figure some stuff out.”

I raised an eyebrow. “So, we’re not going to talk about us?”

“Not right now…” he told me slowly. “Soon, I promise. We will soon.”

“Okay…” I answered hesitantly.

He scurried out of the library, leaving me standing there confused and a little hurt.

I’d thought, after we got together, it would be be smooth sailing. I’d truly thought he’d be happy— that he’d want to explore this further. I’d thought he wanted a relationship.

I was heartbroken at the thought that he didn’t. What if these feelings didn’t go both ways? What if I had to go back to just being friends with Finn?

No, I couldn’t do that. That much I was sure about. I would not be able to return to a friendship. Now that we’d crossed this bridge, I’d never forget how good it had felt to kiss him. I’d never get it out of my mind that, the night we made love had been the best sex I’d ever had. I couldn’t go back.

Which meant, if he didn’t have feelings for me, I was going to have to lose my best friend entirely. This was exactly why I hadn’t wanted to try for anything romantic with him in the first place. I had known this was a possibility.

This had been my greatest fear.