After the karaoke fest, Fox says he needs a ride home. I can tell immediately he means sleepover. Funnily enough, that’s exactly what it is. Just sleeping. Mostly because we both get naked and he promptly passes out. It doesn’t bother me, really. I’m tired and I don’t mind going right to sleep. Only, I can’t sleep.
As Fox snores lightly next to me, I stare at the ceiling. Something is making me restless, though I’m unable to put a finger on it. I turn onto my side and face the window. The movement settles the moonlight across my face. It’s bright enough that I briefly wonder if someone is shining a flashlight in the window.
Eyes half-lidded, I slide out of bed and shuffle toward the window. I simply stare at it for what feels like hours, the sound of the waves providing the perfect soundtrack. I turn around and walk toward the door.
“What are you doing?” Fox asks.
“I’m going for a swim. I can’t sleep and swimming in the ocean relaxes me.” I didn’t mention that swimming naked is what relaxes me, but I wager he’ll figure that out.
“You don’t have a suit here,” he says sleepily.
“I’m already wearing it,” I say quietly, performing a naked curtsy.
He’s fully awake now, stumbling out of bed and following me into the living room to the sliding doors. “What? You’re going skinny dipping?”
I chuckle, step out onto the deck, and grab a beach towel off a chair.
“Alone? At night?” he continues, sounding worried. “You know how dangerous that is, don’t you?”
I hold the towel to my chest and nod. “Since you’re joining me, you can play lifeguard.”
He eyeballs me.
“I won’t go in far. I just like to feel the water move around me.”
“That’s called an undertow, Einstein.”
My toes are already buried deep in the moonlight-chilled sand. “Look at this moon. It’s practically calling to me.”
“Moon kills, you know,” he teases, quoting one of my favorite summer movies. Meatballs, in case you’re wondering. My dad introduced me to it as a kid, and I’m pretty sure Fox was staying over at our house that night.
“As long as you don’t have a hook on your foot,” I joke. Bill Murray is the tits, by the way.
“Hand.”
“I know the story,” I say with a low laugh before dropping the towel and slowing stepping into the cold surf. I shiver when the first tiny wave laps at my knees and splashes up my thigh. Pushing forward, I continue until I’m standing waist deep. Then I stop and close my eyes. The moon isn’t quite full, maybe a day or two away. I let my fingers trail in the water, making an unfinished circle around me.
Something about being in the water heals me. And if I’m naked, I feel completely unfettered. I listen to the waves, relish the light breeze, and eventually bend back until I’m briefly submerged. Upon resurfacing, I slick my hair back as the water runs off me.
“Not perfect, but better,” I say to myself. “Wooo!” I call out, fully aware of how ridiculous it is, but I do feel more relaxed.
Fox mutters a joke about me being drunk as if I can’t hear him. Whether he realizes it or not, he’s progressively gotten closer to me. “All right, little mermaid, are you done yet? I’m freezing my balls off out here. I think those might be important to you.”
I smile to myself and turn. “Just me?”
“All right, me, too. Definitely. I’d like to keep them.” He grins, but shifts to impatience. “Come on, let’s go.”
I sigh, a little tarnished by his resistance to enjoy the moment. He notices the slump of my posture.
“What’s wrong?” He stands board straight, the blue light of the moon’s reflection off the water throwing a moving light show over his chest. I can barely see his blond highlights until a breeze moves a lock of hair across his eyes. It’s still too dark to see their color, but I know them well. The bright hazel in his left eye turns almost golden in certain lights, jade in others, and caramel when he’s turned on. The green hilariously looks like a copycat of the other, but it’s clear they’re different colors. Fox truly is a beautiful man. A good man. Maybe the best I know.
That’s when I feel it.
The spark, the center of a new heat in my belly, my chest. It radiates all over my body. It’s a sudden hunger that seems impossible to sate. I want him, and not just because I want to have a baby, but because I’m so turned on—by his concern for me. It had become more and more intense in the past month or so. I noticed but hadn’t paid much mind because I didn’t want to. We agreed to “benefits” so why would I? Physical urges had shifted to a label that allowed us to tell ourselves “this is fine because it means nothing.”
Whether he feels he was kidding himself is something else altogether. For me, I was completely insane. All of this blends with the fact that I love him because he’s one of my best friends in the world. Maybe the best friend. The one I discounted all along because he was Fox. Goof off. Lackadaisical surfer boy. Perpetual playboy. Casual Casanova.
The real Fox, the one afraid of commitment because his father is an asshole and his mother never moved on, is so much more. He’s loving, caring—even if he acts like he doesn’t want you to believe he feels anything deeper than the water at the edge of the surf. He’s smart and perceptive despite his knack for playing dumb. I see everything so differently now.
I was afraid to see it, see him, but right now I need him. In more ways than one.
He wades closer to me, stopping when he’s almost touching. Almost. “Are you all right?”
I can see his eyes now that the light of the moon bounces off the water onto his face directly. Warm caramel and the most amazing green hue. “With you, always.”
Before I can lift my arms high enough to wrap around him, he pulls me against him and kisses me. It knocks my feet out from under me, so I crawl up his body and latch on with my legs.
The kiss is frenzied and sloppy, and part of that scares me. Because I know, or rather admit to myself what I feel for him, and I don’t know what to do about it. Luckily, I don’t have much time to think about it. Next thing I know, we’re out of the water and Fox drops to his knees on the balled up towel.
“No way!” I shout. With some effort, he struggles to stand back up and continue to the house.
“I got it,” he mumbles and bites the juncture of my neck and shoulder. “No sandpaper sex.”
I laugh all the way to his bed, where I’m deposited without regard for my salty post-swim state. “I’m all wet,” I say, starting to sit up.
“I hope so,” he growls and I laugh harder. He attacks me with hands and kisses, barely restraining hysterics himself.
My exhale feels ripped from my chest as I realize I would be legitimately jealous and unspeakably hurt if he was doing this with someone else.
Shit.