I WOKE UP and nearly rammed my face into a coffee mug. A coffee mug that Ray was holding out to me like a peace offering.

I narrowed my eyes. “What’s this?”

“Coffee,” she said slowly. “You drink it, or in your case, just IV it right into your veins and then ask for some more.”

“Thanks.”

I tried not to be skeptical. We fought. We hadn’t exactly gotten along to the extent where I made her breakfast in the morning and we poured over our feelings and mistakes.

“The chicken had to use the restroom, so I took it—” She frowned. “Why are you giving me that look?”

“It’s… trained?” I said in a hoarse voice.

“Clearly!” Now she was giving me a crazy look. “I swear they trained it. It stayed up all night watching us—” Nice, not the scariest sentence I’d heard in my life but a close second. “—and now it’s completely crashed!” She pointed to her bed. The chicken was tucked into itself looking innocent as hell while I was rubbing my burning, probably red-rimmed eyes and willing the caffeine to work faster.

“So…” I nodded at the chicken. “…it’s like a guard dog we can eat?”

“You will do no such thing!” She stood and put her hands on her hips. “He’s useful, plus, now we won’t have anyone interrupting…” Her voice trailed off, and she pinned her gaze on the floor.

My eyebrows shot up. “Sleep?”

“Yup. Sleep. Right. Of course.” She started chewing on her thumbnail, did a slow circle, and then grabbed her shower caddy.

I kicked myself when she left.

And waited for the chicken to attack.

When it didn’t, I lay back on the bed and wondered what I could do to make things easier, how I could help her.

And came up empty.

Ten hours later, we were just starting the staff bonfire, and I still had nothing. I’d seen her a handful of times.

She was polite.

I was polite.

I wanted to either get drunk or punch a wall.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this!

We were fire and ice.

Oil and water.

I wanted her passion, her fighting, her screaming. I wanted her at odds with me so I could convince her with my tongue how good it would feel to be even.

Jackson handed me a beer.

I chugged it.

Waited for her.

Held out my hand and magically got another cup placed in it.

“Just fuck her,” Jackson said.

Brax sat down on my other side. “But this time not for revenge. You know, do it because you look miserable, she looks miserable. She took home a chicken, dude. No girl should ever replace a guy with a fucking chicken.”

I smiled down into my beer, feeling a warm buzz in my blood. “It’s her pet. Johnny stays.”

“Hell, she named it?” Jackson shuddered while Brax burst out laughing.

Ray and Jen rounded the corner of HQ with linked arms. Campers and staff members ran up to them to talk, and I saw Ray’s face light up, as if she was a part of a team, and I wondered how much better her life would have been had she felt like that during high school. Had we both just ignored our immature shit and bonded. Stayed friends.

Enemies.

Anything was better than what had happened.

And now?

Now I felt like I was at square one.

If I seduced her, she’d think I had ulterior motives.

So, I left the ball in her court.

Her very skittish, untrusting, spooked-up court.

I took another long sip.

“You know…” Brax cleared his throat. “…not that I’m as good at all of this as you guys, but girls, they like attention.”

“Spare me,” Jackson said sourly, taking another draw from his red cup.

“Hear me out.” Brax stood and shouted, “I’m IN LOVE!”

“How much alcohol has he had?” Jackson said under his breath.

“‘I’m in LOVE…’” Brax sang and then dropped to his knees. “‘…with a stripper…’” And like any nerdy drama camp with musicians and actors, and everything in between, suddenly it was as if Camp Rock puked all over us. People harmonized, added in instruments with their voices, sticks, buckets.

It was impossible not to grin.

“‘She poppin’, she rollin’.’” Brax moved his hips.

“Not bad for a redhead!” Jackson shouted and jumped to his feet and joined him.

Jen lit up when Jackson danced toward her and pulled her into his arms, and Ray stood there with a frozen smile on her face.

And it hit me like a dagger to the chest.

That smile, the reason it bothered me, irritated me, made me angry…

Was because it was the same smile she had worn through high school. The same smile she gave me after I kissed her real smile.

Livid, I marched over to her, grabbed her hand, and basically dragged her away from the campground like a caveman.

I walked.

She followed.

No words were spoken.

And I was beginning to realize that when it came to us? No words were really needed. Because our bodies just bled our emotions all over the place without really needing to say anything at all, didn’t they?

Me walking: I’m pissed.

Her following: Get in line.

My grip on her hand: I’m terrified of losing you.

Her grip back: I’m petrified of letting go.

And on and on the conversation went, with each of our bodies warring against our minds, both of our souls fighting to be set free, and two broken hearts trying to mend themselves with shards of glass that continued to pierce them over and over again.

I stopped at the lake, chest heaving.

I couldn’t control my own feelings over the situation. Fight her or kiss her? Yell at her or gently take her hand and ask what was wrong? The inner nerd, the foster boy who’d been abused in high school wanted justification. He wanted revenge. He wanted so many fucking things.

Ignoring him meant ignoring a wronged part of myself when she turned me away, when she treated me like shit.

And yet acknowledging him meant I wasn’t able to be what she needed right now in this moment.

The wind blew against my face.

I clenched my jaw. “If you could take anything back, what would it be?”

Ray didn’t let go of my hand. “Nothing.”

I tried to pull away.

She squeezed my fingers so tight it felt as if they were going to fall off my hand. “Mistakes don’t break us. They refine us. I wouldn’t take anything away because I’d like to think I’m smarter now.”

“No regrets, huh?”

“A ton of regrets,” she said quickly. “My biggest regret being that I never told Marlon Brandon how I felt about him. Furthermore, when he stood bravely in front of a group of seniors and claimed me as his, I looked away.”

I closed my eyes. “I wanted to go to prom with you. I made this ridiculous flower out of paper, thinking that if I had something different, something that didn’t die…” I gulped. “…something you could keep forever, that you’d say yes.” I turned, dropped her hand, and glared. “I hated you.”

“Not as much as I hated myself,” she said faintly.

“I loved you.” I cupped her face with my hands.

“You were the only one who did.” Tears filled her eyes.

I crashed my mouth onto hers without warning, and she pressed her body against mine without an apparent care.

Our tongues tangled in a frenzy that said more than any more words would. I winced in pain when she dug her nails into my forearms, and when I gripped her ass with my fingers, digging in and jerking her against me, her whimper was all I needed.

Everything.

“Jump with me,” I whispered against her mouth, pulling away.

Her eyes darted from the lake back to me. “I don’t think—”

I pushed her in.

And jumped in after her.

“What the hell, Marlo!” she roared when she surfaced, splashing all over the place then shoving my chest.

I pulled her against me, even as she banged her fists onto my body, and when she started to cry, I spoke against her neck. “I figured it was less scary when you have no choice but to jump… and let me follow.”

“I hate you.” She raised her hand to hit me.

I grabbed her wrist, wrapped her arm around my neck, and shook my head. “Love and hate… hand in hand.” I pressed a kiss to the side of her mouth while she gasped, as if she wanted more. “We’ll always have both.”

I swam us backward and grabbed onto the pier then jerked off my shirt, followed by my wet shorts and everything else.

“Wh-what are you doing?” Her eyes widened.

“Loving you.” I shrugged, tugging her shirt over her head, and unhooking her bra, cupping her breasts and straining toward her. “Hating you.”

She fell against me then unbuttoned her shorts and pulled them down her hips; she chucked them up on the pier and stared at me with still-wide eyes and puffy lips. “So, hate me.”

“With pleasure.” I pulled her into my arms and gripped her panties in my right hand then slowly pulled them down her thighs. I dipped my hand between her legs, and my fingers found her core.

She hissed out a curse.

“With fucking pleasure,” I murmured.

“Marlo…”

Her head fell forward; she rested it in the crook of my neck as I sank my fingers into her heat and played. She bit down on the tender skin beneath my ear.

“…more… I need you more.”

“I know you do.” I teased her relentlessly, lying to myself, claiming it was physical, but it was the exact opposite. This was how we had conversations, wasn’t it? When words weren’t enough? When all we did was throw barbs at one another and seethe with hatred? Our bodies were the only honest thing we had going for us. This impenetrable tension, this heat pulsing between us like a heartbeat, like a living, breathing thing.

She dug her heels around me, and I gripped onto the metal ladder that would take us to the dock, but I didn’t haul us up. Water sloshed around us, and I let out a curse when she angled her head and slammed her mouth against mine just as I dipped my fingers into chaotic angry perfection and told myself that I would come back without any scars.

My tongue slipped past her lips. I sucked hard as I moved my fingers back and forth, and when I retreated, she grabbed my fucking wrist and held me there, rocking her body against my hand with wild abandon.

I jerked away and flipped her around so that she was facing the ladder, and then placed her hands around the metal. “Hold on,” I rasped, verbally anchoring her there. She twisted, but I pressed against her ass, pushing her into the ladder’s rungs, and she gasped as I reached around her, once again finding my favorite playground. The sight of her skin in the moonlight as water trickled down her bare back was the most erotic sight I’d ever had the pleasure of seeing. Her moving with me, soft gasps between swollen lips, excited me beyond measure.

She arched her back against me and squeezed her legs together, the slight movement capturing me between her thighs. Closing my eyes, I reveled in the sensation of searing heat there while the cool water surrounded the rest of me. But if I stayed there too long…

A groan slipped past my lips as I drew back and turned her around, pinning her back against the ladder as I pressed my body into her from the front. Time seemed to slow, and we hung there, suspended in the moment, as the lake lapped at us in a lazy rhythm. Water dripped from my hair, running over my forehead and into my eyes, and I shook my head, breaking the spell.

Our gazes collided, and my brain had trouble focusing as her eyes searched mine, so many questions, too many words, words that would cut, leaving us bloody and broken, more pissed-off than before.

“Tell me something true,” I whispered against her mouth, teasing her entrance with my tip.

Heat exploded between us, and she let out a shaky breath. I shouldn’t have spoken, shouldn’t have introduced conversation when our bodies were doing just fine.

“I will always hate you as much as I love you,” she said sadly, “because you made me hope after a lifetime full of letdown. And you did it twice.”

My chest snapped, my heart stuttering to a stop and then rebounding painfully against my ribs as her hurt expression met mine. “And I’m hoping…” Tears filled her eyes. “…that this won’t end badly because I seem to lose all sense of reality around you. All I see is you. Can you handle your truth, Marlo?”

I sighed and pulled away.

Tears spilled over her cheeks. I wiped them with my thumbs. “The problem with words that are true— They make you think. They stop you from acting. And as much as I want to act right this very second, I think the spoiled princess deserves more than a hate fuck in a lake.”

She lowered her eyes as red stained her cheeks.

I tilted her chin up. “So, ask me…”

“What?”

“Ask me for something true.”

“I’m afraid of the answer.”

“Don’t be.”

She bit down on her lower lip. “Fine, tell me something true.”

“Being with you… wasn’t just a favorite moment of my life, a blip in high school you brag about to your friends. It was everything to me. Everything I didn’t realize I’d missed. It was my first introduction to true love. And that is why I will both always love you and hate you.”

“Guys!” Jackson’s voice sounded from the dock. “The chicken — or Johnny or whatever the hell you’re calling it — escaped and chased a camper. I ran, and maybe you can’t hear me, or maybe you’ve gotten over your shit, and you’re hiding under the bushes dry-humping, but you should probably take care of that.”

“This isn’t over.” I brushed a kiss across her lips.

“Has it ever been over?” she asked while I reached up to the dock for my shorts, only for Jackson to toss them over.

Great.

I smiled at Ray and then cupped her head and kissed her once more, tasting her again, loving her again, hating her again. “No.”

She smiled against my mouth. It felt so damn good that I wanted her smile pressed against my lips forever.

But Jackson was clearly aware of where we were and what we were doing, and I didn’t want him staring at her underwear for longer than a few seconds… or at all.

I growled and pulled myself away from her. “Tonight.”

“Same time, same place?” Her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes.

I hated it.

“As long as the cock doesn’t interfere.”

She rolled her eyes. “Which one?”

I barked out a laugh.

“I can hear you guys…” Jackson let out an irritated sigh. “I was trying to be a gentleman.”

“And that would be a first,” I grumbled, tugging on my wet shorts and taking the ladder rungs two at a time to reach the dock. I gently tossed down Ray’s clothes and crooked my finger at Jackson. “Turn around and walk. Look back, and I drown you.”

“Think you could manage it?” He flexed.

I flicked his bicep.

“Ouchie!” He laughed and then jogged off.

I waited for Ray.

I kept my back turned.

Because I wanted her all to myself.

No more sharing with nature.

With stolen nights away from parents.

Showers.

Mine. All mine. Which meant the chicken was either going to have to wear a blindfold or get traumatized for life.

Either way, tough shit.

Ray’s steps interrupted my thoughts.

And then she interlocked our fingers.

We walked hand in hand back to the camp. Completely drenched.

And somehow, I felt calmer than I had in years.