And I want to feel that for myself. The way Eden feels it when Orion lifts her toward the sky. After she admits that she’s in love with him.

I turn back toward Cole, and he’s standing there naked under a blanket of stars. My breath hitches in my chest. He’s all tousled dark hair and smoky eyes and beautiful skin. Angles and edges.

He gives me a little sideways smile, and my heart is in my throat.

But I’m sliding off my shorts.

My underwear.

My bra.

I’ve never been completely exposed liked this. Not in front of someone else. Not in the moonlight. Toes in the sand. Just on the edge of the ocean.

Just on the edge of everything.

And it feels so unimaginably good.

I take Cole’s hand and lead him toward the water. If the first shock of cold stops my heart, it’s the electricity in his touch that starts it beating again.

Jude and Lex and Val are bobbing up and down like corks. Cole and I make our way out to them. And then we’re all slicing through the sound. Pulling ourselves toward the swim dock. Arm over arm. Feet kicking. Salt water glistening on our eyelashes.

Jude disappears below the surface and my heart seizes. There’s a moment of pure terror. Lex yells his name, and I can hear the fear in his voice. “Fuck!” Val says. Her eyes are frantic. Searching the blackness. But then Jude pops up ahead of us, shaking the water from his curls.

We reach the swim dock and pull ourselves up the slippery ladder one by one to collapse on top. We forget that we’re naked, dressed in salt and moonlight. We’re laughing. Teasing. Lex pushes Jude off into the water. “That’s for scaring us, asshole,” he says. But Jude manages to grab Lex by the ankle, and over the edge he goes, too.

They shriek and splash. And then they share a kiss, both of them clinging to the ladder, before they climb back up to rejoin the rest of us. We all stretch out on our backs. I’m lying in the crook of Cole’s arm. My head is on his shoulder. My right hand and his left meet over his stomach. Our fingers intertwine and we move with the rhythm of the rocking swim dock.

“Cole,” Val says, “do you really believe this place is haunted?” She’s lying on her side, facing away from us, trailing her fingers through the dark water. I can’t see her face, but I trace the curve of her hip with my eyes. The bend of her spine.