“Drew!” I say, scolding him, though something in me tightens at the sight of his bare chest again, at the trail of hair that connects his belly button with the waist of his shorts. His hair is wet and sticking up at all angles, and droplets of water are stuck in his eyelashes like snowflakes.

“What?” He raises his hands out of the water to motion to his bare chest. “This is just like a bathing suit. No biggie.”

“Right,” I say, trying to take a deep breath, remembering too easily the kiss we shared earlier. “I’m not taking mine off.”

“Fine,” he says, flicking at the water with his thumb. “I’m not expecting you to.”

“Fine,” I say.

“Fine.”

And then I do, my hands reaching for the hem of my shirt like they don’t belong to me, like they’re someone else’s hands and they’re not under my control. I peel my shirt up and over my head and set it down on the side of the tub. My bra is gray cotton and might be a little see-through, but I try not to think about it. He’s staring at me, and I’m staring back, the air between us thick.

He reaches down into the water and undoes the button of his wet shorts, and I mirror him, reaching down to undo mine. We peel them off at the same time, and the water sloshes out of the tub. I lean forward, trying to shimmy out of the heavy, wet fabric. He leans forward too and lifts his knees, his legs on either side of me, holding me in place. His shorts are still half off, but he’s stopped undressing, because now the front of him is pressed up against the front of me, and our faces are less than a foot apart, and I’m not thinking or breathing. The heat of the bathwater is making my head spin and I feel dizzy again, but not in an unpleasant way, like before. Not like I’m going to be sick. No, it feels like the moment on the top of the roller coaster, the moment before you fall, the moment that you’re weightless.

Then he closes the space between our lips and kisses me, his wet chest pressed against mine, slippery and warm and delicious. The water is still coming out of the faucet behind me, the sound of it rushing like the blood in my ears. He reaches a hand up into my wet hair and pulls me even closer to him, biting my bottom lip, the feel of it sending a chill through me despite the heat of the bath.

All I can think is more more more. I need to get closer to him. I want to be as close to him as possible, to become a part of him, to sear together like two atomic particles.