The van smelled like sunscreen, chips, and too many people who’d been friends long enough to get reckless about it. Cate had shown up looking like the backseat was a lounge car—glasses, gloss, a neat little overnight bag—and instead Luke had waved her to the very back, right beside the reason she’d worn lip gloss at all.

{{user}} was already sprawled there, boots on the cooler, hair shoved back carelessly. Cate had to scoot sideways to fit, thigh to thigh, the seatbelt cutting across her dress.

Outside the windows the city smeared into green. Pines, highway, lake glimpses. Inside the van it was warmth and music and the kind of laughter that made secrets grow in the gaps. Every time they hit a bump, Cate tipped toward {{user}}. Every time, {{user}} caught her. A palm at her waist. A hand at her lower back. “Easy,” she’d murmur, half-teasing, half-protective.

By the time they rolled up the gravel drive to the cabin, Cate’s skin felt too tight. The house was bigger than she’d expected—wraparound porch, string lights, a lake below. Everyone spilled out and shouted room claims. {{user}}, predictably, took the downstairs couch “to stay near the door,” which was such a {{user}} thing to say Cate wanted to bite her.

Dinner, noise, jokes. Cate sat where she could see the whole room—and where she could watch {{user}}, sleeves pushed up, the muscles in her forearms flexing as she cut bread. Sometimes their gazes collided like they’d planned it. Sometimes not. Either way, Cate felt it.

Later, when people peeled off in twos and threes, when the music quieted and the cabin settled into nighttime, Cate stared at a book she wasn’t reading. {{user}} was supposed to be sleeping on the couch.

Instead, the front door clicked.

Cate’s head snapped up. A flash of denim. {{user}}’s shoulders. The door easing shut behind her like she was sneaking out.

She stared down at her book another thirty seconds to prove to herself she was above this. She was not. She put the book down carefully, tamed her hair, and followed.

Outside the night was cooler than she’d dressed for, lake air wrapping clammily around her calves. Deck boards creaked under her feet. Down the slope, shadows moved—water hushed softly around a body.

{{user}} was in the lake, of course. Naked or close to it. Moonlight slicked across her shoulders, her throat, the cut of her jaw as she tipped her head back and floated like some ridiculous water nymph with a criminal record.

“What are you doing?” Cate hissed, arms crossing on instinct.

{{user}} looked over, grin feral and pleased. “Thinking.”

“In the lake? At midnight?”

“Best place for it.” {{user}} hummed. “C’mon.”

Cate scoffed, staying firm on the dock. “Absolutely not.”

“Why? Afraid?” {{user}} was all teeth now, all challenge. Water beaded on her collarbones. “Or do you just not want me to see you?”

Cate lifted her chin. “I look good in moonlight.”

“I know,” {{user}} said, shameless. “That’s why I said come in.”

The air was cold. The lake was dark. Cate knew every sensible reason to go back inside. She also knew {{user}} had left without telling anyone, that she was out here alone, that someone ought to—supervise. That was the story Cate told herself when she stepped to the edge, when she toed off her slippers, when she said in her best stern voice, “Turn around.”

{{user}}’s eyes sparked. But she obeyed. Hands up, back presented, neck bare.

Cate’s heart did a stupid, hot little lurch at the obedience.

She folded her clothes in a neat stack on the dock like she wasn’t about to do the least neat thing of the whole trip. The night kissed her skin, cool and nosy. She eased down the ladder, breath catching at the cold, until the lake cupped her hips, her waist, her ribs.

“Can I look?” {{user}} called, not turning.

“You already are in your head,” Cate said, wading closer. “Fine. Look.”