feel guilty for not doing something sooner, despite Ms Hunter telling me Stewart hadn’t laid a hand on Evan prior to the school holidays. He always targeted her, and she’d been a willing sacrifice if it meant her son was safe.
The thing is, with Stewart in their lives, Evan had never been safe. But he is now, and he’s thriving, and all is once again good in the world.
“How’s it feeling today?” Will asks as he detaches his lips from my wrist.
I bend it back and forth and smile. “Good as new.”
“Excellent!” He hands me the oar. “You can help me row.”
“What? Ripped off.”
He laughs just as a family of magpies sing in a nearby tree, the sun’s shimmering reflection on the lake bright and beautiful. I inhale and push my sunglasses up the bridge of my nose. Everything is perfect… despite Will wanting to risk my life to go row boating.
“Fine.” I sigh. “I’ll get into this death trap, but only because I love you.”
We’ve been living together in his magical cottage for a couple of months now. It’s a dream come true. Every day, I wake up, and it’s as if I’m in my own fairy tale. But I do miss Sasha terribly. Carly, not so much.
Okay, maybe a little.
He kisses my scar again, winks, then scoops me into his arms, the sunlight illuminating the golden streaks in his beard. I giggle. He kinda sparkles like Edward Cullen in Twilight.
Placing me on my feet next to the boat, Will holds my hand as I carefully step in and take a seat.
“Please don’t tip us,” I say, gripping the sides.
The boat wobbles when he steps aboard, but we stay upright. We survive.
Will pushes off from the shore, and we float toward the centre of the lake, the water as smooth as glass.
I lean over the edge and skate my fingertips across the surface. “This is quite a lovely idea.”
We’ve just come from my routine ultrasounds, and Will thought this would be a nice way to distract me from my thoughts, even though I told him there were no “thoughts” in the first place. But that’s a lie, and he knows it.
“So have you rowed before?” I ask, hoping his answer is yes.
“No.”
“Oh. Well… you’re doing a great job. Keep it up.”
I don’t know why I’m so nervous. Maybe it’s because he’s in one of his quiet man-of-few-words moods. He gets like this sometimes and says it’s because I say enough for us both.
I’ve yet to figure out if that’s a good thing or not.
Rowing along the shoreline, I lean back and rest on my hands, admiring the view. The sleeves of his white shirt are rolled up, tight against his biceps, and I’m most thankful as his arms flex delightfully when he rows, the muscles in his neck taut.
I want to lick them.
“Elizabeth,” he warns.
“Yes, William?” I smirk, but I’ve no doubt it’s nowhere near as good as Bryce’s.
“Stop fucking me with your eyes.”
“Me?” I touch my chest. “I’d do no such thing.”
He stops rowing, and we drift, the boat all of sudden rocking more than I’m comfortable with.
“What are you doing?”
He goes to stand, steadying himself with his arms, before reaching for the waistband of his shorts. “I’m repaying the favour.”
“What?”
“You fuck me, I fuck you.”
“Will!” I try to tug him back down to sit. “Okay! Stop it! Sit down. Please! I’ll stop eye-fucking you. I promise.”
He deliberately rocks the boat before sitting, and I scream.
“Why did I agree to this?”
“Because I’m very convincing.”
He is. Too convincing. I need to get on top of that.
Clasping the oars, he continues to row when the sound of bongo drums and a violin fill the air, the tune overly familiar.
I tilt my ear toward the sound. “Can you hear that?”
He nods, a smile lifting the corner of his lip.
I twist, trying to pinpoint the origin. “It sounds like ‘Kiss the Girl’ from The Little Mermaid.”
We row around a corner past a weeping willow, the tune growing louder, and I gasp when I spot Derek, Bryce, Alexis, Carly, Charlotte, and Lucy standing on the bank of the lake, all of them dressed as various water creatures.
Eyes wide, my hand shoots up to cover my mouth. “What on earth?”
Alexis is a flamingo with her newborn, Brayden, in one arm, a microphone in her other hand. Charlotte is a turtle, also with a microphone in hand. Derek is a crab, again with a microphone. Lucy’s a fish, positioned behind a keyboard. Bryce is a