Chapter 1: Chapter 1
The water at the old quarry was never warm, not even in the dead of August. It hit you like a cardiac shock, stealing your breath and tightening your skin until you thought it might crack. Seth preferred it that way. The cold was a full-system reset, washing away the static of another week spent bagging groceries and avoiding his mom’s worried looks.
“You gonna stare at it all day or are you gonna jump?” Emmett’s voice echoed off the granite walls, cheerful and intrusive.
Seth didn’t turn. He watched a dragonfly skate across the perfectly still, deep-blue surface far below. “I’m savoring the existential dread. It’s part of the process.”
Emmett snorted. The sound of a bare foot slapping against hot rock followed, and then the air was split by a wild, wordless yell. Seth flinched as the cannonball connected with the water, the concussive slap sending a chill-mist over his legs. He waited. Five seconds. Eight.
Emmett broke the surface fifty feet out, gasping and shaking water from his shaggy, brown hair like a dog. “Christ, it’s like jumping into a liquid panic attack!” he yelled, treading water. “Your turn, coward!”
“I’m not a coward. I’m a contemplative enthusiast of self-preservation,” Seth called back, but he was smiling. He toed off his worn-out Chucks, peeled his shirt over his head, and folded it neatly on a sun-warmed boulder. His movements were slow, deliberate. A ritual.
Emmett, meanwhile, hauled himself out on a flat shelf of rock downstream. He was always moving, a kinetic sculpture of lean muscle and restless energy. Water sluiced down his chest as he stood, hands on his hips, grinning up at Seth. “Contemplate faster! The sunset’s not gonna watch itself.”
Seth took a deep breath, the air tasting of pine and warm stone. He ran, three quick strides, and launched. The fall was a heartbeat of pure flight, then the icy plunge, the world going silent and dark and fierce. He sank, bubbles rushing past his ears, before kicking hard for the light.
He surfaced, sucking in air. “Okay,” he sputtered. “That’s still terrible.”
“Told you!” Emmett laughed. He was stretching now, arms over his head, completely comfortable in his skin and the fading orange light. He hadn’t put his shirt back on. It lay in a damp heap next to his own shoes. The golden hour gilded the water droplets on his shoulders, traced the line of his spine.
Seth swam closer, pretending to be interested in a particular slick of moss on the quarry wall. He’d seen Emmett shirtless a hundred times. A thousand. It was part of the landscape here, like the jagged rocks or the stubborn pines. But lately, his eyes kept snagging on details. The way a scar curled just under Emmett’s left rib, a souvenir from a bike crash in sixth grade. The specific pattern of freckles across his shoulders, like a faint, scattered constellation.
“So,” Emmett said, dropping onto a lower rock so they were almost eye-level, Seth still in the water. “You’re coming to Miller’s thing tonight, right?”
“I don’t know. His parties are just people screaming over bad music and spilling beer on their phones.”
“It’s a cultural experience. Also, Hannah Baylor might be there. She asked about you.”
Seth shrugged, letting his body drift. “She asked what kind of vegan cheese I recommend. It wasn’t a romantic inquiry.”
“You never know.” Emmett leaned forward, elbows on his knees. The movement flexed the muscles in his arms and chest. A simple, unconscious thing. Seth’s gaze dipped to the hollow of Emmett’s throat, then jerked away, fixing on a distant crow. His pulse, already slowed by the cold water, gave a funny, unsynchronized thump. Nerves. It was just stupid nerves. He was probably coming down with something.
“I’m not really in a party mood,” Seth said, and it was the truth. A low-grade dread had been humming in his veins all afternoon, unrelated to Hannah Baylor or cheap beer. It felt like waiting for a shoe to drop in a silent room.
“Suit yourself.” Emmett’s smile was easy, unbothered. He picked up a small, flat stone and tried to skip it. It sank immediately. “Damn. The water’s too calm. It’s cheating.”
“You just have a weak wrist.”
“Oh, is that the problem?” Emmett grinned, a challenge in his eyes. He found another stone. “C’mon, expert. Show me how it’s done.”
Seth paddled to the edge and hauled himself up onto the rock shelf. The air felt ten degrees warmer out of the water. He accepted the stone, their fingers brushing briefly. A spark, static or something else, jumped between them. Seth fumbled the rock.
“Smooth,” Emmett chuckled.
“Shut up.” Seth focused on the stone, on the grip, on the mechanics of the throw. Anything but the shirtless boy standing two feet away, radiating a familiar, easy warmth that suddenly felt anything but easy. He could feel Emmett’s eyes on him, waiting. The expectation was a physical pressure.
He drew his arm back and side-armed the stone. It skipped once, twice, three times with clean, satisfying plinks before vanishing.
“Show-off,” Emmett said, but he was impressed. Seth could hear it.
He finally turned, a witty retort on his lips about practice and natural talent.
The words died.
Emmett had moved to the very edge of the rock, looking out at the quarry walls now blazing with the last direct hit of sunset. The light caught him in profile, transforming him. It burnished his skin, traced the strong line of his jaw, the slope of his nose, the surprisingly long sweep of his lashes. Water or sweat—Seth couldn’t tell—gleamed in the fine hair on his chest. He was utterly still, for once, and in that stillness, he was completely, devastatingly new.
Seth’s breath hitched, catching in his throat like a burr. The ambient sounds of the forest—the cicadas, the far-off highway, the lapping water—faded into a dull, roaring silence. His world tunneled, violently and without permission, until the only thing in focus was Emmett. The scar. The freckles. The exact curve of his bottom lip. The way a single drop of water clung to his collarbone, trembling with his heartbeat.
It wasn't a thought. It was a geological event. A continental shelf shearing off and sliding into the sea. The nervous dread from earlier crystallized in an instant, sharp and sweet and terrifying, driving directly into his core.
Oh.
Oh, no.
Emmett chose that moment to glance over, his face breaking into that easy, oblivious grin. “What? Do I have something on my face?”
Seth finally looked Emmett in the eyes. Truly looked. Past the friendship, past the decade of shared history, into the endless, warm hazel of them. He saw the tiny gold flecks near the pupil, the faint crinkle at the corner from squinting at too many screens, the reflection of the fiery sky. He saw him.
And he imprinted. The knowledge settled into his bones, permanent and absolute.
Emmett was oblivious. Emmett was shirtless. And Seth was more nervous than he had ever been in his entire life.