He’s quiet. Then: “I used to have someone. Didn’t end well.”
For once, I drop the tease. “Sorry.”
He shrugs, and the gesture is so practiced I sense it’s his shield. “It was a long time ago.”
“My last relationship ended last year. He cheated. Everyone cheats, eventually,” I say, and the words come out harder than intended, flat and empty. “It’s the most predictable thing about people.”
He doesn’t blink. “A man doesn’t cheat on a woman he loves and respects.”
I stare at him, water beading on my knees, glittering in the sun, and feel something tighten behind my sternum. “You really believe that?”
“It’s a choice,” he says. “Not a disease.”
I want to laugh, but I don’t. “And if he does cheat?” I ask. “Is that just a lack of respect?”
He holds my gaze. “It’s cowardice. Or boredom. Sometimes both, but never love. Not real love.”
I look away, suddenly exhausted. “He said it was my fault for being too much.”
Cade’s mouth twists, just enough to register. “That’s a line for people who want to feel blameless.”
I wait for the lecture, but he doesn’t deliver one. Instead: “You deserve someone whose attention doesn’t drift.”
I almost say, “Like you?” but bite it back. That would make things far too awkward so soon.
The silence stretches, and for a second, it’s not uncomfortable. I find myself wanting to drown in it, to let it coil around me like the pressure of deep water.
He rises to his feet, towering, then turns away—half-dismissed, half-dismissing. “You’ve been exposed long enough. The UV index is high today. You’ll burn.”
It should sound patronizing, but somehow it doesn’t.
I watch him walk the perimeter again, moving with purpose. He doesn’t look back. He knows I’m still watching, and right now I’m not focused on his body, though he’s solid as stone, but on the discipline that drives him. He won’t let himself be distracted, even as I find myself truly distracted for once.
I lie back on the stone, close my eyes, and laugh into the sky, letting the sound carry on the hot air. I don’t know if Cade hears it, but I suspect he does.
By seven, the estate surrenders to twilight, the pool's surface now a sheet of rippling mercury under heavens that shift from soft violet to bruised indigo. I head inside, hair still damp and skin stinging faintly from the sun and chlorine. My mother’s voice drifts from the solarium, brittle as ice cubes in expensive gin, and I pivot away, up the back stairs two at a time. Even after three years of calling the Munro estate my home, I am reminded that there are spaces where I don’t belong.
On the second floor, I sit in front of my vanity and stare at the fading red line on my shoulder, evidence of Cade’s accuracy. Of course, it wasn’t rocket science. A pale girl swimming under the Texas sun is bound to burn. Still, for all his talk of respect and boundaries, he is the most invasive person I’ve met—the honest kind, the one who sees straight through any performance or provocation. His presence alone makes it impossible to be performative, or seductive, or anything but aggressively myself.
And I hate that I like this.
My phone lights up with three notifications from my ex, Trevor, but I don’t open them. Instead, I scroll through old photos and stop at my junior year yearbook picture: metal braces, dark circles under my eyes, flipping off the camerawith practiced defiance. The yearbook staff printed my quote underneath: "Break the rules, not yourself." I run my finger along the screen, wondering what that girl would think of me now—a woman who hides behind confidence, covering up old cracks, and who’s learned to use words as a shield because she’s tired of getting hurt.
From the window, I see Cade patrolling the outer fence. He walks with the coiled restlessness of a man doing everything in his power not to think about the thing he’s actually thinking about. Maybe that thing is me. Or maybe it’s just the ghost of an ex and the standard-issue loneliness they ration out in his line of work.
I wait until he’s made the circuit before slipping out, barefoot and braless and with nothing but a T-shirt and cutoffs. The air smells like scorched grass and pool chemicals, and the sounds of the estate are muffled by the settling heat. I find him at the edge of the garden, posted under the shadow of an eucalyptus, arms crossed, head up.
“What are you supposed to be guarding me from?” I ask, stepping into the gloom beside him.
He doesn’t move. “You’d be surprised.”
I look up. The first stars are out, flat and cold. “The only thing that scares me is becoming like her.”
Cade snorts quietly. “Then you’re nothing like her. Trust me.”
“You’ve known her three days.”
“Three days is enough.” He kicks at the dirt. “Some people advertise who they are before you even meet them.”