Callie and June had been best friends since they were kids, growing up in the same sleepy Southern town. They were inseparable through high school — Callie, wild and artistic, always barefoot and sun-kissed; June, quieter, thoughtful, the one who watched Callie like she held secrets the world wasn’t meant to know.
In their twenties, Callie married Eli — a builder, patient and observant — and they bought an old house by a private lake deep in the woods. June left town, chasing careers and cities and people she never quite connected with.
But now, ten years later, June was back. She needed quiet. Callie offered the lake house guestroom for a week. They didn’t know it, but the storm had already started.
It was their third night together.
The three of them had been swimming — the air still warm, but dusk now settling over the lake. June’s wet hair clung to her bare shoulders, and Callie watched her with something old and aching in her eyes.
Eli sat on the deck, toweling off, sipping whiskey, his eyes hidden beneath the brim of his hat. He wasn’t talking much tonight. Just watching.
Callie stood beside June in the kitchen, skin still damp, wearing nothing but a thin tank top and cotton shorts that clung to her in the heat. She handed June a glass of wine, their fingers touching for a second too long.
“You always stare when you think I’m not looking,” June whispered, the wine glass trembling slightly in her hand. Callie didn’t deny it.
“Eli sees it,” June added, quieter now.
“I know,” Callie said. “He doesn’t mind. He’s… curious.”
Their eyes locked. The silence between them pulsed. And when Callie reached out and touched the curve of June’s jaw, June leaned into it like she’d been waiting ten years.
“I still remember the first time we kissed,” June said.
“On the raft,” Callie murmured. “We were seventeen.”
“You tasted like peach schnapps and lake water.”
“And you,” Callie said, “tasted like trouble.”
She kissed her then — slow, uncertain only for the first second. Then it deepened. Hands slid over damp skin. Callie pressed June against the counter, her thigh slipping between hers.
Across the room, Eli watched them through the open kitchen door, his hand tightening around his glass. He didn’t move, didn’t speak — but his arousal was written across his body: the way his breath caught, the shift in his posture, the way his other hand slid slowly down to his lap.
Callie saw him.
She broke the kiss just long enough to whisper in June’s ear: “He likes to watch me fall apart.”
June’s lips curved, breath hot against her neck. “Then let’s give him something to remember.”
Callie slipped her hand under June’s soaked shirt, fingers grazing wet, bare skin. June’s gasp was swallowed in another kiss — deeper now, hotter. Callie’s hands roamed with urgency, memory guiding every touch.
Then June dropped to her knees. She kissed a path down Callie’s stomach, slow and reverent, tugging at the waistband of her shorts. Callie leaned back against the wall, her eyes meeting Eli’s across the room — wide, vulnerable, burning.
Eli watched every second as June slid her tongue along Callie’s inner thigh, coaxing moans from her lips, making her tremble, unravel, come completely undone right there in the golden kitchen light.
Callie’s hands gripped the counter.
Her eyes never left her husband’s.