"I'm not going to—"
"Preet."
Her name again. That specific effect. Like a switch she hadn't known was installed.
"I'm not—" She was still holding his wrist. Still. Her knuckles, in the moonlight, visibly white. "I haven't decided anything yet. You can't just — I haven't said yes yet—"
"You said yes in the water."
She opened her mouth.
Closed it.
"You nodded," he said. "When I asked if I could hug you."
"That was a hug—"
"And you said yes when I said your blouse was coming off."
"That was—"
"And yes when I said those were coming off." He didn't look at the absent underwear. He didn't need to. "You've been saying yes for twenty minutes, Preet. Your mouth is the last thing to catch up."
She was going to die.
She was genuinely going to die on this beach in the moonlight arguing with a man about the philosophical implications of wet underwear.
His other hand — the free one, the one she wasn't gripping — moved to her knee.
She felt it there. Just resting. Not moving.
