Chapter 8 #2
“Don’t apologize,” Shay said, a laugh in her words.
“I can be your human shield any time you need it. I’m down for that every day of the week.
You should’ve told me that was why you were in such a hurry to fake-marry me.
You had me thinking you were some kind of Scrooge McDuck, wanting to seize all the land on the rural side of the cove.
You could’ve explained yourself better, my friend.
” She peered up at me, scowling. “Please tell me we’re good, we’re friends.
I’m not sure what I did wrong, Noah, or how I gave you the impression that I—”
I kissed her again.
It wasn’t a smart choice, all things considered, but that saved me from explaining my version of our history. Not that she would understand it. I had my reality and she had hers, and I had to accept that those two would never match up.
This kiss was longer and less chaste than the first. I heard Gennie say, “That’s disgusting,” and someone else say, “Get a load of those two,” and I didn’t care because Shay grabbed a handful of my shirt and made a soft noise in the back of her throat that ended me.
It didn’t matter what happened next. If she disappeared from my life tomorrow. If she went back to Boston and gave up Twin Tulip. Even if she stayed though I could never touch her again.
None of it would matter because she’d kissed me back—and she’d loved every second of it.
When I pulled away, I said, “I am sorry.”
Shay shook her head. “Don’t be. You can use me any time you need to fend off the thirsty women of Friendship. There must be dozens of them. I’ll break their hearts for you. Destroy their dreams.”
“You sound…excited.”
She laughed. I felt her warm breath on my neck, then her lips grazing me there. I had to work at preventing my eyes from rolling back in my head.
“When does this game start?” Gennie asked. Her lips were bright pink when she turned to face us. She looked us over as if she found Shay locked in my arms every day. I really, really needed this to not fuck things up for her. “Is it soon? Or can I get popcorn?”
“Did you get any change from that lemonade?”
She shrugged but slipped her hand into her pocket. Real smooth.
“You have enough for popcorn,” I said. “Can you order it yourself or do you want us to go with you?”
Us.
Oh, god . I’d already incorporated this performance into an us . There were so many things wrong with me.
“You can watch me go there,” she said, skipping off toward the student council’s popcorn stand.
I brushed my lips over Shay’s temple once more. Not because Christiane was watching or because I gave a shit about anyone’s opinion. I did it because I’d wanted to do this since long before I knew what it was to kiss a woman on the forehead instead of the mouth.
“You don’t have to stay,” I said to her.
“Oh, but I do.” She flattened her hand to my chest. “Don’t forget.
I’ve met your gal. I know her voracity. If you think she’s not coming up to bat the second I leave, you’re underestimating her.
” She laughed, adding, “And I promised Jaime I’d come out and do this small-town life thing, even if I hated it. ”
Who the fuck is Jaime?
“Jaime? What about me? Didn’t I say the exact same thing?” I asked.
She put some time into smoothing my shirt. Like appearances really mattered on a hot August night when everyone over the age of fifteen was preoccupied with the liquor hiding in their water bottles and acting as though the bugs weren’t eating us alive.
And who the fuck is Jaime? Please don’t let it be the one from the situationship.
“Jaime’s my best friend,” she said, those precious little fingers still running over my shoulders and chest, tying concrete weights to every spot she touched before pushing me off a pier. “We’ve taught together for years. We talk just about every day. She’s the mom of our group.”
All right. We’ll keep Jaime.
“What’s the verdict, then?” I squeezed her hip. She was soft there, smooth and plush. My fingers could dig into her skin, cling to her, and I could leave marks if she let me. She wouldn’t let me. She wouldn’t because I’d never ask. “Do you hate it?”
“I don’t. It’s different than I remember. This whole place is different. Actually, it was pretty rude of Friendship to enter its cool phase after I left town.” She laughed again, the sound pulling at my gut. She made me want to wrap myself around her. Bury myself in her. “Is it different for you?”
“Sometimes,” I admitted. And that was the truth.
More often than not, I conducted business and lived my life without any of the agony from my childhood.
But then there was always someone who wanted to know how I lost the weight (I had no clue; I turned twenty and everything about my body started changing) or if I could recommend the dermatologist who cleared up my skin (same as above) or if I was happy now (not in the way anyone would expect, no, but in other ways, yes).
“People make weird comments. They say things that sound complimentary in their head but are like being smacked across the face with a dictionary.”
“I don’t like that,” she said, her words low enough to make me wonder whether they were intended for me at all. Then she glanced up from my shirt, her eyes dark and the crease between her brows deep. “I’ll be your human shield for that too.”
Too quickly, I said, “No need. I can handle it.”
“There’s a ton of shit I can handle,” she said, “and I’d still love if someone stepped in front of it for me.”
“Like what?”
Her lips pulled up on one side. It was a smirky pout and I wanted to kiss it off her face so hard, my jaw clicked.
“Nothing. Not relevant.” She patted my chest as if she was punctuating that statement, ending it with hard finality.
“I’ll stay for the game. I’ll give you some pointers on how to make it look like you’re completely in love with me and uninterested in anyone else. ”
Yes. Show me what that looks like. I have no idea. “You think you can do that?”
“Here’s what you don’t understand about me: I’m amazing with projects.
Give me a project and I’ll make it happen, get it done.
Like preparing Gennie for the evaluation coming up.
I have a clear, measurable goal, I know how to achieve it, and nothing else matters to me until I make that check mark and cross it off my list.”
“And now your goal is convincing people I’m in love with you?”
“Mmhmm. Easy peasy.”
Push me right off that pier. “Just for tonight? Or longer? What’s the timeline on this project?”
She paused, drummed her fingers on my chest. I had the perverse desire to grab that hand and suck on those fingers. I mean, perverse . “I am currently operating at a rate of one day at a time. I can give you tonight—”
My body heard something very different from what she meant.
My body had ideas that went far beyond perverse.
It was mortifying, really. The things I wanted were not simple or pleasant.
They were demanding and intense and—and primal .
And if Shay had even the slightest idea of the images playing in my head, she’d take her strawberry-blonde hair and her schoolteacher bags and run away from me as fast as she could.
And I’d want her to run away. If she heard even a sliver of the filth in my head, she’d never look at me the same way again.
Hell, I barely let myself think about the things I wanted.
“—and we’ll see what the future brings.” She drew in a breath and stared into my eyes for a long, silent minute.
It seemed like I was supposed to get something out of that gaze but the only thing I could do was study the cute little bow of her upper lip and imagine biting it.
Then, “If that’s what you want. I wouldn’t want to rub myself all over you unless you wanted it. ”
Fuck me .
Instead of offering that eloquent thought, I motioned to the trucks. “What do you want to eat?”
“I’m okay.” She shook her head, made a scrunched-up face as if she didn’t care. I didn’t buy it. “I don’t need anything.”
“They make quesadillas that are weird and incredible.” I pointed to the closest truck.
“And those guys are Korean barbeque. Exceptional. Best I’ve ever had.
Down there, that yellow truck, they do a variety of banh mi but their japchae is the hidden gem of their menu.
” I gestured to a few other trucks. “There’s also the usual suspects.
Pizza, grilled cheese, fries topped with things that don’t make sense but taste good. ”
She stared at me, her eyes smiling and her lips pouting. It was like she was daring me to kiss her again.
“Tell me what you want.”
A breath stuttered out of her. “Wh-what?”
“What do you want?” I punctuated each word with a squeeze to her hip. “From the trucks. They’re going to close up and head out soon.”
“Oh. Right. Oh my god, yes, the trucks.” She heaved out a sigh and ran her fingers over my shoulder, down to my lower back.
She drew swirls and circles as she hummed to herself and all the tension I’d stored there melted away.
If she could do the exact same thing to my neck, I’d build a shrine in her honor.
“I’m not sure. Is there something you’d share with me? ”
Only everything in the entire world.
Since my options were split evenly between confessing that exact thing and leading her toward the closest food truck, I settled my hands on her waist and steered her in the direction of the quesadillas.
“The French onion soup quesadilla is bizarrely good,” I said.
“Same with the pot sticker quesadilla, but you can’t go wrong with the old favorite, barbeque chicken. ”