Chapter 2
His mouth tastes of the beer we both drank.
Dark, slightly bitter, but somehow still sweet. I slip my tongue between his parted lips, wanting more of it, and he groans, the sound vibrating through me.
“I’ve been thinking about this,” I say, licking the corner of his mouth, “since you had a drop of your drink at the pub.” I travel lower, placing a kiss under his jaw, scraping my teeth against his throat. “Since I saw you swallow it.”
His hands curl against the curve of my waist, crumpling the fabric of my shirt in his fists.
“And I—” He stops, releasing a harsh sound when I press my open mouth on the other side of his throat, taking his skin between my teeth. “I’ve been thinking about getting you out of these wet clothes since the moment I saw you.”
He tugs at my shirt, and I lift my arms, helping him peel the clingy material off.
The air feels cool against my bare skin, and a shiver creeps across my shoulders, but then his hands are there, rubbing up and down my arms.
“Not even for the normal reasons,” he continues. “Not at first. My first thought when I saw you was, I need to get her warm. I need to take her someplace dry. I need to buy her an umbrella.”
I laugh, my hands finding the buttons at the front of his sweater.
He shakes his head, a grin pulling at his mouth. “I mean, what kind of person travels to Scotland and doesn’t bring an umbrella?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I say, pushing his cardigan off his shoulders. “What kind of person would voluntarily choose to wear a sweater with elbow patches?”
“Why? Is it a turnoff?” His eyes shine behind his glasses, and he looks so…good. Handsome, yes, but it’s more than that. There’s something about him, about the way he looks at me, that’s guileless. Transparent. Pure and honest and just plain good.
“Not at all,” I say, my voice a bit hoarse, and he kisses me, the curve of his smile pressing into mine.
“Glad to hear it,” he says as his hands trail lower, traveling down the small of my back. “Because the cardigan’s a common occurrence with me, I’m afraid. Occupational hazard.”
“Yeah?” I say as I untuck his shirt from his pants, as he unbuttons the front of my jeans. “What does that mean?”
“Everyone I work with seems to wear one. I’m a—”
I place a hand over his mouth.
It’s involuntary. A move born out of self-preservation, because I can’t know what this man does for work.
If I let him say it, he’ll ask me what I do, and people react strangely when they hear I produce reality television.
Some start telling me about how their job is just their day job, and they’re actually an aspiring content creator, and could I put in a good word for them with casting?
Some wrinkle their nose, as if reality television is something contagious and they’re afraid they might catch it.
And others, especially in certain circles in L.A.
, especially my ex, tell me that it’s not a bad starter job, not a bad way to try to find a way into the industry, but surely I don’t want to do it forever.
Surely I want to do something else. Something important. Something serious.
I don’t want to hear any of that. I don’t want this night to be over, for all the attraction buzzing between us to shrivel away into nothing. I don’t want to think about any of that. Not now.
“I’m a tourist,” I say.
His brows draw together, deep lines forming between them. “I know.”
“No, I mean, I’m leaving. I’m going home in just a few days, so maybe we should keep this simple. No names. No jobs. No…”
“Nothing personal,” he says.
“Yes. Exactly.”
He nods, but the movement’s slightly stiff. He’s no longer looking at me, his gaze hovering somewhere over my right shoulder.
My stomach dips.
There’s been this ease between us since we met, and only now that it’s gone do I realize the equilibrium is off. That I threw it off.
“No,” I say, and his eyes shoot back to mine.
“That’s not…I didn’t mean it like that.” I pause.
“I don’t want to talk about any of those things, but it’s because all of that stuff, who we are, what we do, it’s all out there.
” I nod toward the door of my hotel room.
“And tonight, I just want to be here. In this moment.” I stop, finding that the next few words are lodged in my throat.
I force myself to swallow, not sure whether I’m trying to get rid of them or clearing the way to allow them out.
I barely know this man, have barely spent any time with him, but none of this has felt impersonal. And it feels important that he knows that. It feels like a lie to say otherwise.
“With you,” I say, the words finally escaping.
And that truth is what he needed, what we both needed, because with it said, that natural ease from before settles back into place, a smooth return to our earlier choreography.
It’s an unplanned, but somehow instinctive dance, the way I help him out of his shirt, the way he slides my jeans off my legs.
There’s a rhythm to it, a give-and-take.
In one moment, I lead, and he follows, and a second later, it’s the other way around.
“Okay,” he says, his breath hot on my ear, when I’m stripped down to the weathered gray sports bra and cotton underwear I wore on the flight.
They’re both the most comfortable and least attractive pieces of clothing I own.
They don’t even match, but I’m not the slightest bit self-conscious.
I can’t be, not with the way he’s looking at me, his eyes roaming down my body, his jaw slack as he takes me in.
Every inch of me feels warm now, the heat on his face transferring to me. Making me desperate for contact, desperate to work out the restless, buzzing sensation beneath my skin. Have I ever felt this desired? This wanted?
It’s intoxicating.
“I’m fine with that,” he says. “No names. No jobs.” His hands settle on the dip of my waist, his thumbs brushing up my rib cage, coming to a stop at the band of my bra. “But tell me something else.”
“Like what?”
His thumb slides underneath, tracing the curve of my breast.
“Something else,” he breathes. “Just one thing. Something about you. Anything, as long as it’s true.”
“I…” My mind is blank, driven to silence by the rhythmic sensation of his skin skating over mine. There’s a patience in his touch. Something sure and confident. Like he’s intending to take his time tonight. Like he’s in no rush.
I take a half step back, the backs of my thighs bumping against the edge of the bed, and I reach for him, pulling him closer.
“I can go first, if you want,” he says, his mouth bending into a gentle smile, and I nod.
“I haven’t left Aberdeen in two years.” He lifts a hand, brushing back a wet strand of hair that had been sticking to my cheek.
“Haven’t visited a different pub for longer than I can remember.
It’s always the same place, and the same order, and I like it that way.
I like the familiarity of having a routine, of knowing what to expect, but tonight…
I didn’t mind the change. I didn’t mind breaking out of that, because I didn’t expect this. I didn’t expect you.”
The sincerity in his voice, the honesty he’s offering a complete stranger, makes me feel unsteady. Off-balance. A bit in awe.
My hand finds the back of his neck, and I tug at him, my lips finding his, my body relaxing at the now familiar taste, now familiar feel of him. Warm and soft.
“I thought we were going to share something like how many pets we had growing up,” I say, and he laughs.
“You can still do that, if you want.”
“I don’t know. Feels like a bit of a letdown after you set the bar so high.”
“Not at all.” He kisses me again. “There are other options too. You could share your mother’s maiden name, or the name of the street you grew up on—”
I let out an amused huff of breath. “Oh, I see. This was just a scam all along.”
“Damn.” He clicks his teeth. “And here I was trying to be subtle.” His teasing expression melts a little, something unfiltered and kind taking its place. “You don’t have to share anything if you don’t want to.”
“I do. I just—” And then it comes to me, a confession I’ve barely allowed myself to think, let alone say out loud. “I hate weddings.”
He blinks. “You hate…”
“Weddings.” And now that I’ve said it, that I’ve admitted it to myself, the whole truth comes tumbling out.
“I didn’t always,” I explain. “In my early twenties, they were exciting. The idea that I was old enough, adult enough to have friends getting married was thrilling. And every single one felt new back then. But now…I mean, I’m still happy for my friends, but these weddings are starting to feel like—like a funeral of some kind.
A death of the friendship. An ending for me when it’s a beginning for them. ”
The corners of my eyes start to sting, and I blink the sensation away.
“I feel horrible even saying it. Like, I know I’m supposed to be ecstatic during each one, but sometimes people change after they get married.
They say they won’t, but they do, and I’m tired of…
of investing in people who end up leaving. ”
His thumb skates down the curve of my cheek. Tracing the path a tear would take, wiping it away before it’s even there. “Tell me what that means,” he says softly.
And just like that, I want to, words rising up, threatening to pour out of me again.
I don’t understand; I’m not usually like this. I’m the one who sits with others for hours, listening, holding their hand, carefully extracting their secrets. Sometimes for my friends, often for my job.
But no one’s ever flipped the script like this before. No one’s ever been able to do this to me. Maybe no one’s ever tried.