Chapter 17
“I didn’t know your full name before today,” Jacob says as he walks beside me.
I squint at him, trying to make out his face in the growing dark.
“You didn’t?”
He shakes his head. “I didn’t realize Neelu was short for anything.” He pauses. “But I like it. Neelam.”
A warm sensation flutters through me. There’s something about hearing my full name, about hearing him say my full name, that makes me feel like bubbles are rising in my chest.
“I like it too,” I say. “And what about you? No one’s ever shortened your name? Called you Jake?”
He laughs, the sound so rich it seems to echo off the cobblestone street.
“No,” he says. “I’m not a Jake.”
“No,” I say. “I don’t think you are.” I grin. “I don’t know too many Jakes who’d wear elbow-patched sweaters.”
An amused sound escapes him. “What is it with you and that sweater?”
“Nothing,” I say.
We pass under a streetlight, and I catch his brief skeptical expression.
“Nothing,” I say again. “Really.”
When his face contorts, growing even more disbelieving, I can’t help but let out a laugh.
“What?” he asks.
“I just remembered what you called it. An ‘occupational hazard.’ I get it now.”
He smiles, his teeth flashing. “You do?”
“Yeah,” I say, waving a hand at him. “Poetry professor. Wearing the cardigan, sitting in a gothic-style building. In a dark room, surrounded by books. Probably with a pipe in your mouth.”
“Hard no on the pipe. I don’t smoke.”
“Really? I mean, that’s the right call. Horrible for your health and everything, but wouldn’t you at least pose with it? Just for the aesthetic?”
He releases a breath, something bordering on a laugh. “I’m not even sure what that means.”
“You know,” I say. “For your whole ‘Brains’ vibe.”
And now he really laughs, a deep, rough sound. “ ‘Brains vibe’?”
A car drives past—the only one we’ve seen on the main street tonight—and Jacob steps a hair closer to me.
“Sorry,” I say. “It’s silly. Just something we do on the show.”
He glances in my direction. “On Love in the Sun?”
“Yeah,” I say.
“Hmm.” He rubs the back of his neck. “I’ve seen it, you know. Not a full episode, but Maggie and your dad were hooked on it last year.”
I nod. “I remember she said that.”
Jacob and I are quiet for a little bit as we walk past the closed shops and the occasional odd person who’s out this late.
“So, tell me about it,” he says, and I look up at him.
“About what?”
“The show. What ‘Brains’ is supposed to mean.”
“Oh. It’s a casting thing,” I say. I rub the bridge of my nose. I’ve thought of him as a “Brains” so often that it just slipped out, but now, I’m not sure how to explain it. It feels ridiculous to say it all out loud.
A beat passes, and I can feel Jacob’s gaze on the side of my face.
“And what does it mean?” he asks. “For casting?”
I open my mouth, then close it. He’s still watching me. I can sense it, the side of my face growing hot.
He’s silent for a moment. “Is it…not a good thing?” he asks. “I mean, it’s fine, if you don’t want to—” He clears his throat.
“No,” I say. “No, it’s just…there are certain, um, categories of people we like to have on the show, you know, to make sure it’s a well-rounded group.
All our contestants have a type, even if they say they don’t, so we want to make sure there’s a good mix of people and personalities, and ‘Brains,’ well, they’re the academic type.
Smart and well read, and maybe a little nerdy.
An intellectual, confident in their area of expertise.
” I lift a shoulder. “It’s not a bad thing.
Not at all. And it’s not the only way we look at casting, but it’s part of it. ”
“Ah,” he says, a short, soft sound. He goes quiet again for a moment. “And you think that’s me? That I’m a ‘Brains’?”
“Oh.” The heat on my face spreads down my neck to my chest, covering every inch of my skin. “That’s what I thought, yes. The night we met.” I pause. “But if I’m honest, it was mostly because of the sweater.”
He laughs, and his voice is warm as he says, “It all comes back to that sweater.”
And I’m giddy, floating, when I respond, “I guess it does.”
We’re silent again, walking side by side, the inn coming into sight.
“You must be good at it,” he says. “Casting.”
“I don’t—I mean, I hope I am. I’ve been working on the show for a while now.”
“No,” he says. “You’re good at it.” The corner of his mouth rises. “Look how well you figured me out.” He pauses. “Is it always that quick? You just look at someone and know exactly who they are?”
“No, it’s—it’s not that I actually know them. It’s more of a…category, a type, a general sense of who they might be, but I’m not always right.”
He hums, then steps in front of me, opening the door to the inn, and I walk under his outstretched arm.
“And what about you?” he asks.
I turn as he follows me into the lobby.
“What about me?”
He watches me, his face open and gentle. “What category do you fit under?”
My body goes still.
Has anyone ever asked me that before?
“I—I don’t know.”
He takes a step closer to me, and his eyes are focused, intense, as they settle on mine. “Mind if I take a stab at it?”
I shake my head, my heart thudding in my chest.
“You’re kind,” he says. “Thoughtful. Even when others haven’t always been that way to you.
You’re observant, picking up on things, drawing conclusions.
” The corner of his mouth climbs up. “Your intuition is right most of the time, and that makes you a little stubborn, convinced that you’re right, because you so rarely turn out to be wrong. ”
I inhale sharply, but he keeps going, not yet done dismantling me brick by brick.
“You see the world extremely clearly, fitting everything into neat boxes, but when you encounter something outside of that…it’s distressing.
But you still try to puzzle it out, endlessly curious, wanting to explore, to decode the things you don’t understand.
You’re adventurous, not scared of anything new, and fiercely independent, though maybe some of that’s intentional, a choice you’ve made, because the alternative is, well, frightening.
” He pauses. “At least, it frightens me.”
“I—” My mouth parts, my blood racing. I want to run—back outside into the bracing cold, or upstairs where I can be alone, but also toward him, toward this. This terrifying, exhilarating feeling that comes with being seen in this way.
Jacob’s hand rises to cup my cheek, and he’s so warm. So soft that I can’t help but lean into him, lean into the way he’s holding me, gently, as if I’m something precious. Breakable.
He’s so careful, his movements deliberate as he ducks his head slowly until he’s my height, his bright eyes meeting mine.
“You’re a Neelu,” he says. “Complicated, and brilliant, and vulnerable, and so incredibly beautiful it hurts.”
He squeezes his eyes shut, and a wave of warmth goes through me.
I want to reach out to him, want to hold him the way he’s holding me, but I can sense he’s not done, and I don’t want to stop him. I want to hear everything. I don’t want this to end.
“And maybe it’s not smart,” he says, his eyes flying back open, tender and full of fire at the same time.
“But I’m so tired of pretending I think otherwise.
I’m so tired of fighting this. So tired of pretending I don’t want you, that I don’t want to know every little thing about you.
And I tell myself you’re leaving, that things are a mess, that I can’t—that we shouldn’t—but—”
He stops, swallowing roughly, something desperate in his voice as he says, “Is there any part of you, any part that feels a little bit, even the smallest sense that—”
“Yes.” I rise toward him, my hands lifting, framing his face, and he releases a breath, a pressure valve let loose, his relief abundantly clear.
“Yes,” I say again. “To all of it.”
It takes nothing, the barest movement, and then my mouth finds his. Electric and familiar. The way I’ve remembered it, but different from that first night too, because I know how he tastes now. How he feels. How he thinks.
I know him.
His hand comes to the back of my head, his fingers sliding into my hair, and he moves me, tilting my chin up. His mouth breaks away, and I protest, but then his lips come to my jaw.
“I’ve thought of this for days,” he says.
His mouth travels, finding the lobe of my ear.
His teeth catch it lightly, teasing, punishing, drawing a sharp breath from my lungs.
“And it’s been torture. Being in the car with you.
Inches away. That night we slept on the pull-out bed.
Knowing you were right there, but that I couldn’t touch you.
That I couldn’t do anything but think about how much I wanted you. ”
“Me too.” I reach for the back of his neck, drawing him to my mouth. I slide my tongue against his, relishing the sound he makes, enjoying the push and pull, the sense of ceding control, then taking it, a dance we’ve done before. One I’m eager to do again.
“Do you want to come upstairs?” I ask.
And Jacob pulls back, his eyes slightly glazed. I see the moment reason comes back to him, the way he blinks, then looks around the room.
“We’re still in the lobby,” he says, a bit stunned.
A laugh climbs up my throat. “Yeah,” I say. I reach for his hand, and his fingers seamlessly intertwine with mine. “Good thing Iain and Elsie aren’t here.”
He lets out a soft laugh. “They would have been shocked.” He squeezes my hand as we head toward the stairs. “Especially after you so adamantly told them that we weren’t together.”
“Oh—I…” I look up at him, uncertain, remembering his odd reaction back at the bar, but his eyes are soft now. Gentle.
He leans down and brushes his lips against mine, the kiss firm but quick, before he pulls away.
“I was…When you said that, I mean, I knew why you said it. It was the truth, but hearing the way you did it, I thought you were—that you wanted to make sure they knew you were single.”
My brows knit. “Why would I care if Iain and Elsie—”