Chapter 15
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As August might say—BEACH EPISODE.
Alister
“You take pity upon me, and my puny self-control.” August scans me, from my swim cap down my t-shirt-clad body, to my trunks. “And here I thought you had plans of seduction.”
Seduction…here…on the crowded rocky bank of the expansive Azure Lake…
seems like a public display I’m unwilling to elicit.
Maybe if I did have a boat and could take us out to one of the quiet beach islands dotting the wide open blue.
But since I don’t and can’t? Since I’m stuck here instead? No. Never. Yikes.
Children run by behind August, and I follow their splashing track into the water as their innocent laughter rises to meet the buzz of other chatting tourists.
August looks at the children, uses her burgeoning detective skills to deduce what I’m thinking, then folds her hands together and beholds the blazing blue sky. “I have been mercifully spared from seduction by the youth.”
The corner of my mouth tips up, and I navigate toward the quietest slice of ground that late afternoon in summer of this tourist spot can offer. “Must be your saintly blessing.”
“Indeed.” She floats after me, an angel if I’ve ever seen one, and descends once I’ve gotten our picnic blanket splayed. Skirt flared just so, she peers up at me past the brim of her hat, and I remind myself there are children literally everywhere to keep from murmuring a swear.
“None of the food has faces,” I say, sitting opposite her to protect another side of our blanket from the breeze—and assist in my restraint. I can’t, after all, participate in any inappropriate-for-children activities if she’s outside my reach, right?
Right.
“That’s okay,” she says, excited, wiggly.
She bites her lip while I begin unpacking, and her eyes widen when I reveal the variety—dragon fruit pie, sandwiches, chips, veggie sticks, dip, fruit, a modest cheese board on a bed of ice.
Her toes curl against her sandals. “You know something?” she says, reaching for a carrot stick.
“Cooks for her was actually one of my tropes on the list.”
“Was it now?” My chest warms, adding internal heat to the beat of the sun against my shirt. “What else was?”
“I wonder.” She snaps the carrot stick in half with her teeth and turns her gaze toward the water. “We should probably use this time to get to know each other better.”
Nerves prickle at the very idea of her wanting to get to know me. I’m elated, and scared. “That makes sense.”
“We’re allowed to lie.”
“That makes less sense.”
“But if we choose to lie, we need to cross our fingers where the other person can see.” She lifts her free hand, finishes the carrot stick, and digs in her tote bag to procure a notebook. Deep brown eyes shining in the sunlight, she beams at me, a freckled and bespectacled angel. “Ready?”
I laugh. “Are you going to take notes?”
“Yup!”
“I didn’t think to bring a notepad myself.”
“Un-pre-pared…” she enunciates, jotting the word down and dotting the page with finality before jutting her pen at me. “I’ll go first.”
First? Are we playing twenty questions, then?
“Do you consider yourself unreliable?” she asks.
I show her my palms and all ten spread fingers. “Absolutely not.”
She tuts. “Yet you didn’t bring a notepad?”
“As if I don’t spend my every waking moment committing everything you are to my memory.”
She glances at my hands. “You need to cross your fingers on that one.”
“Who says it’s not true?”
“Logic and realism.”
I ponder that for the briefest of moments, sigh, and concede, crossing my fingers. “For the record, it’s mostly true.”
Her lashes flutter. “Then you need to uncross your fingers when you say so.”
I uncross my fingers to say a very honest, “I fear you’re overestimating my mind’s ability to collaborate with my body.”
“Poor…dexterity…” she murmurs, jotting and sighing. “Woe is me. That’s an important trait in a lover. I think.”
I flush. “You weren’t joking when you said you’d been practicing your teasing.”
“Can you blame me for liking how easily you blush?”
“No, I suppose not.”
Sunlit and lovely, she says, “Your turn to ask me something.”
Fighting to let my lungs soak in air while I’m seated so close to a saintly painting, I dive headfirst into the pile of my most burning questions and fish one out. “What’s your position on children and childcare?”
She stares at me.
I neither relent nor recant.
She stares another few seconds, crosses her fingers, and says, “Children are delicious. I prefer to prepare them in a large stew, taking care that they are thoroughly cooked before I use them for potions. What’s your work-life balance look like?”
“Poor. I work a lot. I have meetings and work trips regularly.”
Something glints in her eyes, and she leans in. “Is that so?”
I swallow. “Yes.”
“Yet…you’ve been here a few weeks already.”
I cut my attention off her. “Well…yes…”
“Which means…” Her smile slices through me. “This whole thing was very planned, wasn’t it?”
I suck in a tight breath. “Define very?” I make sure she can see my hands. “All things considered, it was actually quite impulsive.”
“For you?”
“I believe for most anyone.”
“Interesting,” she murmurs, takes her adorable notes, and opens her mouth to continue the interrogation.
I interrupt, “I believe it’s my turn, and also that we should add a limitation to how many lies we’re allowed. Like you can’t have two in a row.”
She hums. “Any limitation makes it easy to manipulate.”
“What if only two lies are allowed in a row, but vague answers or riddles are acceptable?”
“I suppose that’s tolerable. What’s your question for me?”
“Do you really want an August wedding?”
Her lashes flutter as her lips part. “Yes.” She wets her parted lips, regaining herself. “Do you have family connections here?”
My expression sharpens, because there’s no good answer to that one. Unless I break the rules and lie outright. Which I’m not going to do. I say, “Perhaps.”
Her expression sharpens, igniting. “So when you told me you were moving here to start over, that was a lie.”
I hold her pointed look. “I believe it’s my turn.”
She reaches for a sandwich and gives me the floor.
I say, “What are the approximate chances we get married next month?”
She snorts into the egg salad. “Next month? Which is in…a week and a half?”
“Yes.”
“You’re not seriously wasting a question on that, are you?”
“To my knowledge, we didn’t put a limit on the questions, just the lies.”
She hums, takes another bite, and crosses her fingers. “Zero.”
Gaze fixed on her hand, I say, “That’s actually quite promising.”
“I’m not one to think things are impossible, even if they are improbable.”
“I’m not one to think you’d have crossed your fingers if you thought they were particularly improbable right now.”
“All things considered, you’re a rather determined individual. Maybe I just didn’t feel like doing the math to pit your determination against my love of slow burn.”
“Most wouldn’t consider us a slow burn already.”
“Most fail to understand the nuances behind falling in love and believe that any characters who treat one another well must be in love already simply because they’re reading a romance and know it’s destiny.
” Her fingers uncross, and she shows them clearly.
“I am not in love with you. We have hardly touched. A slow burn is marked by the gradual development of feelings and consistent tension. So long as my feelings remain cautiously invested while yours display an obvious desire to pin me to this picnic blanket, we continue to burn ever slowly in a he falls first manner rife with tension. In stories, slow burns aren’t defined by literal time stamps.
Some authors can turn one week into a hundred thousand words.
As with most things, it’s whatever the author can convince the reader to feel—regardless of the truth. ”
“Yet, out here in the real world, if we’re married next month, that would constitute a shotgun wedding by many standards, and, out here in the real world, slowing time would inevitably mean boring you.
So it really is my determination against your willpower.
And you should know…I’m an incredibly determined individual. ”
She considers me, murmuring, “Whatever happens, all that matters is that I’ll still be marketing my vampire romance as a slow burn, even if it’s only a month long. I’m already at fifty thousand words, and their hands haven’t so much as brushed.”
I secure a carrot stick and dip it in the ranch. “Whose turn is it for a question?”
“Mine. But if you’ve thought up something interesting, I’ll allow you to go.”
“Whether or not it’s interesting is up to personal opinion, but do you actually market your books?”
Her smile turns lethal in its investment. “No. Why do you know that I don’t? Have you been stalking my author account?”
“Perhaps curiosity got the better of me. Why don’t you market your books? You’ve plenty of assets to create several organized pen names in the separate genres and make something profitable out of each.”
“I don’t write for that reason.”
“Why do you write?”
“Because. I need to breathe, and this world rarely ever seems to have any air.”
My lungs tighten at the notion, and I think I might just agree with her—even as a tepid breeze caresses the locks of her hair, painting them across her cheek.
She pushes them back and asks, “Did you buy all my books a few weeks ago, before you started staying with me?”
I hold myself extremely steady—even knowing it won’t matter at all. She keeps asking yes or no questions, which are futile to dodge. “What a thing to accuse me of.”
“How long have you known me?”
Crossing my fingers, I stretch and tip her face up on them. “A lifetime and a moment. I think maybe we should take a break before your questions pry this mystery apart far faster than you’d prefer.”
“One more,” she insists.
I oblige.
Her eyes lift, toward my head. “Why are you wearing a swim cap?”
Uncrossing my fingers, I chuckle and pull back. “Because. I needed somewhere to tuck my secrets, and my pockets were already full.”
Nothing compares to the way sunlight scatters across her spackled cheeks as our game comes to a close and our beach episode continues.