Chapter 30
Nikita
“It’s been years since I’ve had greasy pizza for breakfast,” I say, using a napkin to wipe at the corner of my mouth.
“Technically, this is brunch.”
I shrug, “Whatever it is, it is freaking amazing and just what I needed.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I suppose I should say thank you.” I narrow my eyes playfully at Calvin who is sitting on the edge of the kitchen counter using a knife and fork - yep, you heard that right - to cut his pizza. “But can we talk about this for a second?” I use my hand to gesture to the way he’s eating, “I’ve never met anyone who eats pizza with a knife and fork. Care to explain?”
He brings a piece up to his mouth, dragging it off his fork. “I don’t like to get my hands dirty.”
“Does that mean you don’t eat anything with your hands?”
He shakes his head.
I gawk at him, “Nothing at all?”
“No.”
“What about a burger?”
He lifts his knife and fork to me, answering my question with that gesture. I exhale a laugh of disbelief, “And a hotdog? Surely you have to eat that with your hands?”
He shakes his head, this time laughing as he takes another bite, “I told you, I don’t like to get my hands dirty. That’s just the way I am.”
“You’re weird.”
“I’m weird?” he says with a laugh, “Because I have good table manners and choose to use utensils?”
I nod, “Yep. Weird.”
He chuckles, placing his utensils down as he finishes the last of his pizza. Grabbing a napkin, he wipes at the corner of his mouth. I try not to hyper-focus on his movements, but it is becoming increasingly difficult, especially since my eyes keep dropping to his lips.
I am returning to a more sober state now that the pizza is soaking up the alcohol in my system. I want to blame my attraction to Calvin on the alcohol, but it’s proving to have nothing to do with that.
“What about chicken wings?” I ask. He drops his chin, his eyes telling me that I already know the answer to my own question. I shake my head and laugh, “Fascinating.”
“You set the bar really low for what you find fascinating,” he says, a flicker of teasing in his voice. I shrug, reaching for my water as he asks, “What were you working on?”
“When?”
He gestures with his head towards my handbag on the barstool next to me, “Earlier. You had your laptop with you.”
“Oh, that.” I straighten up and shake my head, not wanting to get into a job-hunting conversation with him. I am still trying to shake off the feeling of embarrassment I have thanks to my previous oversharing. Calvin is the last person I want to be vulnerable in front of, “Neither of us is drunk enough to have a conversation with that much depth.”
His head falls to the side as he eyes me, “Right. We don’t do that.”
“No, we do not.”
“Except we just did.”
I shake my head. “That was a momentary lapse in judgment.”
If we continue with these deep and meaningful conversations, I’m not sure I’d be able to stay away from him. He is revealing layers to him and I am getting a peek at all that lies beneath. The problem is that I like what he is showing me.
“What’s on the agenda for today?” Calvin asks, switching the conversation which I’m thankful for. I figure he must have been feeling the same since he isn’t big on sharing things either. His confession about not even telling Violet about his father confirms that.
I lean across the counter, stretching for the itinerary before returning to my sitting position, and flipping the file open.
“Let’s see.” I drag my finger along the paper, stopping at today’s date, “Today: rehearsal dinner. “
“So, we have the day free?”
“Seems that way.”
“Fantastic.”
I close the file, “I heard Britney’s father is arriving today.” My eyes jump back up to meet Calvin’s as I remembered a detail from my earlier interaction with Britney. “Oh! Did you know that he cheated on her mom?”
His brows furrow, “How the hell do you know that?”
“She told me.”
“Why would she go around telling strangers details about her life like that?”
“I don’t think we’re in any position to judge why people do the things they do.”
I don’t mean for the statement to carry so much weight, but it is true. Calvin and I are hardly in a position to pass judgment when both of us are falsifying our realities. In this reality, I don’t have to worry about finding a new job. I am relaxing and focusing on enjoying myself on this holiday, but this will be short-lived. Calvin is pretending that he wasn’t hurt by his relationship ending. He doesn’t trust in himself enough to not backslide and do something to win Violet back, or worse, appear desperate in any way.
“Sorry, that was a bit heavy,” I say, slicing through the silence between us, “Let’s forget all of this and go back to our on-the-surface interactions.”
He grabs a napkin and wipes down his hands, even though he used the utensils to eat. Exhaling a satisfied breath, he looks over at me, “Why? Are you afraid you’ll actually like me?”
Yes.
“No.”
He chuckles, “You’re a terrible liar.”
I toss my used napkin at him. “Leave me alone.”
An amused smile rests on his lips, causing my heart to leap through my chest. He leans back against the bar stool, his hand running through his curly hair. “Too bad about the weather, I would have suggested we use this time to burn the other areas of our body and fix the damage we’ve done to our tan.”
Glancing towards the balcony, the, now, gray sky greets us. “I love this weather sometimes.”
“Me too.”
Silence settles around us, but again, it’s comfortable - welcomed. There are very few people I can sit with in complete silence and not feel the need to scramble for conversation.
It surprises me that Calvin appears to be one of them.
I turn to look at him, his eyes catching mine. “Thanks for the food.”
“You’re welcome.”
“And for paying for my drinks. I heard they were twelve euros a pop.”
“Good thing I budgeted for my fake girlfriend’s tab.”
I know that the word fake precedes girlfriend, but there is still a flip in my stomach. I am usually very good at keeping my emotions in tact, but Calvin unnerves me.
It is terrifying.
I’m also using a lot of my energy to reprimand myself for sharing what I did with him. A part of me wishes I had been drunk enough to forget that conversation at all, but I had no such luck. I remember everything that was said. The weight of the elephant in the room is becoming too much.
“Promise me you won’t tell Jay what I told you?” I blurt out catching him off-guard, but he does his best to hide it.
“You can trust me, Nikita.”
I am not sure why, but I know I can.
“Besides,” he continues, “You weren’t the only one who shared. I take it my secret is in safe hands with you?”
“Of course.”
A mutual respect and understanding passes between the two of us with nothing but acknowledgment in our eyes. He brings himself to stand, reaching over and grabbing my plate to carry them both over to the sink. His skin touches mine as he brushes past me, sending my pulse into overdrive.
“You’re too hard on yourself, by the way.” I hear his voice coming from behind me, closer than I expected. I turn and he edges my personal space. “We’re all a little lost in this life.”
“Even you?”
“Even me,” he says with a smile.
Unexpectedly his smile causes my heart to leap against my chest but like a lot of moments on this trip, it catches me off-guard. I’m way too afraid to let this go any further. It will be much safer if we go back to our simple, on the surface interactions.
Because getting to know the deeper levels of Calvin is dangerous.
Dangerous for my heart.
“I think I’ll go take a shower,” Calvin says, shifting the conversation and moving past me to put some distance between the two of us.
“Maybe I should nap.” I think out loud, wondering if it is too early for that.
“About that-” Calvin jumps in, my attention turning to him, “I’d like to revisit our conversation from earlier.”
“Which one?” My mind freezes, unable to identify any thought that occurred before my current one. There is no stopping the confusion on my face.
“I figured you wouldn’t have remembered, but you offered that we share the bed from now on.”
My memory snaps back, clarifying that I did indeed do that. Of course, Nikita with a little bit of alcohol in her system would suggest something like that.
“If you’re really uncomfortable with the idea, I’ll stay on the couch, but I think we can manage sharing a bed. It’s not like anything would happen between the two of us anyway.”
“We ca- wait, why can’t anything happen between the two of us?”
What the hell are you asking that for?!
He exhales a small laugh, “For one, your brother will kill me if I touch his little sister.”
I need to return to my default setting of deflection, fake confidence and the belief that being touched by Calvin will be the worst thing in the world. “His little sister will kill you if you touch her.”
“Right.” His tone is unconvincing.
My eyebrow raises, “What?”
“What do you mean what?”
“Say what you really want to say.” I fold my arms across my chest. “You’ve never held your tongue before, why start now?” My tone is dry.
“You don’t want to know what I really want to say.”
“Yes, I do.”
“You won’t like it.”
“I’ll decide what I’ll like, thank you very much.”
“Fine.” He shakes his head as he walks over to me, “I think you’re lying. I think you wish you hated me more than you actually do.”
Where the hell is he getting this information from and why is it true?
But I don’t tell him this. “I can admit that you’re a lot more tolerable than I expected.”
He snickers, “Forget it - I am abandoning my mission to get you to like me in exchange for being able to sleep in a bed since nothing would ever happen with someone you hate, right?”
“Why do you immediately think that something would have happened in the first place? I have self-control.”
“Maybe you do.” He says it in a way that leaves an infliction where more words are meant to follow. Is he implying he wouldn’t have self-control if we share a bed? Why does that thought excite me the way it does?
“We can put pillows between us if you’d prefer,” he finishes his thought.
“I really don’t think we need to create a wall between us. We’re both adults. Sleeping in the same bed does not equate to…”
“Sex?”
Great. Now Calvin opens the floodgates to thoughts that intertwine him and sex, sending my arousal rampant.
“Actually, I was going to say touching of any kind,” I say, ignoring the heat I can feel beneath my cheeks.
He extends his hand to me, “Let’s shake to a no-touching pact then.”
I eye between his hand and his eyes, working hard to ignore the part of me that’s disappointed by this. Apparently all I’m interested in is touching - and being touched by - Calvin.
“How are we going to shake hands if we don’t touch?”
“Perhaps I should be more clear.” His lips pull up in amusement, his eyes mirroring the same feeling. “When we’re sharing a bed, there will be no touching of any kind between us.”
I’m not sure if he’s being serious or if this is all for his own amusement but I play into it - it is in my nature to after all.
“Are you sure you can handle that?”
“Can you?”
I slip my hand in his and shake it, “No touching then.”