Chapter Thirteen #3
Mr. North grips my hand confidently. “Thank you. We’re very proud of our Benjamin.” By now I’ve seen enough of this man to understand that the side-eye at Lewis is fully intentional. I really have no time to lose to get us out of the perimeter of Lewis’s perpetually disappointed parents.
I smile sweetly. “I can see that. It’s a very… grand celebration. If you go all out for a BSc, it makes me wonder what you would’ve done for Lewis’s PhD. It’s probably good that you weren’t even talking to him when he graduated.”
Mrs. North covers up her cry of surprise with a cough. Mr. North releases my hand and the grin stays on his face, except it’s looking a little tight now. “You must be the girlfriend that Ada told us about. Miss…”
“Silberstein,” I inform him. “Though that’s Doctor to you.” When I turn, a smirk plays around the corners of Lewis’s mouth. I rub the tip of his shirt collar between my fingertips. “Wanna dance?”
He blinks at me, catching my hand and pressing it against his chest. Through the three layers of fabric, I feel the quickened beat of his heart. “Yeah, I do.”
Once we’re out of Lewis’s parents’ sight, I suggest taking a breath outside.
My legs are tired after all the dancing with Alice, and Lewis’s pensive expression tells me he’d rather talk than twirl me around to the beat of an eighties power ballad.
With a hand on the small of my back, Lewis guides me through the clusters of party guests to a corner of the stargazing deck, and I have a hard time trying not to think about the charge that circles around his touch.
Lewis lets go of me and leans his back against the railing. As he takes a deep breath of the night air, he closes his eyes, like he needs to process the encounter with his parents. I leave him to it, glad to have a moment to collect myself, too.
It feels like I’ve stepped into a dream.
I don’t know if it’s the alcohol I’ve consumed, or the waves that lap against the bow and drown out the noise from inside, but the world seems a little smudged around the edges.
There’s a salty wind toying with the hem of my dress, raising goosebumps on my skin, and blowing Lewis’s hair onto his forehead.
The gentle sway of the boat nudges me to take a step forward, to get closer to Lewis, who looks all levels of handsome framed by the twinkling lights of Manhattan’s skyscrapers.
As if he’s sensing my proximity, he opens his eyes. “I’m such an idiot.” He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Making you go to this stupidly fancy party, then I barely even talk to my brother, and I end up trapped with my parents pulling the same stunts they always have.”
I give him an encouraging smile. “You made an effort to see your family and showed Ben that you care. I don’t think that makes you an idiot.”
Lewis ducks his head to catch my gaze. “Thank you for saving me in there. And for everything you said.”
“That’s what I’m here for,” I say, distracted by how he reaches to tug at the knot of his tie, then slides the top two buttons of his shirt open. “To convincingly pose as your girlfriend.”
With his tie undone like that, hair ruffled, and frown etched into his brow, I finally admit to myself that me being convincing is not about my acting skills anymore.
I feel tingly and lightheaded, as if I’ve downed too many glasses of bubbly.
Something soft and giddy at my core makes me want to run my fingers over the lines of worry on Lewis’s forehead.
No, Frances, no.
I give myself a mental shake. There’s no need to touch him now, when nobody out here needs to be convinced of our relationship status.
The kiss and all this play-pretend are messing with my head.
“If it was only about that,” Lewis remarks, eyes roaming over me, “you wouldn’t have had to say all those things. You could’ve just interrupted and pulled me away.”
I could’ve, but it didn’t occur to me then. Instead, all I wanted was for him to understand he had someone looking out for him, and maybe that’s even more worrisome than the lingering attraction in my belly.
“Or maybe I should’ve kissed you instead,” I retort, knowing it’ll make him blush. “That would’ve shut them up.”
As predicted, his cheeks redden, but he looks unfazed by it, his mouth cutting into a knowing smile. “Must’ve been a good kiss if you’re still thinking about it,” he observes drily.
He looks smug as he tracks the heat that now rises into my face, too.
I make an attempt to steer the conversation into safer waters. “How do you feel about tomorrow?”
He knits his brow. “Why?”
“Your lecture,” I clarify, and Lewis’s expression tightens, one hand coming up to fiddle with his cuff links again. Remembering his revelation that he’s shy in front of crowds, I ask, “Do you want to go through it?”
“Here?”
“Why not.” I shrug. “We still have some time to kill until we’re back at the pier, right?”
Lewis nods darkly, throwing a glance at his phone. “Just under an hour.”
“Right, then we have plenty of time. You can tell me your outline, what you’re unsure about. Or just…” I trail off when he pulls his notebook out of the inside pocket of his suit jacket. Of course he brought it along.
“I’m okay once I get to the part about my research,” he says, “but I’m not sure my intro will help the students make sense of it. I want them to be able to understand it and give them the tools to critique it.”
For the next twenty minutes, Lewis shares his lecture with me, seemingly having memorized the whole thing.
As the wind flaps through the pages of his notebook, I give him pointers on things he can skip (a long-winded timeline of electroencephalography research that would fit into a History of Psychology class) and the ones he should expand on.
Lewis takes notes and then murmurs the newly workshopped text to himself.
“It’s funny to think that only a week ago, I was at my parents’ place, with all the chaos of last-minute wedding preparations,” I muse when he slips his notebook back into his jacket.
“And in the middle of it all, I was trying to finish the slides for my lecture and interactive code for the workshop.”
He laughs. Not that dry kind he gave his parents, but a mellow one, its warmth trickling down my spine.
“And now I’m standing here,” I continue, “playing make-believe with my annoying reviewer, at his brother’s graduation party, working on his lecture.”
“He wasn’t so bad, was he?” He pushes his hair back, mouth relaxed and eyes twinkling.
With the newfound knowledge that he wasn’t, in fact, the mean reviewer, I find myself smiling when I say, “Yeah, turns out he’s actually a somewhat decent human being.”
There it is again, that smooth rumble of a laugh. “Decent enough to ask me to fake date you for two weeks.” Lewis crosses his arms in front of his chest and takes a measuring look at me. “What was it that made you fall in fake love with me? My horrible abstract-writing skills?”
“I figured you couldn’t be that bad when you held my hand through a panic attack,” I admit, surprised at my own honesty.
I wait for him to remind me that I technically maimed his hand, but he just hums softly in agreement. “What made you change your mind, though?” I ask. “To agree to fake date me?”
“Well.” Lewis stares at our feet. When he taps the tip of his shoes against mine, I realize that we’ve slowly inched toward each other.
“I’m responsible for stalling your career in one way, so once you explained how detrimental it could be if anybody found out about us, I knew I needed to help.
I meant what I said yesterday, Frances.” He pauses to finally look back up at me, and the glimmering skyline reflects in his eyes.
“It’s never been about tearing you down.
I want to see you succeed. Plus, it meant squabbling with you from less distance, so… ”
Once again, his true intentions grate against the image I’ve constructed of him over the past four years.
“And here we are, not even bickering anymore,” I say with a smile, resting my arms on the railing next to him.
The air is gritty on our cheeks, the slosh of the water loud in our ears, and, for the first time since arriving in New York, my thoughts aren’t rushing elsewhere.
They’re anchored here, as we watch the matrices of half lit-up skyscrapers glide past and talk about everything and nothing.
The places we’ve lived, the most outrageous excuses our students have come up with, the niche knowledge Lewis has acquired about The Witcher after reading Brady’s fan fic for so many years.
I feel at peace, until we round the tip of Manhattan and the Brooklyn Bridge comes back into view in all her lit-up glory. Until Lewis lifts a corner of his mouth and mutters, “I like us more like this.”
I look up at him as my heart balloons with hope, though I know it shouldn’t.
It should stick close to the ground, and to get it back there, I pinprick it with the reality of the situation.
Lewis and I have a pact with an end date, he’s a colleague, we live in different countries.
He was talking about us as allies. Teammates, collaborators, maybe friends.
Nothing more. I have to keep reminding myself of this as we fall silent and look out at the water.
As the boat docks at the pier, the vibration of the motor stops underfoot. “Can I take you out for that slice of pizza now?” Lewis asks and hooks a thumb over his shoulder.
An ambulance howls down the FDR and I wait for the sound to pass. “Please,” I say, though I had completely forgotten I was hungry. Because all I can think about is that I like us more like this, too.
Maybe a little too much.