Chapter Seven #2
He finds my hand, weaves our fingers together, and sets it on his thigh.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“I’m taking you to my favorite beach.”
I take a long look at him in a black T-shirt and baseball hat. Even incognito, he isn’t very incognito. “Is a public beach a great idea, Dr. Minjoon Song?”
“No one will recognize me at this one.”
I laugh. “Yeah, tell that to the mob at the airport.”
He grins at the road ahead of us. “I didn’t expect that, either.”
“You know, that was the first time it occurred to me to google you.”
He glances briefly at me before following signs for the 405 South. “Really? Because I had Yael google you while we were in line waiting for rooms.”
Oh, I’m absolutely sure he did. I bet he had a full background report before he ever offered me use of his shower. “Well, once I have an assistant on 24/7 call, I’ll be better about googling my one-night stands before we hook up.”
He frowns. “We aren’t a one-night stand.”
“Fine,” I relent, grinning at him. “Two-night stand.”
Alec smiles out at the road. “Two-week stand.” He glances at me. “I want to see you as much as I can while I’m here.”
Nodding, I bite my lips to keep my words in: That sounds like just enough time to get attached.
I turn and look out the passenger window at the freeway flying past, the cloudless blue sky above, the concrete jungle dotted sweetly with jacarandas and palms, bougainvillea and pink oleander climbing over the freeway barriers. And then I realize we are driving south.
“Okay, but where are we actually going?” I ask, grinning. “All the nice beaches are north of my place.”
“We’re going to Laguna.”
I gape at him. That’s an hour away.
He does a quick double take. “You said you sent your story in and have the day off.”
“I do, but Santa Monica is right there.”
He laughs. “I want to take you to my favorite place, and I haven’t done this—gotten in a car and driven myself here—in probably ten years.” He looks around, and I wonder what it must feel like to have spent his entire life here until he was almost twenty.
“Do you miss California?”
“Yes and no. I mean, it’s nostalgic, and there are things I love. But I’ve been away almost a decade and a half. I can’t really imagine living here again.”
I don’t know what to say to that, but a weird darkness settles in my chest—for only a second—realizing that we’re fifteen minutes into what is our true first date, and I’m already having the best time. But he’ll fly back to England in a couple weeks, and I might never see him again.
A few minutes of easy silence pass, with music quietly filtering into the car and LA growing smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror.
“You got quiet,” he says finally, taking his attention from the road in a couple of small flashes. “Everything okay?”
I veer away from any heaviness, nodding. “I like your accent now.”
“Do you?” It’s growly, the way he says this, and sends a shiver of electricity through me. Alec catches my sharp look and grins. “What?”
“I’m not sure how I’m going to be able to be on a beach with you using that voice and not be able to touch you.”
“We’ll do our best. I know we’re capable of exerting some self-control.”
“You have zero evidence for this,” I say, laughing.
He laughs, too. “Yael knows about us, of course—”
“I feel like the underwear purchase was a big clue.”
“It was, indeed, but if my manager, Melissa, knew that I was on a date, and that I was skipping out on a free day and going to the beach?” He whistles. “I would be in a lot of trouble.”
“You’re a grown man!”
He nods. “Sure, but there are some freedoms those of us in the public eye have to give up, and anything like this should be cleared. Especially if I am out with a woman—I wouldn’t be alone with a woman in public at home. Melissa doesn’t like to be surprised.”
“Does she know about Seattle?”
“Yes.”
“Wow, she knows everything? Even when you have sex with someone?”
“I mean, we don’t discuss it in such explicit terms,” he says, laughing, “but I let her know I spent time with someone there and it was just overnight, so I’m sure she read between the lines.” He pauses, sobering a little. “She doesn’t know that we saw each other again in the hotel in LA, though.”
My brows go up. “I’m a secret lover.”
“You’re a friend,” he adds, winking. “Right? My sister’s best friend from childhood. Of course we’d reconnect.”
“We’ll be good,” I promise. “I won’t even treat you like a celebrity. If you get hot, you can fan yourself—”
“Fan myself?” He pretends to start to turn the car around.
“—carry your own towel,” I roll on. “I won’t grope you out in the open.”
Alec laughs, changing lanes to exit in Long Beach.
I gape at him. “Are you really turning around?”
“We need supplies.”
Off the freeway, we park in front of a Walgreens, and I stare blankly up at the entrance. “Okay, I realize you’re a celebrity but you’re taking me to a drugstore? This date might be too fancy for me, Alec.”
He laughs. “Give me one,” he says. “Before we get out.”
I’m about to ask him one what, but he leans over the console, cups my face, and sweetly settles his mouth over mine.
At first it’s just a peck, a drag of his lips, and then another that’s even softer, but then he’s tilting his head, coming at me deeper and longer, pulling my bottom lip into his mouth.
When he grasps the back of my neck and holds me still so he can have his way with me, he is only one soft groan away from being dragged into the back seat.
Thankfully, he seems to swallow the groan but lets out a happy, breathy laugh into my mouth when I scrape my teeth over his lip. I remember this kissing; I remember thinking what a relief it was to find someone for the first time in my life who kisses the exact same way I do.
My brain shrieks in alarm at this thought. I’m taking a mental stroll across hot coals. This, whatever it is, is starting to defy an easy label. In reality, it’s a fling, and we both know it has a very clear expiration date. He gave me a secret iPhone, for fuck’s sake!
But flings don’t spend every free second together; they don’t sneak kisses every chance they get. They certainly don’t think how great it is to have found the kissing equivalent of a soulmate.
My heart fills with stars, expanding.
Alec pulls away, focusing on my mouth. “Ready?”
“Yes.” I pause, dazed. “Ready for what?”
He laughs, thinking I’m joking, kissing me lightly again. “Let’s go.”
Inside the store, we get bottles of water, granola bars, the sunscreen that we both forgot, cheap beach chairs, and various dorky floaty toys. He buys me an ugly Post Malone hat; I buy him some aviator sunglasses with iridescent pink lenses.
Back in the car, each of us wearing our gifts, he turns the music up; we roll the windows down and drive in contented quiet with his hand resting lightly on my thigh.
At least, it rests lightly at first. But soon his thumb strokes the fabric of my cutoffs to the rhythm of the song.
Tiny circles widen and narrow, widen and narrow.
Finally, he gives me a moment to breathe, moving his hand to adjust the volume, but then he returns and now it’s worse, because his fingertips toy with the frayed hem of the denim.
Gradually, they sneak under, touching me featherlight, dancing aimlessly along the skin of my inner thigh, almost as if he’s doing it without knowing, but inside I am an inferno, with crackling campfire heat snapping beneath my skin.
Does he know what he’s doing to me? Touching skin that he’s kissed, skin that has slid up around his hips, pressed against his face.
Skin that feels bruised from the ache he’s building.
I reach for his hand, taking it in mine and bringing it to my lips, kissing his thumb knuckle. When I chance a look at his face, he’s biting back a grin. The little shit. He knew.
“Are you going to tease me all day?” I ask. “You realize you were, like, two inches away from making me launch myself into your lap.”
He bursts out laughing, looking at me and then away. “You’re so soft. I didn’t realize what I was doing until you moved my hand.” He pauses and blows out a slow breath. “I’m thinking the beach was a terrible idea.”
“Like I said earlier?”
He laughs again and squeezes my hand. Given that we’re exiting the freeway toward the beach cities, his realization—one I voiced almost as soon as we got in the car—comes too late.
At least I have the weather to distract me from my lusty brain.
It’s one of those ridiculously gorgeous Southern California days in April: breezy, hazy morning skies, temperature hovering around sixty-five, but when the marine layer burns off, it will be perfect for a day at the beach.
We fly down the Pacific Coast Highway, practically alone on the long stretch of coastline, and then Alec turns us down a winding street into a neighborhood of beautiful houses perched precariously on a cliff.
Cars pack the curbs, parked bumper to bumper, and I imagine us walking a mile loaded down with all the stupid gear we bought at Walgreens.
But then we see it in unison, a spot directly next to the stairs leading down to Crescent Bay Beach.
“Well,” he says smugly, “that was easy.”
But, I think, that’s exactly the problem.
Everything about this feels too easy. Like the way he stroked my leg without thinking.
Like climbing out of the car and handing over my purse without thinking, him taking it and stowing it in his backpack also without thinking.
Like unloading the car, wordlessly packing things up in easy silence like we’ve done this a thousand times.
But in reality, today is our first time together out in daylight.
“When was the last time you were here?” I ask.
He leads us to the narrow, steep steps. “Probably a week or two before we moved.”
“Moved to London?”
He nods, carefully navigating the wooden slats, still damp from morning dew. “Do you ever come down here?”