Chapter 12 Without a Cue #2
"Posting it?"
"Absolutely not."
"Protecting me?"
"Keeping it for blackmail."
She locked the phone away again without opening anything else.
We finished the afternoon in a double tube on the lazy river.
Lucy settled between my legs with her back against my chest and my arms around her waist. She still noticed the shortest line, the unattended towel, and the kid drifting too close to the divider rope.
She simply let those facts pass without becoming responsible for them.
Her eyes closed beneath her sunglasses.
"You asleep?"
"No."
"You sound asleep."
"I'm supervising from inside my eyelids."
I kissed her damp shoulder. She smiled without opening them and linked her fingers through mine over her stomach.
When the current brought us back to the exit, Lucy stood slowly, legs tired and skin warm from the day. She leaned into my side all the way to the lockers and let me carry the practical bag once we were dressed.
The captain was still there. So was the woman who'd wiped out four times and wanted a fifth.
I wanted the night with both of them.
***
The Riverlight Hotel was clean, cool, and forgettable in exactly the right way.
Lucy checked the room, found the air conditioner satisfactory, and claimed the first shower. The bathroom door closed behind her. I heard water start while I draped my damp trunks over the back of the desk chair and put her duffel on the luggage rack.
She emerged twenty minutes later in a navy sundress and flat sandals, hair loose and damp around her shoulders.
The dress fit close through her waist and moved softly around her thighs.
I had spent all afternoon looking at most of her body, and the sight of her covered again made me want to unwrap her more than the bikini had.
She caught the direction of my gaze.
"Your shower, Brew. Cold if you need it."
"Cruel."
"Efficient."
I showered alone, changed into jeans and a clean gray shirt, and found her sitting by the window with her phone in her hand. She'd opened the two waterpark photographs. Nothing else.
"Still not posting?"
"No." She put the phone into her small crossbody bag. "I took them because I wanted them. That's enough."
We walked from the hotel to Stonebridge Summer Nights with our fingers linked.
The festival stretched along the riverfront beneath strings of gold lights. A cover band played near the central plaza. Smoke rolled from grills, sugar hung in the warm air, and the crowd moved at the lazy pace of people who had nowhere urgent to be.
The woman at the lemonade stand handed Lucy both cups and nodded toward me. "Your boyfriend's change is under the napkins."
Lucy passed me the bills, took the first drink from my cup, and kissed my cheek before claiming her own.
"Apparently you're my boyfriend," she said.
"That news reached Stonebridge fast."
"Small town."
Nobody turned at her name. Nobody called her Ace or asked for a picture. The woman behind the counter had already moved to the next order. Lucy slipped her free hand into mine, and we walked away looking like exactly what we were.
Lucy chose barbecue. Then she stole the better half of my sandwich and handed me hers.
"This is robbery."
"This is quality control. Yours passed."
She got sauce near the corner of her mouth. I kissed it away before she noticed and felt her smile against my lips.
The ring toss went worse.
Lucy squared her shoulders, studied the bottles, and missed five times in a row. The last ring bounced off the nearest neck and landed on the floor.
"The spacing is illegal," she told the teenager running the booth.
He shrugged. "Want a consolation sticker?"
She accepted the sticker, waited until I turned around, and pressed it between my shoulder blades.
"Feel better?" I asked.
"Immensely."
I bought three rings and missed worse. One flew past the bottles and skittered under the booth.
Lucy doubled over laughing, one hand braced on my arm.
"The spacing is still illegal," I said.
"No, Brew. That one was all you."
She kissed me while the teenager retrieved my ring with the exhausted patience of someone who had watched too many couples flirt badly over impossible prizes.
The band shifted into a song Lucy recognized badly. She knew the melody, committed to the chorus, and replaced three words with ones that didn't rhyme.
I looked at her.
"Artistic choice," she said.
"You rhymed fire with tire."
"Both dangerous."
She kept singing, loud and off-key, then pulled me onto the dance floor before I could document further crimes.
We danced through two fast songs and one slow one. Lucy moved with the natural command that lived in her body, hips finding the beat, hands guiding mine where she wanted them. When the tempo softened, her arms went around my neck and her weight settled against me.
Her phone buzzed in her bag. She ignored it.
"You're allowed to check."
"I know."
Her eyes moved once toward the nearest exit, then found the first-aid tent and the shorter path back to the hotel. I knew the sequence because I'd watched her do it everywhere we went.
"Four minutes to the room if we cut behind the food trucks?" I asked.
"Six with this crowd." She looked at me. "You noticed."
"I like that you know where everything is."
The song changed beneath us.
"Then I want this one," she said.
She rested her cheek against my shoulder and stayed through the end of the song.
By ten, she'd kicked off her sandals and hooked them over two fingers. Her hair had dried wild around her face. Fatigue softened her steps, and she leaned against me whenever we stopped without straightening the instant she noticed.
The band started another song. Lucy looked toward the darker end of the riverwalk instead.
"Come with me."
She took my hand and led me away from the speakers, food stalls, and carnival lights. The crowd thinned behind us. Music became a low pulse beneath the sound of water moving past the stone embankment.
Lucy stopped at the railing and looked across the river.
"I need to tell you why I asked for this."
I stood beside her, close enough that our shoulders touched. "Tell me."
"I like being Ace." She said it without hesitation. "I like knowing the routine. I like making things work. I like being captain, and I like giving a crowd enough energy to come alive. I'm good at it. I'm proud of it."
Her bare foot rested over mine on the pavement.
"The hard part comes when I don't know the cue," she said.
"If I'm tired, or quiet, or something hurts and I can't fix it in ten seconds, people start asking what's wrong.
Then they keep asking until I give them the smile they recognize.
Most of them don't mean anything bad by it. They just know what I do for a room."
She looked down at our hands.
"Sometimes I wonder how long anyone would stay if I didn't give it back."
Her fingers tightened around mine. I gave her the day back in details.
"You lasted four seconds on the surf simulator and laughed before you got your feet under you."
Her mouth twitched.
"Five the second time."
"Generous accounting. You stole my fries before your food arrived. You screamed in the wave pool, sang the wrong words tonight, and wore that sticker on my back for forty minutes because you forgot to tell me it was there."
"I didn't forget."
"Then you're meaner than I thought."
"You like me mean."
"I like you when you know exactly what you're doing." I turned toward her. "I also noticed every time you reached for my hand without checking whether anybody saw. I noticed when you got tired and leaned on me. You don't have to shrink for me to see you when you don't have an answer."
Lucy looked toward the festival lights behind us.
"At lunch, I kept waiting for you to ask what came next," she said. "By dinner, I realized you were watching whether I was having fun instead of waiting for me to manage it."
"I wanted the day with you. I didn't need you to run it."
"You never looked disappointed when I got quiet."
"You were still right beside me."
"You weren't waiting for Ace to disappear?"
"Ace accused a teenager of rigging ring toss, counted six minutes back to the hotel, and took over the dance floor without asking. She was beside me all day." I brushed my thumb over her knuckles. "So were the parts you don't hand to a crowd. I wanted all of you."
Her bare foot curled more firmly over mine.
Lucy studied my face in the river light.
"You wanted me today."
"I've been hard for you since you kissed me beside the Jeep."
That got a real laugh out of her, low and brief.
"Romantic."
"Honest."
"Both can be true."
She stepped between my feet and put her hands against my chest. The kiss began softly and deepened before I had time to decide which of us changed it.
Her tongue touched mine. Her fingers curled into my shirt.
All the heat we'd carried through slides, water, dinner, and dancing tightened into one hungry point.
"Take me back," she whispered.
We walked to the Riverlight without filling the quiet. Lucy kept one hand in mine and pressed her body against my side through the elevator ride. At the room, she used the key and stepped inside ahead of me.
I closed the door but didn't lock it.
"The day is complete," I said. "If you want sleep, we sleep. Nothing about that room reservation bought the next part."
Lucy held my gaze, reached past me, and turned the deadbolt herself.
The click carried through the quiet room.
"I know what I'm choosing."
She took my face in both hands and kissed me hard enough to drive me back against the door. We were still fully dressed. Her mouth opened over mine, her body fit tight against me, and her palm slid down to cover the hard shape pressing behind my jeans.
"I've wanted this all day," she said against my lips. "Now I want you to stop making me wait."
Her hand tightened over my cock through the denim, and my hips jerked into her palm.
Lucy felt it. Of course she did.