Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Kissing a frog won’t bring it back to life.
German chocolate cake is actually not German.
Everything is going according to plan.
“Oh goodie, I like games,” Jeremy said.
I quickly explained the rules.
“So we make three statements and each person in the group has to guess which one is the lie?” Elaine asked.
I could practically see her thinking of all the juicy tidbits she could tell us.
That was the thing with this game—if people felt the need to impress, now was the time they could shed a certain light on themselves.
And maybe if I played my cards right, I would get a little insight into John.
I was hoping for bland, boring statements.
Or maybe something that sounded like a brag.
Nothing more unsexy than that. I desperately needed something awful about John to sink my fingers into.
“I’ll start.” May spread her arms to either side of the tub, holding onto the rim and splashing Elaine in the face.
I leaned forward, hugging my knees. “Shoot.”
“Okay, so, one. My family owns a restaurant chain. French food. Two….” She squinted. “I once gave a frog CPR. It survived.”
Elaine gagged into her glass.
“And three… I haven’t shaved my legs in a decade.”
“All three options are unnerving for different reasons,” Elaine muttered under her breath. “Please tell me option two is the lie. Or three.”
Jeremy looked side-eyed at May. “I say one is the lie. You do love your animals.”
I turned my head to look at John, resting my chin on my knee. The back of my neck and shoulders started to become uncomfortably cold, but I ignored it.
“Mhhh. I go with two.” I held up two fingers.
May grinned, lifting up her leg and spreading her toes, wriggling them. Her skin looked like nature had intended. “Ten years this October. The poor frog actually died.”
I snorted champagne up my nose. Jeremy howled. John bit away a chuckle.
“Right, you’re next, J,” May told him.
“Jolly. Number one….”
Jeremy made us guess between him spotting Benedict Cumberbatch on the London tube, him loving a full English, and that he wore his shirts coordinated with weekdays. Mondays pink, Wednesdays green, Fridays powder-blue… and so on.
It was an easy guess for me. He was a vegetarian, so his second choice—the English breakfast, which was famously served with blood pudding and sausages—was the obvious lie.
When the snow picked up, I leaned back again, sighing at the heat of the water that caressed the base of my neck. When I opened my eyes, I caught John watching me from the corner of his eye.
“What?”
He shook his head, cleared his throat. “Nothing.”
“Your turn, Mr. New York Times Bestselling Author.”
He looked down at me, snowflakes settling on his shoulders. The wind rustled through the pine tops. I was both colder and hotter suddenly.
He nodded, taking another sip of his glass, then stretched over the side and set it on a table behind me. I did not study the curve of his collarbone or the little mole in the shape of a clover under his ear. Nope.
“I love to travel but hate flying,” he started.
“Nothing that is common knowledge,” I interjected.
“How is that common knowledge?” He raised a brow.
I had spent some time reading up on him last night, to find weak spots, of course—ways to tilt the power dynamic now that he had not one but two things hanging over my head. “Read it somewhere some time ago,” I said, closing my eyes.
“Right. I… love the water but get sick on a boat.”
The picture with Vivian on the sailboat came to mind. He had looked a little green around his nose. That one was true.
“Number two, I don’t smoke. Never understood the appeal.”
I squinted up at him. He was rubbing his chest as he said it. I knew, as an ex-smoker—okay, occasional smoker, when one glass of wine turned into three—how it felt. A scratch inside your chest. An ache you can’t stop from spreading. That you wanted to burn away with a hot cloud of smoke.
“Number three….” He rubbed his chin for a while, thinking.
“I once got arrested because I wanted to declare my love for my first girlfriend. But I had had a few too many courage sips from my father’s whiskey beforehand.
” He laughed to himself as if he was replaying the memory in his mind.
“So when I climbed up the trellis outside her bedroom, I realized too late that I was at the wrong house.”
Elaine gasped. I had totally forgotten we weren’t alone. How long had I been staring at him? But then people did look at others when they spoke, right? Why did I suddenly second-guess everything I was doing?
He looked back down at me. I wished I was wearing sunglasses myself so I could let myself watch how the water droplets ran down his torso.
Now I had to enjoy them from my peripheral vision while my gaze was focused on the rim of the glass I was circling.
John was still awful, of course—big dick energy and zero redeemable qualities—but maybe Otis had a point. What’s the harm in looking?
“What happened next?”
“The owners called the cops. I fell into a rosebush.” He chuckled. Bowie, help me, his teeth were white. “The neighbors, a.k.a. my girlfriend's parents, stood on their porch watching me getting handcuffed. Her father forbade her to ever speak to me again.” He grinned.
“Fair enough,” May said. But John wasn’t looking at her. It was as if he was telling me this story alone. It should have felt…uncomfortable.
“So you’re a romantic? John Kater? Hard to believe.”
He smirked. “I can be. She was the love of my life,” John said, finally pulling his gaze off me, restoring time to its normal speed.
“So I’m guessing you’re not motion sick? I’ve seen pictures of you sailing. It suits you,” Elaine said, still twiddling with her blonde curls.
“Thanks.”
I readjusted my seating position to see the others better, brushing John’s thigh with mine, then narrowed my eyes. “Isn’t Vivian the love of your life?”
I could swear John froze. Then he shifted, his knee pressing into my thigh. “Of course. That one was the lie. I made it up.” He said it with a laugh, but by now, I felt I could distinguish between a genuine John-laugh and a press-laugh.
I didn’t believe him one bit.
“I can tie a cherry stem with my—” Elaine started at the same time as Jeremy spoke.
“So how about you, Nora?” He asked. “What are your two truths and a lie?”
I bit my lip. “My favorite weather is a thunderstorm after a hot summer day. My favorite smell is fresh-baked German chocolate cake.”
“Boring. Give us something juicy.” Okay, May had too much to drink.
I rolled my eyes. “I once had a threesome and ended up stealing that guy's girlfriend.”
John choked on his drink. Or air, I wasn’t sure.
May cackled.
Jeremy had turned red.
And Elaine… had left at some point?
At exactly that moment, footsteps crunched behind us.
“Guys, we have a problem.” Charlene’s hair looked disheveled, a phone in her hand. “We gotta change the timeline.”
I sat up straight, realizing how tipsy I was. Maybe I could sober up by jumping headfirst into a snowdrift. “Why?”
She waved at us. “Better discuss inside.”
“Alright, back to business it is. This was fun.” May cursed as she stepped out of the tub.
Jeremy followed her instantly.
The joy and lightness I’d felt moments ago felt like a candle that had puffed out. Change of timeline?
“So what was the lie?” John asked.
I turned, halfway out of the tub, my body steaming. I felt my nipples tighten as cold air hit them. I let my mouth slide into a smile that had gotten me countless phone numbers and discounts. Flirty, a little playful, at the edge of cruel. “I hate chocolate cake.”
I hid my shiver as I stepped into the snow that now reached my calf and looked at John over my shoulder.
“You coming?”
He readjusted the way he sat, trying hard not to look at me as I wrapped my steaming body in a towel.
“I…” he began, then cleared his throat. “I’ll be a minute.”
Was he… blushing?
His hand slipped into the water for a brief moment. He adjusted his seat.
“What?” he said when he noticed me staring.
Even though voices were yammering inside, and the cold was probably giving my ass frostbite, I couldn’t help but let a smug smile cross my face. Was John… flustered? By me? Had I just… won?
“Nothing.”
He took in a measured breath but didn’t say anything.
Ten minutes later, we all sat around the table.
Charlene fiddled with her glasses. “Alright, here’s the situation. The deadline is tomorrow at noon, as you know.
“But, and yes, there is a big but,” she sighed, and I tried not to be juvenile and smirk at her remark. I failed. “A rather unpleasant snowstorm is heading this way. This means we’ll have to pack up tonight and get out before it hits us.”
Her raised hands swiftly silenced the chorus of complaints.
“I know, I know. We promised more time, but if this storm is as bad as they say, we won’t be able to get home tomorrow.
And I have kids to attend to. Even if a snowstorm seems like a fantastic excuse to take a weekend away from those tiny monsters so my husband can, for once, get up at the crack of dawn because mommy really needs to fucking sleep—”
“You’re deviating,” said John.
She shook her head. “Sorry. So instead of having six solid hours tomorrow, I beg you, finish what you have and send your manuscript and blurb by ten tonight. Don’t worry if it isn’t polished; the editors are all aware that you had half a day of work cut.
But…” She glanced at me. “Have your ending wrapped up. Your laptops have to be turned in and your stuff packed if we want to avoid being stranded out here.”
I caught John’s eyes. Stranded in a snowstorm with him? I couldn’t think of anything less appealing.