I deflated a bit and gave him a look.
He restrained a smile, then said, “Fine. I order books from the bookstore you work at for my classroom. One day, I brought you coffee, and you laughed because you didn’t realize I knew your coffee order. But you always had it sitting on top of the counter. Grande vanilla americano, no cream. You were impressed I got it right. I was just impressed by you. Then one day, and many Americanos later, I asked you out.”
I smiled at this telling of our non-meeting. “What did we do?”
“We took out a Seattle Donut Boat in the Puget Sound, but you’re a terrible driver and ran into a large piece of driftwood, and it got caught in the engine—”
“That wouldn’t happen—”
“You sure?” He raised his eyebrows with a smile buried in his lips.
“Fine. It happened,” I answered, thoroughly entranced in playing make-believe with this familiar stranger.
“Right, and even though we were stranded for an extra hour and had to pay a maintenance fee, neither of us cared because we had actual donuts on board.” In one swift gesture, he swept my long brown hair over my shoulder, cradling my neck in his hand, “And we had each other.”
My breath hitched in my throat. It all felt so magical so quickly.
“Did we kiss?” I asked with a breath.
“Of course, and it tasted like chocolate frosting,” he said, his voice low and raspy in the dimly lit bar.
The blood was rushing through my ears, and my stomach felt tight with need, but I managed to say, “I like that first date.”
His lips moved even closer to mine as he whispered, “So will your sisters.”
I let out a low laugh as he brushed a strand of hair from my face, and I whispered, “I’m not going to take you up to my room.”
His smile grew. “And so the torture begins.”
I laughed as our faces stayed breaths apart, his hand on my cheek, the other wrapped around my waist.
“But also,” he added. “That’s presumptuous. I haven’t even tried to kiss you.”
“But you should, right?” I teased. “I mean, we should practice. If we kiss for the first time in front of two hundred people I know in real life, and it’s awkward, this will all be for nothing—”
He didn’t wait for me to complete my sentence. His strong hand gently found my neck and tilted my mouth to his by the jaw. For such an abrupt movement, his lips still landed on mine softly. I could taste the wine on his lips and smell the aftershave on his skin. My eyes fell closed, and I drifted into a dreamlike state of mind that simultaneously felt like I was drowning downstream and floating on a cloud. With the gentle pressure of his hand on my neck and the other on my hip, he woke up all my senses.
I didn’t think it could feel like that so soon. I had kissed a stranger before, but never a stranger that kissed me like they had known me my whole life. They call it falling, but that kiss felt like dancing. It felt like a kiss I had waited for my entire life. His hands cradled my body like he already knew it, and his mouth moved against mine with soft yet skilled movements. I wanted more. It was like a needle that found a vein. A drug that found a feen. A person that found their person.
I pressed a reluctant hand on his chest and pulled back, licking the taste of him off my lips.
“Well, if this is your idea of torture...” he teased with a smile.
I breathed out a laugh as my gaze snapped to my buzzing phone. It was lit up with a text from my older sister, Marie.
I frowned when I read it. “I have to go. My sister is outside to pick me up for the rehearsal dinner. I’m sorry. Can I get your number, and I’ll text you the details about tomorrow?”
He took my phone from me as I held it out to him. “Sure. And I can’t make it to the rehearsal tonight because I had to do a last-minute parent-teacher conference before school is out next week.”
He finished typing his number into my phone and handed it back to me. “Right. And we both live in...” I waited for his answer, hoping he remembered where I was from.
“Gig Harbor.”
“Good job.” I smiled, needing to pull back and walk away but not wanting to. “See you tomorrow,Isaac. Don’t bail on me.”
He took my hand in his and kissed it, leaving tingles on my skin. “I would never.”
As I walked out of the hotel to meet my sister with her husband and daughter, Serene, I opened my phone to see he saved his number as Isaac Morrison. Then I realized he texted himself:the most beautiful girl you’ve ever met. Save this number immediately.
