“Technically I’m still doing it,” I say with a dry chuckle.
“Yes, but getting this done between your other research work and the teaching you do—you’ve made me so proud, you know.” Anita turns to the screen again. “When you came in that first afternoon with Evan from school to hang out and told me with such passion how you’d gone diving that weekend, I knew you were going to do great things, Tris. Bigger things than all of us put together.”
I bite the inside of my cheek, trying to ignore Lexi’s body heat and manage my joy at the praise from the woman I’ve secretly adopted as a substitute mom. That Anita’s home was a welcome haven for me in my teens was probably what saved me. As a kid, I tried to ignore the bickering at my house, but if you’re the only kid and your parents are at it like adolescent siblings, it’s hard to hear anything else.
I look over to where Lexi is staring at the screen. I can recite the narrator’s script word for word; I know the clip that’s showing with each new scene. So it’s more fascinating to watch Lexi as she takes it all in. She blinks, and I realize there are tears in her eyes. She’s unaware that I’m studying her, andthis, seeing her so open and unchecked—it twists my throat into a pretzel.
I brush my thumb along the top of her hand, and when she hooks a finger with mine, I don’t draw back. She looks into my eyes for a moment, bites her lip, and then tugs at my hand, indicating with her head that I should follow. I turn, but she stops, and we stand toe to toe, my body screening her from Anita’s view.
Lexi drops her head to my chest, and the gesture catches me so off guard that I let go of her hand to squeeze her shoulders. “What’s wrong?” I whisper.
Behind us on the computer screen, urgent and frenzied music plays, accompanying the footage of a school of fish that swarmed into a ball during a dolphin hunt. It’s loud.
She leans up to my ear and whispers, her breath warm, her body soft against mine, “I didn’t realize the stakes were so high for you. What you’re doing is amazing, and you must finish it.”
Her cheek brushes mine as she pulls back, and for a moment our faces are inches apart in the darkened room, lit only by blue flashes from the computer screen.
I rest my hands on her hips, burning to pull her into my arms, and she doesn’t move away. “Thank you.” I smile. I’vebeen so busy, so into this production with my heart and soul that I’ve never stepped back to look at it with fresh eyes. I lean closer to make sure Anita doesn’t hear. “Thanks to you, I’ll get to finish it.”
“Tristan,” she mouths as she shakes her head. “You don’t understand. I… I just have a job, a totally insignificant job a million people can do. This—this—” She breaks off and swallows. “Onlyyoucan do this.”
“Lexi—”
“No. For the first time, I’m bending the ruleswithsomeone, and if this goes belly up,youstand to lose so much more than me.”
She steps away and wipes at tears. Frustration, in every possible form, balloons in me.
She’s always talking herself down, and now Anita’s presence here has unearthed every doubt in her. Anita O’Reilly is probably one of the nicest, kindest women to ever walk this Earth, and Lexi has always wanted to be Little Miss Perfect in her mom’s eyes—a side-effect of having a fourth-grade teacher for a mom—except Lexi has grown into a woman who likes to test boundaries, question rules and bend them. Since Anita’s arrived, she’s been staving off a mini-meltdown and trying her best to hide it.
No, we aren’t telling the full story, but Lexi is an adult, andher mom doesn’t need to know everything that’s happening in her life. Hiding our fake, temporary engagement from her mom is the most logical thing to do. Plus, we’re leaving in a week, and there’s no turning back. Pulling out now would be worse than faking our relationship.
“Nothing’s going belly up.” I widen the gap to have her at arm’s length, tamping down on the desire to touch her more than I already am.
“What’s that?” Anita asks.
I close my eyes for a second, trying to get a grip. “I forgot about the pork belly I bought yesterday,” I say, glad such a logical response is at hand. “We still wanted to grill some.”
“I’ll go see to the rest of the food,” Lexi says as she steps out of the room, her eyes no longer meeting mine. “I’ll call you when it’s ready.”
“Sure, thanks.” Behind me, Anita is hopefully transfixed by the sardine hunt on the screen, clinging to her glass of wine, oblivious to our interaction.
I turn back to the screen, but I’m staring blindly.What the hell was that?Not that I object but…
Over the past few weeks, busy as I’ve been, Lexi and I have spent a lot of time together as we got through the training and prepared for our trip. We’ve grown closer. So close that we both know neither of us has gonorrhea.
Despite the time doing the training, paperwork, and medicals with all its high-five moments, I’ve not let my guard down around her at all. In fact, I’ve done my best to build a virtual Fort Knox around Lexi to contain her and keep her where she belongs.Far away from me.
If she’s going to open herself up, touch me even innocently like she just did… I can’t even go there in my head. Not with her.
When I arrived that day in early December, I knew Lexi and I had baggage. We haven’t examined it yet, opting instead for a temporary truce. And now a temporary fake engagement. I don’t know what we were thinking, but it’s too late now. We just need to get through these three months and walk away from Ne’emba Island and each other with our goals met—nothing else.
Nothing else.
Fuck.
Chapter Ten
LEXI
