At my incredulity, he turns and comes to sit right in front of me.
Why does he take every single thing as a challenge?
He holds out his hand, thumb up, waiting for me to join. There’s self-satisfaction written all across his expression. If I don’t participate, then he wins by default by psyching me out. If I play, I’m a chump who’s given in. It’s lose-lose for me, and he knows it.
But there’s nothing else to do on this ridiculous roof, so I might as well succumb to the madness.
I take his hand, watch it curve around mine, and immediately realize this was a bad idea.
I’m not sure I needed to know the texture of his grip. I’m not sure I needed to know how warm his hand is, even as the steamy weather has cooled off around us. I’m not sure I needed to know the ways my fingers feel small inside his.
Whatever visceral reaction I’ve been having to Eli since the moment we met, it’s compounded by having these physical revelations. I want to shed them like a skin and burn them out of my mind, because for everything I dislike about this man, I’m going to have to stop kidding myself and admit that I’m undeniably attracted to him. It doesn’t have any bearing on anything for a multitude of reasons—former patient, agitating neighbor, his entire personality—but it’s still floating there, palpable and irrefutable, even if all rationality would say it shouldn’t be so. My body inexplicably wakes up around Eli, and it ignores that that fact is a major inconvenience.
I realize I’ve been staring at our hands intertwined for too long and look up. His eyes are on me, unreadable. I’m finding it sort of hard to breathe.
“Ready?” he asks, and I huff incredulously. He has no idea what I’m ready for in this moment.
But he’s oblivious as he starts moving his thumb and saying words I haven’t heard since I was probably in middle school. “One, two, three, four, I declare a thumb war.”
I move my thumb side to side along his, and I can’t help but giggle. This is ridiculous.
And of course, because I’m not taking it seriously—and admittedly distracted—he smushes my thumb almost instantly.
“Aha!” he says, throwing his hands into the air, as though the victory is for something other than two bored people locked on a roof.
I’m grateful for the loss of his hand on mine, though, because I need to get whatever thoughts are running through my brain to exit. Immediately.
“So that was a really great activity for passing thirty seconds of time,” I say dryly, hoping to put an end to any consideration of another round.
He laughs and shakes his head. “Okay, yeah. We can probably do better than thumb wars,” he admits. “Truth or dare?” he asks, eyes widening as though he’s had a really brilliant, unique idea.
“What are you, stuck at the age of seven?” I ask.
“Just someone who was stuck on a lot of long car trips with my little sister as a kid and hasn’t had a need for entertainment without audio, books, or television for quite a long time,” he points out.
I stand up, maybe to get a better lay of the land, but mostly to shake off whatever’s lingering after touching him. I need to tamp down the firestorm that’s exploded across my insides.
I look across the mostly empty roof, the expansive skyline of New York City stretching out in front of us but so unreachable. We really are in a closed circuit here. There’s the water tower and someair-conditioning equipment, but otherwise it’s just us, Eli’s in-progress planters, and a locked door.
I sigh, the movement having allowed me to pull myself back together, and sit back down—although this time a little farther from Eli to keep some physical distance between us. “I don’t think any dares are doable in a place with nothing around us.”
“Okay then, truth,” he says, clearly not the type to be put off by wrinkles forming in every single plan. “Tell me an embarrassing thing.”
“You first,” I say automatically, as though my default with this man is distrust.
“I really like my food burned to a crisp,” he responds without hesitation. “Like, if you give me a piece of meat fully charred, I’m so happy. And I’ll eat a vegetable that’s been cooked to within an inch of its life.”
“That’s notembarrassing,” I remark.
“It is when a rare steak is placed in front of me.”
I roll my eyes. “All food?” I ask.
“Not junk food or dessert,” he says. “I love to bake, so obviously you don’t want to burn any of that.”
“You love tobake?”
The idea of this man in an apron dusted with flour seems anathema to his wiry, tough exterior.I’ma baker. I’m an introvert who loves to be alone with books and recipes and snacks. Not this guy.
