“Boats?” I repeat. Lewis’s expression darkens, but before I get to ask him about it, the elevator stops.
“Oh, this is me,” Brady calls, gives both of us a simultaneous half-hug, and pushes a path through the gaggle of students. “Sleep tight, you lovebirds!”
Once she’s off, I sink back against the wall. After our fight and Brady’s revelation, I feel calm, as if I’ve stepped out of the pool after floating in the water for a long time, grounding me in my body like nothing else can. Except maybe an orgasm, though they’re always less effective when achieved solo.
I blink to hide the track of my thoughts from Lewis, but my plan backfires as I once again notice how closely his shirt sticks to his torso. The fabric does a horrible job at hiding the ridges of his chest and the lean muscles of his arms. A drop of water beads from the center of his collarbone into the V of his two undone shirt buttons, and I imagine its progress down his chest and the plane of his stomach.
Lewis flexes his abs and a moment later I hear him clearing his throat. “Frances.”
My gaze snaps back up to his face. “Yes?” I say, drawing the word out innocently.
Flushed ears and a flicker in his eyes—it’s obvious he noticed me ogling his body. What’s not obvious, though, is if he minded. “My floor is coming up.”
“Right.”
Out of the din of the elevator, the corridor is awkwardly silent. “Do you, um, want to wait out the storm with me?” Lewis raises his brows and hands, as if he’s not sure what to do with me. “I mean, I’m happy to wait downstairs with you in the lobby if it’s weird to come to my room. Or we can get you a car, although it may not be the best idea to go outside right now.”
“What about Brady, though?”
Lewis shrugs. “She’s probably busy writing. We can go back downstairs if you want, though you might want to change into something drier.” He motions to my drenched blouse peeking through under his jacket. I pull it tighter around me to shield off the cold, suddenly self-conscious under his gaze.
He notes my discomfort. “Or.” He swallows. “I could give you a set of dry clothes, make some tea… We could raid the minibar and watch some TV. If you’d like,” he adds, a tentative smile playing around his lips.
Catching a ride home or even waiting out the storm in the impersonal hotel lobby would probably be the best idea, but my wet pants are starting to chafe against my thighs and, fine, maybe Brady’s revelation has made me a tiny bit curious about the things I might have gotten wrong about Lewis and what happened four years ago.
“Where’s your room?” I ask.
With a small smile, Lewis leads the way along the carpeted corridor. “What a useless bunch of academics we are,” he says over his shoulder. “Going to this tasteful restaurant and debauching it with a nuclear discussion that exactly N equals two people care about.”
I peel my eyes off of Lewis’s thighs, which look strongunder the hug of his wet chinos. “What else would you have wanted to do there? Share a plate of spaghetti and tell me the three magical words?”
“Three magical words?” He laughs. “Why, I don’t know what you mean.”
I swat his back. “Don’t be coy.”
“Oh you meanthosewords!” He stops in front of a door, slides an arm around me, and fishes something from the pocket of his jacket. A charge flits through my chest as he dips his mouth toward my ear. “Accepted without revisions.”
And with abeep, he unlocks the door to his hotel room.
Chapter Ten
Is that how you seduce your colleagues?” I snort as Lewis pushes the door open. “?‘Accepted without revisions’?”
He waves me inside, lifting one shoulder into a shrug. “If you think about it,” he says, toeing off his shoes, it’s kind of what real love is.”
I bend down to pull at my soggy shoestrings as he starts padding around the room. I’ve never had a scientific paper get published without being asked for a million revisions, so these three words surely hold some magic. But real love?
“I think you have to explain that one to me.”
“I mean…” He steps up next to me and fumbles with the thermostat. “What’s more loving than telling someone you accept them the way they are? Annoying quirks, and all? That it doesn’t matter if they hate public speaking, that they cannot figure out emojis for the life of them, that they use scientific discussions as a way to ignore their feelings? Because you love them anyway?”
While Lewis sets the kettle to boil, draws the sheer curtains in front of the smudged and darkening skyline, and dipsinto the closet, I’m rooted to the spot, his words on playback in my mind. He does have a point, even if I’m not willing to ever tell him that.
As I let my gaze wander around the room, I second-guess my decision to come up here. The room is by no means small, and it’s not even really his room, just a temporary one, impersonal in the way housekeeping has no doubt tidied it up and made his bed this morning, but still. It feels intimate, knowing that he sleeps right there. That he was probably preparing his lecture for later this week before he left to pick me up. There’s a thick book on the night table closest to the window whose title I cannot see, and a pair of climbing shoes pushed under the bench in front of the bed.
I cross my arms, unsure what to do about this new thing we have in common. “I didn’t know you climbed, too.”
“I do. A little top-rope, but mostly bouldering,” he says, his voice comes from behind the open bathroom door. “Helps me take my mind off things.”
