I force a smile. “No need to talk. We agreed it was practice, right?”
One kiss is hardly enough practice, my lizard brain supplies as my eyes get caught on Lewis’s lips, still swollen from being pressed against mine. I need to get out of here before I find an excuse to kiss him again. Shoving my laptop into my bag, I yank it over my shoulder. As I reach for my water bottle, it tips over and rolls toward the edge, but Lewis catches it before it falls. I debate whether I really need my bottle back or if I can leave it behind and get a new one, when Lewis holds it out.
“Here,” he says, and I’m not sure if I’m imagining the resignation in his voice. “Text me your address, okay? I’ll pick you up later.”
The afternoon rushes by in a flurry of getting ready for the graduation party tonight, all while downplaying to myself just how horny that kiss made me. I’m angry and annoyed that after years of having meaningless flings, it’s not a random friend of a friend who made me feel this way but Lewis, who is decidedly off-limits as a colleague.
I’m also scared he’ll want to talk about the kiss when I see him again, no doubt to tell me what a big mistake it was. But it turns out that in light of the upcoming reunion with his family, he isn’t very interested in talking anymore. He’s quiet when he picks me up, a stoic figure poured into a three-piece suit that’s such a deep blue it brings out the color of his eyes. For a moment, at the door, his gaze drifts down my face and snags on the halter neckline of my dress. The lilac chiffon fabric hugs my body close and exposes my back. But then his expression closesup again and he stays quiet for the entire taxi ride downtown, pulling on his cuff links with his thumbs and radiating nervous energy.
“Here we go,” are the first words he utters, after paying for the taxi and guiding me down the pavement to Pier 11. Before us lies a yacht that’s as big as the ferries leaving to Brooklyn or Staten Island from the neighboring piers. People wearing tailcoats and evening gowns spill out of the two-story cabin onto the deck, while the tasteful soundtrack of a jazz band sweetens our wait. The tinkle of a piano, the croon of a saxophone, the excited chatter of the party guests. Our names are checked, and then we’re walking up the short gangway. It bobs with the sway of the waves, and I wobble in my strappy high heels until Lewis grabs my arm.
Inside, a seamless window front encloses the salon on the lower deck, revealing a view of the soaring skyscrapers to one side and the majestic Brooklyn Bridge on the other. Beyond the opulent setting, wealth is apparent in the shine of people’s hair and their smooth complexions, the sleek ties and glistening necklaces.
“Is this your family’s? Why didn’t you tell me they owned a freaking yacht?” I call over my shoulder, the air a cool relief from the heat outside. “They do own this thing, right? Are you sure you don’t want anything to do with them anymore?”
When I turn around, I catch Lewis’s gaze snap from my back to his wrists. The shells of his ears have turned pink and he’s nervously fiddling around with his cuff links again.
Before we can make our way farther into the room, I pull Lewis into a nook under the stairs that lead to the top deck. But despite my heels putting my eyes almost level with his, I’m not strong enough to womanhandle him, so we stumble into the alcove, which is smaller than it looked from afar. My face gets squished against the smooth skin of Lewis’s neck.
“What the fuck,” Lewis hisses into my temple as he trips over my toes. The alcove’s original inhabitant, a potted palm tree, leaves little space for us.
“Sorry—”
To stop us from falling over, he clamps an arm around my waist. His hand lands on my spine, now exposed by the low dip of my dress.
Warm.
Firm.
I inhale sharply at the sudden contact. The air hitting my lungs is ninety percent log cabin with an afterthought of oxygen. I breathe him in again, once, twice, before I weasel a hand between us and peel myself off his neck.
“Why—”
“It’s not how I’d planned it. But. Here.” I maneuver him around, shielding us from view by the width of his shoulders. The wall is a grounding weight at my back, allowing me to recover from the onslaught of feelings his proximity has triggered. They only feel more intense now, after we kissed. Practice or not, that kiss in the library was a terrible idea.
Lewis brushes the fanning leaves of the palm tree out of his face. “Christ, what wasthatfor?”
“You seemed nervous,” I say. “Are you okay?”
“Before you shoved me into a wall, I was.”
I narrow my eyes at him, at his face cast in shadows in the dimly lit alcove. “You were not,” I insist. “You started getting all flushed again.”
“Jumping to conclusions, are we?” He studies me and heat blooms wherever I notice his gaze, spreading from my shoulders over my neckline and up my throat. “Maybe it wasn’t nerves. Maybe I was just mesmerized by my pretend girlfriend.”
“Yeah right,” I scoff. “You looked more like you’re alreadymissing the wrinkled shirts and elbow patches of our dear colleagues.”
“That, too.” He gives me a small smile that disappears as soon as he sneaks a glance out of our hiding spot. “This place brings back so many memories.”
I raise my eyebrows. “So, this yacht is like your family’s party boat?”
“I’ve never seen it, so it could be borrowed from a family friend? But no, I meant the…” He gestures over his shoulder. “Crowd. The vibe. I left for a reason, and being back is weird. I keep wondering—if this is how my brother celebrates his graduation, do I really want to meet him? It seems more like something my father would do.”
His sigh tugs something loose in me. I know I can’t make this situation with Lewis and his brother right, but I can try my best to support him through it. “Jumping to conclusions, are we?” I parrot him, imbuing his words with all the gentleness I can muster, lest he take them as an attack. “Look, unless you want to make a run for it in the next thirty seconds or so, we’re here now. Maybe give your brother and this whole event a chance?”
I flatten a crease in his collar and smooth the pad of my thumb over the lines of worry etched into his forehead. Lewis blinks at me, but I’m as surprised as he is at the sudden contact.
If only I hadn’t kissed him, maybe it would be easier to keep my hands to myself.
