“Yeah,” I pant, but immediately want to revoke my answer when he lifts a corner of his shirt and passes it over his face, granting me a peek at the hair trailing down his torso into the waistband of his shorts. Temperature-regulating clothing and zip-off pants shouldn’t turn me on, but on him, they absolutely, maddeningly do.
Lewis drops the edge of his shirt and waves me over to snap a picture of us together, right next to the wooden sign marking the summit. It’s not long until the sharp, ear-whipping wind drives us off the peak and farther on our loop. As we continue our hike, we lapse into a companionable silence, and my thoughts flip-flop between my growing feelings for Lewis andwhat career options I have now that my grant was rejected. Every now and then, one of us points out something on our route, before we return to the quiet spaces inside our heads. Later that afternoon, we take another break under the canopy of trees on the gentler eastern slope of the mountain.
Lewis spreads out a camp towel on the ground and we both sit with our backs against a fallen log. My body pulsing with his proximity and the exhaustion of the day, I pull my backpack close and search for my stash of granola bars. “Want one?” I offer.
“Nah, thanks,” Lewis replies as he unfolds a paper map on his stretched-out legs. Overhead, sunlight slants through the leaves, tinting the forest golden, and a soft breeze ruffles the branches and blows through my hair. While Lewis studies the map, I eat my lemon coconut bar and absorb the peace and quiet I was, unbeknownst to myself, craving after listening to the sirens and the eight million other people in New York City.
“Thank you,” I tell him, “for getting me out ofthere”—I nod my head left, though Manhattan could very well lie the other way—“and bringing me here.”
He glances up at me. “I’m glad it’s helping.” His eyes scan over my face like they’ve been doing all morning, as if he can read the crevices of my skin and the tension patterns of my facial muscles. It’s a ridiculous thought; Lewis knowing me this well after only one week, but if there’s one thing I’ve understood about him from the start of our tenuous relationship it is that he’s perceptive. Caring, in all his quiet and hidden ways. And that this tough week would’ve been a million times worse without him at my side.
“I’m also sorry for yesterday and, um…” I swirl my hand through the air. “Springing that kiss on you when you clearly didn’t want to. That’s not—part of our deal. Obviously. And Ithink pretending to be a couple and spending so much time with you this week got me a little confused. It’s not… We can be…” I take a deep breath, focus on what I want him to understand. “What I’m saying is, thank you for being my friend.”
Friend. The word feels out of place after four years of rivalry. It also feels like a lie after a long morning wanting to halt Lewis in his tracks, draw him in by the strap of his backpack, and get into his space. But I know friends is really all we should be, given his rejection and my rule never to get involved with a colleague again.
Lewis looks back down at the map, where I can make out the blue ribbon of the Hudson River, and a furrow etches into the freckles splattered on his nose. I wait for him to respond, but his mouth stays shut.
We’ve managed to avoid any mention of my clumsy kiss this whole morning. Maybe I shouldn’t have brought it up.
“Anyway.” I try to sound nonchalant, but the word comes out too high-pitched. “Should we get—”
“Frances, I don’t want to be just your friend,” Lewis cuts in, his gaze finally straying from where it’s been firmly fixed on the map. But instead of meeting my eyes, his skirt over the sun-dappled forest floor.
“Um?” I don’t know what to say.
His frown draws tighter. “And I didn’t reject you because I didn’t want to kiss you.”
“Then why…”
“I’ve been thinking about kissing you this whole time.” His eyes flick up to meet mine and stay, as if he’s drinking me in, all while heat spills through my body anddrip drip dripsinto a simmering pool low in my belly. “You have no idea how much bandwidth you take up in my head.”
His confession short-circuits my mind, leaving it blank.
“But,” he continues, “I want to kiss you—want you to kissme—for the right reasons. Not because I’m pretending to date you. Or because you’re angry and want to deflect. After the last time, I want to be clear that when I kiss you, we’re not hiding behind the roles we’re playing.”
My pulse starts sprinting and, up in my head, the power goes on again.
I take up bandwidth in his head?
Since when has he been wanting to kiss me?
I want to know everything. If he felt it, too, this connection that pulled me into his orbit and planted me there. If he can pinpoint the moment he started wanting me, or if it was a gradual shift, a sneaking suspicion.
Heart close to dancing out of my chest, I reach for his jaw. It scratches against my fingers, as though he’s skipped shaving this morning.
There’s one question rising above all the others that crowd my mind.
“What about now?” All I manage is a whisper. “Do you still want to kiss me?”
His throat bobs, and his darkened eyes dip to my mouth for a sliver of a second. “Yes.” His voice comes out a little ragged. I want him to say my name just like that.
I lean in, but he only narrows his eyes and shakes his head, his voice surprisingly firm when he says, “Talk to me, Frances.”
“I want to kiss you, too,” I whisper, dragging my thumb over the shadow of his beard, and watching how he leans into my touch. I’ve always preferred charging ahead and showing my feelings rather than talking about them, but Lewis said he needed clarity and for him, this—us—I want to try. “Not because I’m angry and not because of our deal. I justreallywant to kiss you.” My last words come out a little desperate, and, under my finger, his jaw shifts as the traces of a smile curve around his mouth.
I struggle to outright ask him to kiss me now, so I settle for the comforting vocabulary of science instead. “So, um. How about we stop thinking and start executing?”
Lewis arches an eyebrow. “Executing? I’d planned…” He breaks off, fisting his hand into the map. The crisp sound of crinkling paper tapers into a heavy silence.
