I didn’t get to know if he wanted to kiss me like I wanted to kiss him, though. Because my life was enough of a mess. I was fired and dumped. I didn’t get to have Beau Walker, and that’s all there was to it.
I looked down at my lopsided cup as I stuffed down my heartache. “This one’s going to have a lot of personality.”
“I can see that.” He laughed. And it was the good laugh again. Lately, I was starting to worry I might be addicted to that laugh.
When he had assembled his pencil cup, he turned to help me with mine, and the quiet concentration necessary for the task felt intimate. As we both reached for the clamp, our hands brushed—warm skin against warm skin—and my stomach did a little flip. I looked up at him to see if he felt it, too.
His eyes were soft at the edges, but he kept his gaze steady onme.
What are you doing? What are you doing, Este? You’re on a time-out. Forever.
“You ever wonder if our new personalities involve dinners?” he asked, and there was a rasp in his voice, like he was nervous.
Thank God I’m seated.
“What do you mean?” I laughed, feebly searching for a joke. “Have you not been eating dinner?”
“Not with you.” He smiled. “There’s a place near my house. Some Michelin-level spot everyone’s raving about.”
He said it like a suggestion. But I could hear the question, too. Did I want to go on a date with him?
Obviously yes.
But I couldn’t. I couldn’t trust myself to be somewhere with him that didn’t have bright overhead lighting. And if I said no, that might be the end of our side quests. But if I said yes? No. I couldn’t say yes. Couldn’t see him dressed up and candlelit. It already took effort to resist the way I wanted to kiss him when we were wearing woodworking aprons.
“Maybe,” I countered, looking back down at my pencil cup. “But the weather on Saturday is supposed to be beautiful. I was thinking we should try this thing in my neighborhood.”
“Oh yeah?”
I nodded, attempting to hold two pieces of wood in place without letting him see my shaking hands. “Unicycling. I’ve been wanting to give it a shot.”
“You’vebeen wanting to tryunicycling?” His mouth twitched, and I couldn’t tell if he was amused or disappointed.
“Yeah. Maybe that’s my new personality.” I looked back at the cup, but I could feel his eyes on me. “And then maybe we can do your thing some other time?”
“All right,” he said after a beat. “Send me the details.”
He hid his disappointment well, but I could feel it. The tiny part of him begging me to let him in.
I can’t.I wanted to telegraph back.Because you won’t like me if I do.
So instead of dinner by candlelight at some ritzy restaurant, we ended up wobbling on rented unicycles through the streets of Venice. And it wasn’t the worst distraction I had ever cooked up—mostly because it was impossible to feel sexy while wearing a helmet and flailing for balance. But Beau, of course, was a natural.
I told myself I’d just have to live with that. He was handsome and funny and kind. So kind I sometimes wondered if he was raised on a steady diet of fairy tales with sitcom-perfect parents. And he was good ateverything.And I could never kiss him. Never tell him how much I liked him, which unfortunately for me was a little more with every side quest.
While balancing all of these thoughts along with my imperfect core strength, I was too busy to notice the uneven sidewalk that bit at my wheel and sent me flying.
My arms pinwheeled as I fell. I wasn’t airborne long, but it was long enough to register that my landing was really going to suck, and then, I slid forward. My bare arms scraped against concrete, skinning my elbows with a searing pain.
“Shit—Este.” Beau was off his unicycle in an instant. I didn’t have to look up. I could hear his feet hitting the blacktop as he ran back and crouched beside me. “Are you okay?”
I sat up slowly, hissing through my teeth as I looked at my elbow. Skin raw. Blood dripping. My pride eviscerated.
This is what you wanted, right? Distractions. Theatrics. Anything to avoid thinking about Simon. Or Beau.
“It’s fine,” I said, trying to laugh, but my voice shook.
“Let me see.” He reached for my arm before I could stop him, and I think the amount of blood took us both by surprise. He looked around for something to stop the bleeding, but the only things in sight were a recycling bin and a tipped Bird scooter.
