Page 116 of Off the Grid

His grin does things to my insides that should be illegal . . . and yet I feel this weird, invisible wall between us.

“You want to get out of here?” he asks.

“What do you mean?” I ask because we don’t get out of anywhere together unless it’s the bed.

“I’m asking you to get out of the office. To get out of our flats. And after this weekend—you’re avoiding me—again. Either because of my fuck up on the track or . . . other things.” He shoves his hands in his pockets and shifts on his feet. “We travel the fucking world together, Camilla, but we don’t do anything. You work and tell me what to post on social media. I drive and meet hundreds of people. But we don’t enjoy anything outside of that because we’re so focused. So let’s go do something. Anything.”

I swallow over the lump in my throat. I don’t know why this simple request has gotten to me. “People know who you are now,” I say, giving a futile excuse I don’t really mean. “We can’t be seen together.”

“Your point?” He points to the window. “It’s dark outside. There are plenty of places we can go where we can hide in the shadows. Where we can talk and laugh and just be.” He walks over to me where I’m sitting at my desk and holds his hand out to me. “Please, Gasket? I’m going fucking stir-crazy.”

The expression on his face—earnest, hopeful, playful—sticks with me as we make our way through town after town. The top is down on his convertible, and the warm night air whips around as the stars above grow brighter and brighter.

We stop for some food from a local delicatessen that’s just about to close. One look at Riggs and the owner’s eyes grow wide, and his hand about to flip the closed sign pauses. We buy some of everything he has left, determined to make his few extra minutes of time worth it. Then we head out to a popular park area that’s closed at this time of night.

Riggs takes my hand and leads me to a closed gate.

“Riggs!” I whisper as if someone is close and can hear me. “It says closed. We can’t go in there. It’s breaking and entering or whatever it’s called here.”

“It’s not breaking and entering.” He chuckles and then starts to put in the combination on the lock to open it up, while I look at him slack-jawed.

“What are you—I mean—” I look all around us. Clearly, he knows the combination, but that doesn’t mean this is allowed. “Riggs.”

He puts his hand on the back of my neck, pulls me against him, and meets his mouth to mine. His kiss has a dizzying effect on me. My head spins and my body tingles.

Does this ever stop?

I mean, it’s new for me—like everything has been awakened—but does it fade at some point? Do you just get used to feeling and that high-frequency buzz becomes a low-grade meh?

“It’s okay to break a few rules, Gasket. Relax. You’re earning your nickname right now.”

“But—” His kiss cuts me off again.

“Keep arguing and I’ll keep kissing you.”

“That’s a win-win situation for me, Riggs.” I smile against his lips as his chuckle rumbles against my chest. “I just might keep arguing.”

He leans back and brushes hair off my forehead, his eyes meeting mine under the moonlit night. “Then you’ll miss the best view in a one-hundred-kilometer radius.”

“Oh really?”

He nods. “Oh really.”

“How do you know the code?” He quirks an eyebrow and glances at my lips in warning. “Just a question.”

He picks up the bag of food, the blanket he had in his trunk, and leads me through the gate, locking it at our back. “My mum used to work for the local municipal department here. She’d bring me here when I was a kid. It was our place to go after . . . after everything.”

Our hands find one another’s as we walk. We lace our fingers like it’s the most casual thing, when to me, it isn’t.

It’s . . . intimate in this setting. The dark night. The stars above. The privacy.

We walk for a while, the night noises filtering around us. The rustle of trees. The songs of insects. The fall of our feet. And when we clear a ridge and Riggs steps aside, I understand why we’re here.

The whole of London is laid out before us in the distance. She’s beautiful with her twinkling lights and her domed churches, and the chimneys interrupting the skyline.

“Wow.” It’s all I say as I take it in.

“I know.” He lays out the blanket. “I haven’t been here in a long time. I forgot how incredible it is.”