by Monroe, Max
His mouth was skilled and his kiss felt nice, but the instant he slipped his tongue past my lips and just barely touched mine, something didn’t feel right.
It felt unnatural. Like kissing my cousin or something.
Thankfully, he didn’t push it any further after that.
He pulled away, ending the kiss, and we both stared at each other in utter confusion.
“Uh…that was…” Jordy paused and broke our eye contact for a second as he ran a hand through his hair.
“A little weird,” I offered, and his eyes met mine again.
He searched my eyes for a brief moment until a small, hesitant smile lifted the corner of his lips. “Yeah, I guess it was a little weird, huh?”
I laughed at that, equal parts relieved and amused. “Well, I didn’t really expect you to kiss me, but if I’m being honest, I kind of felt like I was kissing my brother. Even though I don’t even have a brother.”
He chuckled softly, and he ran his hand through his hair again. “Yeah. Thank fuck I wasn’t the only one who felt like that was…off.”
A short silence filled the space between us, but eventually, I broke it when a question popped into my mind.
“So…you’ve been thinking about kissing me?”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “You’re beautiful and smart, and I don’t know, I just wanted to know what it would feel like…” He paused and swallowed hard. “I guess a friendship is really the only hope we have, huh?”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “But I’d like that very much.”
“Me too.” He nodded and glanced down at his shoes for a brief moment before meeting my eyes again. “How about we keep this kiss between us? I mean, it might not be good for my reputation if it gets out that kissing me felt like you were kissing your imaginary brother…”
I snorted. “God forbid, your ladies’ man reputation takes a hit for this.”
He chuckled and reached out to wrap his arms around my back and pull me into a tight bear hug. “Will you be my friend, unlucky Lucky?” he whispered into my ear. “I promise I won’t try to kiss you again.”
I leaned back and looked up into his big blue eyes. “Only if you promise to help me with my surfer slang.”
“Deal.”
I hugged him tightly again and pressed a soft kiss to his cheek. “Good night, Jordy.”
“Good night.”
The instant I was safely inside my room, I leaned against the door and let out a huge breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.
Between nearly losing my mind on the dance floor with Ollie, and Jordy giving me the weirdest kiss of my life outside my hotel room, I honestly had no idea what to make of it all.
[laughs softly]
Seriously, it was a total mindfuck of a night, folks.
One that I was more than ready to put to bed.
But just as I threw my purse onto the small table beside the TV, my phone pinged inside with a notification. I pulled it out and checked my messages.
An unknown number with a simple question. Did you make it back to the hotel okay?
Deep down, I knew who it was. I’m not sure why I knew who it was, but I did.
Still, though, I responded back with Who is this?
The answering response came a moment later. Ollie
When I asked him how he’d even managed to get my number, he responded with,
I have my ways. But you still didn’t answer my question.
After I told him I had, in fact, made it back to the hotel safely, I added his contact information to my phone. You know, just in case I’d need to get in contact with him for something…
[sighs]
At least, that’s why I’d told myself I’d done it.
Surely, it didn’t have anything to do with the fact that I was insanely attracted to him and couldn’t seem to shake him from my thoughts, right?
If you’re thinking I’m full of shit right now, you are one hundred percent correct.
But our conversation wasn’t through, and my phone pinged with a new message.
You left kind of abruptly. You okay?
Was I okay? Um, no. He had pretty much fucked with my head, and I’d had to leave the bar before I stuck my tongue down his throat and dry-humped his thigh.
But obviously, that response would not work.
So, I settled for something a little less ridiculous.
I’m fine. I was just tired and wanted to make sure I get some sleep before the long flight tomorrow.
The last message he sent?
Sleep well, little fire. I’ll see you in the morning.
Sleep well, little fire.
And for the first time since he’d started using that nickname, I actually found my traitorous mouth smiling at the sight of it.
[sighs]
I’d like to tell you I woke up the next day with a clear head and ironclad willpower that prevented any further up close and personal interactions with Ollie.
But then, I’d be lying to you.
And more than that, I’ve barely even scratched the surface.
There’s more. A whole hell of a lot more…
* * *
Episode 7: “But I never sleep on planes…”
Early flights are a real bitch.
Early international flights?
[laughs softly]
Well, they are the bane of my existence. Not only do you have to get to the airport insanely early, you do it knowing full well, you’re about to be stuck inside a cramped plane for the next several hours without any reprieve in sight.
And, because I was Scoop’s resident surfing journalist—it’s okay to laugh about this—I was headed to yet another location on yet another long-ass international flight.
It was June 12th, and at a little after eight in the morning, I boarded my flight to South Africa for the next big surfing event in Eastern Cape.
To say I wasn’t excited about an eighteen-hour flight would’ve been the understatement of the century, but I hoped to fill the long time void with work and hopefully, a few hours of sleep.
The work part was definitely achievable.
But the whole sleeping part? Well, that goal was likely doomed to fail from the start.
I’ve never been the type of person who can fall asleep on planes.
I’ve tried, many, many times, but always end up wide awake and staring enviously at my snoozing seat mates.
Is it sleeping pills? Natural instincts? Booze?
I wish I knew their secrets.
With a long, restless future ahead of me, I stored my carry-on in the overhead bin, slid into my first-class seat by the window, and pulled my tablet out of my large purse before sliding the bag under the seat in front of me.
The gods had seen fit to bless me with an upgrade from business, and I was no fool. Pointing out the presumed clerical error that landed me there wasn’t on my to do list.
Normally, I preferred to write on my laptop, but have you ever tried to work on a laptop on those tiny fucking airplane trays?
[laughs]
It’s completely impossible.
Not to mention, there is absolutely no privacy when your laptop screen is lit up like a damn Christmas tree and visible to everyone around you.
While the rest of the plane boarded, I hooked myself up to my hotspot, slid my earbuds in, and turned on my favorite upbeat playlist while I browsed through my emails.
Kelly Clarkson serenaded me about a “Love So Soft,” and I clicked open a message from Vanessa.
The subject? The rough draft of my first Dear Ex-Boyfriend article.
I want the final, edited copy ready for June 18th.
It will have front-page placement.
Make it good.
Translation for those of you who aren’t fluent in Vanessa-ese: “Good job, I approve.”
Initially, I smiled.
But then, I panicked a bit over the June 18th publication date.
Did I mention it was already June 12th?
Tha
t meant I had less than six days to make sure my first Dear Ex-Boyfriend article was perfect. Not to mention, I still had my daily article responsibilities, the first surfing article to finalize for its July 9th debut, and the ongoing interviews and research needed for the next surfing article.
No pressure or anything, right?
[snorts]
But panicked or not, this was Vanessa I was dealing with.
If I showed weakness—or fear—she’d eat me alive.
Swallowing down my discomfort, I sent her a quick email back, acting way more easy breezy than I felt, and thanked her for the front-page opportunity and let her know I’d have it done in time.
Was it possible? Yes. Of course. Anything is always possible.
But was it possible to hit my deadlines while managing to sleep at some point? Now, that, my friends, was debatable.
Can you say Hello, un-concealable dark circles, bags under my eyes, and constant fatigue?
[laughs softly]
That was a near certainty of my future.
I pulled up her edits and remarks on my Dear Ex-Boyfriend rough draft and tried my damnedest not to have a panic attack when I noted there were nearly sixty comments and notations for my one-thousand-word piece.
Despite her thoughts that this was front-page material, she apparently had some opinions. Most were of the “Clarify” nature, but still, opinions nonetheless.
Surely, I could fix this baby up by the time our wheels touched down in South Africa, right?
That was also questionable, but remember, I was a Type 3 Achiever who loved a good challenge.
With a deep breath inhaled and exhaled through my lungs, I reeled in my panic and created a game plan. I’d attack her comments and notations first, then go back and start revising the whole thing.
But I’d only reached comment number two when someone made their way into the seat beside mine. I looked up from my screen and into the mocha gaze of the man who had really thrown my body for a sexual tension loop the night prior.
Jesus Christ, I silently muttered to myself.
It was like I couldn’t escape him.
Ollie grinned and his mouth moved, but I couldn’t hear the words leaving his lips over Kelly Clarkson telling me I was a “Whole Lotta Woman.”
“Huh?” I asked and slipped the earbuds out of my ears.
“I said, Mornin’,” he responded as he wrapped his seat belt around his trim waist and clicked it into place. “How are you feeling?”
I shrugged. “I’m okay.”
He looked at my tablet and tilted his head to the side as his gaze scanned the screen. “Dear Ex-Boyfriends, I’m ready for closure,” he read aloud, and I shut my eyes in discomfort.
It was one thing to read your own words quietly to yourself, but it was a whole other thing to hear those words out loud coming from someone else’s lips.
When I opened my eyes again, he was still reading along and smirking as he did.
“Jeez, nosy much?” I quickly powered down the screen, saved changes be damned, and Ollie lifted his gaze back to mine.
Of course, he just kept on smirking. “A writer who doesn’t want anyone to read what she writes? That’s a bit ironic, yeah?”
“More like, a writer who doesn’t want anyone to read what she writes until it’s actually finished,” I retorted.
“I thought you were writing a series about surfing…”
“I am,” I responded and couldn’t stop my eyes from moving heavenward. “But it’s not my only responsibility for the website.”
“I see.” He nodded toward my tablet. “So, you’re also responsible for writing letters to ex-boyfriends too?”
“It’s a work in progress, but yes, it’s part of a new series I’m working on.”
“A series that includes letters to your ex-boyfriends?”
“How many times are you going to say ex-boyfriends?”
“As many as it takes for you to answer my question.”
“You realize this is none of your business, right?”
“Doesn’t make me any less curious.” He shrugged. “Not to mention, my curiosity is more your fault than mine.”
“What?” I asked on a shocked laugh. “How is your being nosy my fault?”
“I wasn’t the one with my tablet on for the whole plane to read my letters to my ex-boyfriends.”
Even though he was annoying the shit out of me, I couldn’t not grin at that and take the wide opening he’d just kindly placed in my lap. “So, you also write a lot of letters to your ex-boyfriends?”
He winked. “Whenever I’m needing closure, I do.”
“You’re annoying.”
“Pretty sure you’ve told me this before.”
“Yeah, and I’m wondering if you’ll ever get the point.”
“If you asked my VP Zoe, she’d probably tell you not to even bother with trying.”
“Sounds like a smart woman.”
“She loathes me.”
“Yeah, pretty sure she and I would get along just fine.”
Ollie laughed at that, and I slid my tablet into the mesh holder on the back of the seat in front of mine as our flight prepared for takeoff.
The flight attendants moved down the aisles of the now-filled plane and prepared the cabin.
Once the captain greeted us over the intercom and our wheels started to taxi toward the runway, I did my best to find a comfortable position in my seat.
And like a slap to the face, it hit me. I had to endure an eighteen-hour flight with Ollie sitting beside me.
[sighs]
Did you hear that? An eighteen-hour flight.
The panic was real, my friends.
And the uncertainty about the situation was even realer.
Obviously, I’d somehow drawn the short straw that morning.
By some stroke of luck, his penchant for annoying me appeared to overshadow the fact that I’d been about one second away from throwing caution to the wind the night before and kissing him.
[laughs softly]
That surely would’ve made the trip even more awkward than it already was…
I mentally cringed when I thought about the possibilities and forced myself to stare out the window and not think about the way he’d made me feel last night.
But it was pretty much a fruitless endeavor when I glanced over my shoulder and noted, even dressed in those cargo shorts and a plain white T-shirt, how stupidly handsome he truly was.
Long, dark lashes framed his deep brown eyes, and his lips formed a soft, full line above his strong jawline. It felt a bit cruel for God to make a man look so damn good yet give him the personality of the biggest prick I’d ever met.
When those lips crested up into a grin, I blinked out of my stupor and realized Ollie’s gaze was now locked on mine.
“You okay?” he asked and searched my face.
“Uh-huh.”
“You sure? You seemed a little lost in thought there for a minute.”
[groans]
Yeah, lost in thoughts of him…
“I’m good,” I lied and even added a pathetic excuse of, “Flights just make me a little nervous.”
Flights never made me nervous. If anything, they bored me.
But, Ollie?
Yeah, he made me nervous. And the way he made me feel had my brain all kinds of fucked up.
I wanted to be turned off by him.
I wanted my annoyance to overshadow everything else.
And, maybe, if I hadn’t danced with him last night, that would be the case.
But I couldn’t change the past.
And I definitely couldn’t change the fact that I knew how good his body felt against mine. I knew he smelled like the sun and the beach with hints of soft vanilla intertwined throughout. I knew his muscles felt just as firm and toned as they looked. And I knew being inside of his arms, dancing with him and staring up into his big brown eyes gave me a high I’d never experienced before.
Obviously, I knew too
fucking much.
I leaned my head back into the seat and shut my eyes as our plane started to propel forward, down the runway, until we picked up enough speed for our wheels to lift off the ground.
Between my wayward thoughts about Ollie and the fact that he would be sitting right beside me for the next several hours, I knew there was no way I’d be getting any work done.
Maybe, just maybe, for the first time in my life, I’d be able to fall asleep on the plane.
Maybe if I kept my eyes shut tightly enough, my nocturnal instincts would kick in, and my body would understand the only way to survive this flight would be to fall into an eighteen-hour coma.
A girl could dream, right?
[laughs and then groans]
Well, friends, a few hours later, a girl did dream…
I was so deep into dreamland, when the words, “Can I get you anything to drink, sir?” reached my ears, I had no idea where they’d come from.
Was I dreaming the question? I had no idea.
“I’ll take a water,” a familiar male voice answered, but his voice was so near, it startled me to blink my eyes open.
For a minute there, I didn’t know where I was or what in the hell was happening, but when I took in the leather of the first-class seats in front of me, I realized I was still on the plane and the male voice had been Ollie’s.
When I attempted to lift my head, my neck screamed out in discomfort, the tendons stiff and tight from the odd position and the stark reality that I was lying against something really hard.
It felt like a fucking rock, and eventually, I found the strength to lift my head.
But when I did, I glanced down to the find the outline of a firm, muscular shoulder covered by soft, white cotton material.