by Becky Monson
Okay, so I sort of get that. I mean, Tiffany acts like she runs the call center. She’s pretty bossy. But regardless, that feeling creeps in again, the one where I think Nate is holding back. Something kind of feels . . . off. And I don’t like it.
Nate shakes his head as if to pull himself out of a thought. “How does doing this trip help Quinn’s career?” he asks, just as I was going to ask him more about the gym.
I take a breath as a feeling of unease wraps its tiny tendrils around me. I’m torn between wondering if this is my womanly intuition and I should actually be worried, or if I’m just projecting my anxieties about this whole trip onto Nate. The projecting makes the most sense. Especially since my intuition lately has been hit-or-miss.
“Holly?” Nate asks, confusion in his voice at my lack of response.
“Sorry,” I say and then clear my throat. “I got lost in thought there.” I let out a graceless chuckle that may have included a snort. Go, me. “Yes, Quinn. She needed something to get her boss off her back. A feature she could do that would get everyone to forget about the whole video thing.”
“Right,” Nate says, nodding his head as he understands. “So she gets this story idea to get her boss off her back and makes you do it.”
“Well, she didn’t make me,” I say. “I mean, I had a choice.” Sort of. I sort of had a choice.
“And? Did it work? Did it help her?”
“I think so,” I say. “I mean, I guess we won’t know until after the trip’s over.” Every night I’ve been sending her pictures that we’ve been taking as we tour around the city for her to use. She hasn’t sent a response yet, so I hope she’s getting them.
“Well, then this horrible vacation wasn’t totally in vain then,” he winks at me, the side of his mouth pulling up into a half smile.
I punch him lightly on the arm. “Oh, yeah,” I dead-pan. “I hope my suffering has been worth it.”
“So, none of this trip was your idea?” he asks.
“No,” I say emphatically. “This whole thing is so not me.”
His lips curve downward as he appears to be mulling this over in his head. “I wouldn’t have thought that about you.”
I cock my head to the side. “Really? You don’t see that? I’m not really the spontaneous type. I’m more the planning type.”
He chuckles. “Well . . . maybe I can see that. I mean, you haven’t let me pick any of the restaurants.”
This is true. I’ve stayed true to my word and let Nate be my tour guide. But I had to stop it at where we eat. No one chooses my food.
“Well, you wanted to eat at that sketchy seafood place.”
“Hey, that place looked all right,” he says, a fake defensive tone to his voice.
I scrunch my nose, “It looked not clean.”
He laughs. “Okay, you’ve picked the food, but you’ve gone along with all the other plans I made.”
“Yes,” I say taking my hand out of his and rubbing my palms on my cotton skirt. “That’s because my friends made me.”
“Your friends made you?” He squints. “Are we still in middle school?”
I laugh. “Yeah, you don’t know my friends.”
“Well, I got a bit of it back at the airport.”
“They’re protective,” I say.
“I gathered that. Well, all except for your one friend—Bree, I think it was? She seemed like she wanted to come with us.”
I laugh, louder this time. Nate is quite perceptive. Bree wanted to do a lot more than just join us on this trip.
As we talk, I notice the unease has gone and is taken over by a feeling of comfort. Or maybe it’s camaraderie. Nate is a good guy. At least, he’s never shown me any reason to think otherwise so far. Whatever he has going on at work—if that was even anything—is none of my business. I’m just projecting. Actually, right now I’m kind of feeling silly for having any of those unwarranted feelings.
“Has it been horrible for you? Being here in London with me?” Nate asks, this time the hurt on his face doesn’t seem so fake.
“No,” I say, putting my hand on his arm. “I’m having a really good time,” I say and I mean it.
“Good,” he says, reaching over and taking the hand that’s not on his arm. “Because I like being here with you.”
“Good,” I say, looking at Nate and giving him a reassuring smile.
“Good,” he says quietly, his pale blue eyes on me, his smile echoing mine.
Our eyes lock, and something snaps between us. There’s a definite shift. Nate’s smile slowly fades and is replaced by a more intense look—a more serious expression. He leans in toward me and my breath hitches at the proximity.
“Good,” I say, trying to un-snap what’s been snapped, but it doesn’t seem to work. It’s like Nate’s in a trance, and whatever I say won’t pull him out of it. Or maybe it’s because I also feel under a spell of sorts.
“Yes, good,” he says. His voice is low and breathy and does all kinds of things to my insides. He reaches up and tucks some hair behind my ear, his eyes searching my face.
I should pull away. I should remember that word . . . what was it again? It started with a B. B . . . something. Whatever it is, I should remember it and pull away.
But I don’t. Not even an inch. When he angles his head slightly to the side and moves in even closer, I still don’t move. When his lips brush mine slowly and softly, I find I couldn’t move even if I wanted to.
My thoughts are all over the place, all at once. One voice is saying “Woo-hoo, let’s do this!” and the other is saying “B word! Remember the B word!” Which I still can’t recall.
I decide to ignore the side of my brain that can’t come up with the right word; it obviously has no idea what it’s talking about anyway, and I go with the voice who approves this whole thing.
I lean into Nate, parting my lips and giving him permission to deepen the kiss. A low groan from him tells me that this was a good choice on my part. Especially when I feel his tongue move along the edge of my bottom lip. This does more things to my insides. Wonderful, magical, things.
We’re still holding hands as Nate’s lips move over mine, the pacing getting more frenetic. I place my other hand on his chest and I can feel his heart thudding through his shirt.
The voices in my head are still arguing and for a second, I wonder if I should maybe push him away. I know one tiny nudge from me and he’d get the message. But instead, I move my hand up his massive, sinewy shoulder, then to his strong neck, and I bury my fingers in that soft, thick hair of his—sending an entirely different message.
The message is this: I like it. I like it a lot.
But even though I know I like this, I still can’t calm those other voices in my head. The ones that don’t approve of what’s happening between Nate and me right now. I want them to shut up. I want them to shut up so badly, but I can’t keep them from swirling around, and it’s ruining this perfectly amazing moment.
I tell myself to ignore them—these annoying voices in my mind—but then one word pops out that’s so unexpected, it makes me pull away from Nate so suddenly I don’t even have time to realize what I’ve just done.
Logan. That’s the word. Freaking Logan. And it wasn’t only his name, but also his stupid face. Why, oh, why would Logan pop into my head right now?
“Are you okay?” Nate looks at me, his eyes searching my face. “Was that too much? I . . . I didn’t mean—”
“No!” I say, shaking my head. “I mean, that wasn’t too much . . . that was . . . it was . . .” I trail off as Nate reaches his hand up and places it on the back of my neck, gently tugging me toward him. Instead of going for another kiss, he leans his forehead against mine.
I just ruined this amazing moment. Actually, it wasn’t me, it was Logan. Why would I even think of him?
Wanting to make up for my abrupt end of the kissing, I pull my forehead away slightly and then lean in and press my lips against Nate’s. It’s a soft kiss, the spell that ha
d been cast before now gone because of stupid Logan. No—nope. I’m not going to think about him. No Logan. I’m here with Nate, and right now I’m thinking about him and how I’m going to kiss him and let him know everything is okay. Which is what I do. Nate’s response is to put his arms around me and pull me into him.
We do this for a bit more, kissing here and there, never getting back to the frantic, crazy pace before he-that-shall-not-be-named entered my brain. Then Nate pulls away.
“I’ve wanted to do that for a while,” he says.
Despite myself, I let out a laugh. “A while? We only met three days ago.”
“Actually,” he says, “we met weeks ago.”
“True,” I say, dipping my chin once. “But you know what I mean.”
“Is it cheesy to say that it feels like I’ve known you longer than that?”
I twist my mouth from side to side. “Kind of,” I say after a beat. Then I smile to let him know I’m teasing him.
I am teasing him. Sort of.
Chapter 24
Boundaries. The word is boundaries. I finally remembered after Nate walked me back to my room, giving me a kiss by my door and then a little eyebrow lift—the universal facial expression for “can I come in?” That’s when the word slammed back into my brain so fast, I almost yelled it out loud: BOUNDARIES!
Luckily, I didn’t. Instead, I placed a soft kiss on his cheek and told him I’d see him in the morning. If he was disappointed, he didn’t let on.
My mind whirls about from the events of the evening, and I find sleep not coming easily. I briefly wonder if I should check my work email, just in case. But that’s probably not the best idea since I did try to check it the first day we got here and there were three messages from Marie.
From [email protected]: YOU BETTER NOT BE SEEING THIS
From [email protected]: IF YOU ARE, GET OFF NOW
From [email protected]: I WILL FIRE YOU IF I FIND OUT YOU CHECKED YO . . .
The last subject title was truncated, but I got the point. I logged off and haven’t looked since.
I pick up my phone and stare at it. It’s been strangely silent, the only text I’ve gotten was from Quinn asking if I’d kissed Nate. I smile to myself thinking about the fact that I did kiss him. I probably shouldn’t tell her because she will for sure blow up my phone with a bunch of texts and probably phone calls wanting all the details, but I can’t help myself.
I pull her up in my messages and write a quick text and send it before I lose my nerve. It’s two words: Good kisser. She’s going to freak out.
It’s dinnertime in Orlando, so I wait a bit for her to respond. But after twenty minutes of nothing, I decide I probably should try to sleep and I silence my phone knowing that once she does see the text, my phone will start buzzing and ringing and will undoubtedly wake me up. I’ll just let her stew over it a bit before I give her details. If I give her details.
After a fairly decent night’s sleep, I wake up early and decide to go for a walk around Hyde Park before I’m to meet up with Nate in front of our hotel to do more tourist stuff. We only have two more days here before we leave for Paris.
There are only a handful of other people out this early in the morning, and I almost feel like I have the place to myself. My mind feels clear and I think about all the things that transpired to get me here, walking around Hyde Park. For a minute, I entertain thoughts of Nathan back in Orlando, maybe wondering how I’m doing and perhaps even wishing he were here. Actually, he’s probably off with Christine and hasn’t thought twice about me.
Because I was thinking about Nathan, of course my brain would move to Logan. I don’t want to think about Logan right now as I approach the Serpentine, the breeze rippling through the water, a bevy of swans swimming across the picturesque scene. I want to think about anything else.
But Logan is where my brain wants to stay, and apparently my brain wants to replay the kiss we shared on Church Street so long ago. Well, it was ten days ago, but it feels like it was a long time ago. I feel like I’ve lived a lifetime since then.
Of course, my brain is now spinning around comparisons of the kiss I had with Logan and the kissing with Nate last night. Whoever said fresh air clears your brain is a liar. Or maybe my brain is broken.
There’s no comparison, though. I mean, they were both good in their own way. But Logan . . . that kiss was, well, it was incomparable. Which I find irritating. I don’t want to have been incomparably kissed by Logan. Couldn’t that have happened with a more emotionally available guy? Someone who didn’t get under my skin so . . . so . . .
Nope. I’m not going there. This is the last time I’m going to think about Logan and that kiss. In fact, I’m going to start pretending like it never happened.
~*~
All my thoughts of . . . that other person . . . seem silly now. Now that I’m sitting with Nate, eating lunch on a bench in St. Dunstan-in-the-East, surrounded by the ruins of a church that has now become a city park. To say it’s picturesque would be an understatement; it’s enchanting with the ornate arched windows, and the vines weaving up and around the broken stone walls. Nate and I have been snapping a ton of pictures, but I don’t think any of them will do it justice. There’s a feeling here, one you can’t capture in a picture. It’s tranquil and calm.
I pull my phone out of my bag and look at it. No text from Quinn yet, which surprises me. I was sure I would wake up to a gazillion texts from her wanting me to kiss-and-tell. But there’s been nothing. She has yet to even comment on the pictures I’ve been forwarding her of the trip so far.
“What are you thinking about?” Nate asks.
“Huh?” I say, realizing I’m just staring at my phone.
“Hello?” Nate says, nudging me with his elbow.
“Sorry,” I say, slipping the phone back into my bag. “I was just thinking about how beautiful it is here.” This is sort of true. That’s what I was thinking about before I started wondering why Quinn hasn’t texted me back yet. I would have expected at least something by now.
I see Nate nodding his head in my peripheral vision. “I don’t know,” he says, his voice low and deep, “I think my view is better.”
I peer up to see his eyes are on me and I laugh uncomfortably. He’s been doing this all day—little comments here and there that are meant to be romantic, but out of his mouth sound kind of . . . well, cheesy. I’ve never been one for cheese. I mean, I like a good compliment like every other woman—or person, for that matter. But from Nate, sometimes they sound a little like . . . well, like this isn’t his first rodeo. He’s done this whole seduction with his words thing before. I’m not the type of woman who can be seduced by words. I’m more of an actions gal.
Plus, I don’t know how to react to them, to be honest. I mean, what do you say? I can only say “thank you” so much.
Here I am, reaching again. Who gets annoyed by compliments? Even if they do feel like they were said before. Something keeps nibbling at the back of my mind, though. Like it’s all too good to be true. Sitting here with Nate—a guy I picked randomly to go on this trip with me. Well, it was sort of random. It almost feels like it’s too easy. Like it was handed to me on a platter. A very muscly, blue-eyed, chiseled-jaw, platter.
I’m definitely reaching.
~*~
“Never have I ever gotten a tattoo,” I say, and then Nate laughs and takes a drink of his beer. “What?” I search him, surprised I would have missed that detail. “Where is it?”
“Maybe I’ll show you later,” Nate says, a wink of his eye insinuating it’s somewhere that would be inappropriate to show here.
We’re sitting up at the bar at a pub that’s next door to our hotel, getting drinks and eating authentic pub food. My Toad-in-the-Hole—sausages baked in batter—is yummy, and Nate is eating Cockles, which are some sort of clam. His meal doesn’t look yummy at all.
I scrunch my face. “Oh no, where is it? I have to know,” I say and then, thinking twice about
what he could garner from that line, I add, “Please tell me it’s not a lower back tat.”
Nate laughs heartily. “Nah, it’s on the back of my shoulder.” He pulls the sleeve of his gray V-neck T-shirt up and moves it over. It’s a Chinese symbol that looks sort of like the letter H, about two inches in diameter.
“What does it mean?”
“Strength,” he says, pulling his shirt back down into place.
I squint at him. “Are you sure? What if they told you that but it really means ‘nerd’ or something?”
He shrugs a shoulder. “I’d be okay with that.”
I smile because I believe him. “You don’t let things get under your skin, do you?” I ask.
He tilts his head back, looking as if he’s contemplating. “Not really,” he says. “I mean, sometimes if it’s something really irritating. But most of the time it’s not worth it.”
“Like with work?” I ask, not being able to help myself since this seemed like a good enough segue. I still want to know more about what he does.
His eyes move down to his nearly empty plate and then back to me. “Yeah, that can be annoying.”
I give him an expression that hopefully conveys that I want him to elaborate, but he looks away.
“Okay, my turn,” he says. “Never have I ever made out in a pub.”
I eye him dubiously. “I don’t believe you.”
“What?” he says, feigning innocence.
“You’ve totally made out in a pub.”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Ah,” I say, realization dawning on me. “You’ve never made out with someone in a pub in London. But I’m sure you’ve made out with someone in a bar.”
“Ding, ding, ding,” Nate says, tapping his nose.
I roll my eyes and then I look at my drink, which is mostly full since never have I ever done much of anything. I probably should find that sad, but I don’t. My life is how I want it. It’s how I set out for it to be. Barring the last few months, of course. But I’m finding that to be okay too. At least this part—being here with Nate and experiencing all this with him. I’m not just okay; I’m really enjoying myself.