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His smile flashed before it went out like a broken Christmas light. “A fake boyfriend?” he asked again, as if he couldn’t hear me over the roaring sound of closed books.
“Yes…” Should I be backtracking? Nick’s smile, his kiss, his eyes, they all fried my brain, turning my thoughts into scrambled eggs. Maybe I’d had a temporary moment of dick-sanity. Maybe I should be telling him it was all a mistake…
But what if he agreed to my crazy plan?
He bit his bottom lip, his eyes casting down at the floor. This wasn’t the expression of a man who was about to agree to be my fake boyfriend for a few weeks.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I glanced at my Apple Watch and quickly read the text message from Jada: We’re all on the ship, in the atrium! Where r u?
I’m currently making a damn fool of myself, is where I am.
Nick looked back up from the floor, his blue-gold eyes reflecting enough light that he could easily cosplay as a lighthouse. A sexy lighthouse.
Now that would be a good Halloween costume.
“Shy, being your fake boyfriend actually sounds like exactly what I need on this trip.”
So then why was I sensing a “but” just around the corner—and not the good kind of butts, the ones I liked to squeeze.
“Pero…”
Ah, the Spanish “but,” one of my favorite kinds. I opened my mouth to tell him forget about it. Nick cut me off.
“I can’t. I’m sorry.”
I knew it was coming, and yet still, it felt like a fresh slap from a jellyfish. In the span of fifteen seconds, I had made myself over-the-moon excited at the idea of even being fake boyfriends with this handsome Prince Charming. It felt like the perfect way to stick it to Mason, while having fun on my vacation and avoiding any awkward convos at the same time.
“Right, I get it,” I said, having a hard time getting it. We clearly had chemistry, and sure I didn’t even know his last name, but wasn’t that all part of the fun? The discovery of it all?
His beautiful (ugh, I mean annoying) lips turned down into a frown. “I don’t mean it as in I wouldn’t like being your boyfriend. Fake or otherwise. It’s just… complicated. Very fucking complicated.”
I nodded, trying to keep it as chill as I could. “It was a dumb idea,” I said, throwing dirt on the dying fire between us.
“No, it wasn’t dumb at all.”
I wanted to ask him why couldn’t he just say yes then, but the last thing I wanted to do was push on an already dead idea. Whatever, I’d just go meet up with my friends and have a good time on this cruise, even if I did end up being the seventh wheel.
A sound from the aisle over made us both perk up. For some reason, being with Nick in this private corner made it feel as if we had taken a rocket ship up into orbit, where no one else could bother us, where no one could see me making a complete fool of myself.
I pointed a thumb over my shoulder. “All right, well, we should get going. I think they’re boarding the ship.”
“Right, we should…”
“What?”
He licked his lips. I knew what was coming next, and I didn’t fight it in the slightest. Nick reached up, both hands on either side of my face, and he kissed me. It must have been meant as a “goodbye” kiss, a “one last time” kiss.
So why did it feel like a “just beginning” kiss?
I walked out of the bookshop wiping at my lips. I didn’t want to be smiling, considering how I had just had my hopes dashed, and yet my lips wouldn’t stop curling. I still felt like a flustered mess, though, as I made my way through the big warehouse waiting area and onto the ship. The entire way there, I kept mentally reprimanding myself, reliving the moment I had lost all sense and blurted out a question that would surely haunt me for the rest of my life. Like the ghost of embarrassing Christmas past, coming at me in the middle of the night, rattling chains and whispering the words “boyfriend, fake, please” over and over again.
I shook off a chill but couldn’t shake off the feeling of regret that followed me as I swam my way through the growing crowd, going up the ramp and stepping onto the ship for the first time, being greeted by a smiling worker who let me know where my cabin would be. I walked straight ahead, the corridor having been transformed into a holiday wonderland, with fake snow crunching under my feet, the red floor underneath popping through the track marks left behind by the rolling suitcases. There was a wooden signpost at the end of the hall, pointing the way to the food court, the atrium, the pool, and the North Pole.
