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When adulting DIDN’T work out so great…
“Don’t kiss the competition,” I muttered to myself, sweeping my paddle through the ocean water. Anyone who didn’t know better might have mistaken me for someone who actually knew what they were doing with an oar in their hand. “Don’t even think about kissing the competition.”
My muscles strained against the waves as I put all my strength into the job of paddling back to the boat graveyard where we’d picked up our ancient canoe earlier that afternoon.
“Are you in a hurry or something?” Kai asked from his seat at the back of the boat.
“No, just working off some pent-up tension.”
“Tension? What kind of tension could you possibly have in a place like this?”
Why was it that the most beautiful men were always the most clueless?
I scrambled for an answer. No way was I going to tell him I was struggling with the kind of tension that builds up after the hottest man in the Pacific comes within a breath of kissing you—but doesn’t follow through!
Not a chance.
“Just the regular kind of tension, I suppose.” My face contorted at my fib. Thank goodness he couldn’t see my expression from where he sat.
“You’re not still worried about getting eaten by a shark, are you?”
“No, that hasn’t crossed my mind since we were back at the cove.” My shoulders relaxed a little, relieved that he’d asked a question I could fully answer.
Hiding things was exhausting, and I’d been asked to hide an awful lot today!
And it was true that I hadn’t thought about sharks even once on our return trip. I had zero brain power left to waste on thinking about sharp-toothed man-eaters with dead, black eyes. My brain had been too full of questions about what had happened in the cove after Kai had saved me from my watery grave.
Mankind has been challenged with tough questions for all of recorded history. William the Conqueror had to wonder if he really wanted to cross the English Channel. Neil Armstrong had to decide if it was a good idea to take that one small step out of his spaceship. Grandma had to choose between paper or plastic every time she went grocery shopping.
But of all those questions, none was as big as the one screaming at me. Why did Kai pull back? Why didn’t he kiss me?
I’d wasted entirely too much time daydreaming about what it had felt like to have Kai’s strong arms wrapped around me. I’d thought about muscles, lips, and perfectly tanned man-abs more in the past half-hour than I’d thought about sharks during my entire lifetime.
Don’t judge. Cupid and I are not on speaking terms.
The last time I found myself in the arms of a man was a dreary night three years ago at Oktoberfest in Cleveland. I’ll never forget the look on Bernie Horowitz’s face when I slipped on a pile of sauerkraut someone had dropped on the pavement. He’d caught me just in time, while managing not to spill his spiced apple cider on me.
Bernie had skills, I’d give him that. And he was kind of cute in a Pillsbury-dough-boy-next-door kind of way, but honestly, he wasn’t in the same league as Kai. For one thing, Kai’s breath didn’t smell like bratwurst. Second, Kai was next-level hot incarnate.
Game, set, and match. Bye-bye, Bernie. Aloha, Kai.
I might have slacked off a tad on my rowing as I listened to the sound of Kai’s voice droning on behind me. It was just as manly and attention-grabbing as ever, but something about it was different from before.
I hadn’t heard him talk this much since we met. He couldn’t seem to shut-up about the best tourist shops, restaurants I had to try, and places I needed to add to my must-visit list. It was all golden nuggets of exactly the kind of insider information my new awful boss would love to get his greedy little fingers on.
I should have been taking notes, but I couldn’t bring myself to focus. My heart wasn’t in it. Kai didn’t sound like himself.
Granted, this was only the second day I’d ever seen him. But when you’ve been close enough to someone to peel a donut off their rear end, you learn a few things about them. He sounded stiff—nervous, even.
Kai? Nervous? Not when he was here and in his element. The word smooth operator had been invented for him.
But something was definitely off.
Maybe he couldn’t get our almost-kiss out of his head either. Ever since that moment in the water, Kai had morphed into professional tour guide Kai. As much as I should have welcomed the turn, I couldn’t help but miss Mr. Flirty McDimpleton.
The more Kai talked, the less I heard the words he spoke.
I’d spent the better half of our return trip reimagining different endings to that a gloriously romantic kiss we didn’t share—that forbidden kiss. It filled every corner of my mind and made my insides get all jittery each time our imaginary lips touched.
