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Eventually, Lloyd draws an uneven breath and tells me, ‘It’s different. It doesn’t reach his eyes anymore. It’s his …’ He scoffs; it’s barely audible. ‘We used to call it Dad’s “showroom smile”. The one he’d put on for investors or at presentations and stuff. Mum would tease him about it all the time, do this great impression of him – chest all puffed out, oozing charisma, putting on a bit of a voice … It used to just be this kind of amped-up version of himself for work, but now it’s just … who he is.’
‘Sounds kind of like someone else I know,’ I say before I can think better of it.
Lloyd, for his part, doesn’t look offended. He just tilts his head in acceptance. ‘I always took more after Dad.’
‘For the record, I like who you are when you’re just being yourself.’
A little of the tension seeps out of his shoulders. ‘Me, too.’
He looks me in the eye as he says it though, speaking so softly that I understand he’s not talking about himself – he means that he likes whoIam, but …
‘I don’t try to be anybody else.’
Lloyd gives a quiet chuckle, amused but not mocking. He reaches out to place a hand on mine, resting on my thigh. His fingers link through mine, bare arm brushing against my skin, and I’m so dizzy with the abrupt realization that maybe he was protectinghimselfwhen he asked if we were friends, I can’t quite remember why being this close to Lloyd is a bad idea.
‘You let me in that first night,’ he murmurs, his voice so low, so intimate, that I find myself subconsciously tilting my head closer. Lloyd’s thumb brushes gentle arcs across the back of my hand. His head tips a little further towards mine and I feel his breath tickling at the base of my neck.
It’s intimate in a way that the midnight kiss by the river wasn’t.
‘You put up so many walls, like you’re so used to pushing people away, but … you didn’t with me, that night. I keep trying to find that girl again.’
Do I really do that?
But what I say, in a voice equally quiet and soft, is, ‘Well, we can’t all wear our hearts on our sleeve.’
He seems as struck by that idea as I was about not letting people in, and I can’t help but smile a little: it’s hard to imagine that Lloyd is such an open book and doesn’t even realize it. He feels so deeply, how can he not know that it spills out for anybody to see?
Leaves rustle overhead, the sun filtering down in dappled pools of gold. Laughter and chatter drifts towards us from the party, but here, tucked away from it all, the sound of our breathing is loud: slow, and even, and measured.
‘I guess not,’ he says. My head angles towards the sound of his voice; a shiver runs down my spine when his mouth grazes against my temple as I turn to face him. ‘But you let me in when I ran into you that night at the office. And when we got coffee, last week …’
Of course I let you in, I think. He’d been a stranger, and seemed lonely and lost just like I felt – I was drawn to him, by some invisible connection that stole the fear of being judged for a few precious hours. I recognizedsomething in Lloyd that I saw in myself, and I want to explain that to him – but I can’t. It feels like saying anything at all would detract from this, from him, and I can’t bear to do anything that might mean he’ll stop staring at me like the rest of the world has stopped existing except for the two of us, like everything hinges on what I’ll say next. I lick my lips, heart racing, trying to prolong this moment as long as I can, and Lloyd’s eyes flicker down to my mouth. They’re dark, the green of his irises barely visible.
I don’t know who moves first. Whether it’s his hand slipping out of mine to skim up my arm, leaving a trail of goosebumps in his wake, or whether it’s my free hand reaching up to cup his face before my fingers thread through his tousled curls. I don’t suppose it really matters either way; it all feels so inevitable when we both lean the rest of the way into each other, to kiss.
That first kiss was the best of my life. It was languid, confident. New and exciting, enhanced by the dreamlike night and the way I had bared my soul to this total stranger, both of us swapping secrets while the stars lurked out of sight. And I’d be lying if I thought I hadn’t built it up in my memory to be more than it was.
This, though.
This …
I didn’t build up that memory at all.
It’s different this time. Fierce, almost, and electric. There’s a hunger in it, his hand strong between my shoulder blades as he pulls me in tightly against him. It tugs me off balance and I fall against him, the hand that was holding his until a few moments ago now braced against his chest; a gasp spills out of my mouth before he swallows it in another kiss, his own mouth curving into a smile against mine.
Lloyd nips gently, playfully, at my lower lip, and I deepen the kiss in response. A low groan rumbles in the back of his throat, reverberating through his chest, and when his hand slips from my back to my ribs, skirting up to cup my breast over my bra, it pulls a breathy, keening noise out of me, too.
His kisses become more fervent and I match them with a passion of my own. Why have I wasted time pushing him away when we could have been doing this instead? It feels so intense, soright. I like the way his hands feel on me, the way I can feel his heart thundering in his chest just like mine. I like that this is the guy I’ve spent quiet, friendly nights getting to know, and how real this feels.
I like that he coaxes my heart out onto my sleeve, too.
He cups my cheek in one hand and while he doesn’t quite move away, it gives us both chance to catch our breath. Lloyd’s nose nuzzles against mine and my eyes flutter shut again.
‘You have no idea,’ he whispers, ‘how long I’ve been wanting to do that.’
And there’s a loud thump nearby, someone running towards the trees in peals of laughter – an abrupt and glaring reminder of where we are, and what a mistake this is.
I jerk away from Lloyd’s embrace suddenly and sharply, the gravity of what just happened sinking in. I’m sure the deafening pounding of my heart is going to give us away.
