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“We’ll survive,” he says. “Is that what this is for you? A trauma thing?”
“No, I’ve wanted to kiss you for a long time too,” I tell him. “I wanted to kiss you at the club the other night. I thought it might happen, but then you just left.”
I feel his exhale. “I thought you had a boyfriend.”
“Oh, right,” I say, feeling relief rush through me. Why didn’t I think of that? “What a good guy you are, Grayson Manning.”
“I’m not really,” he says. “I may have been able to stop myself from kissing you when I thought you were dating someone, but that didn’t stop me from wanting to.”
I tilt my head up and kiss him at the base of his jaw, feeling the stubble there as I let my lips linger. For some reason, it seems as intimate as the make-out session we just had. I don’t know why. Maybe because it feels more like something you’d do with someone you’ve been with for a long time.
He lets out a breath. “So, this boss attraction thing—”
“Oh, no,” I cut him off, not wanting to talk about it. I hate that I even told him.
“Are you saying you wouldn’t be attracted to me if I weren’t your boss?”
“Grayson, I think every living creature on this earth would find you attractive,” I say.
He laughs. “That’s ridiculous.”
“I tell the truth.”
“I know this complicates things, and I know your last experience dating someone you work for didn’t end well. But I feel like I need to tell you that I’m not like him.”
“I know,” I say, pulling my head back again so I can look at him. Even though I can’t really see him very well in the dark. “You’d never be like him.”
“And you’re not just attracted to me as your boss?”
“I’m attracted to you because you’re probably one of the best men I’ve ever had the chance to know,” I say, and I’m telling the truth. Grayson is everything—all the things I’ve ever wanted without even knowing it.
I lean in and kiss him, and he kisses me back. It morphs quickly, this time into something intense. Like we can’t get enough of each other.
I don’t know how I’ll feel in the morning; I hope I’ll feel the same way I do now. I know I’ve been fighting this for so long, but it feels so freaking good to just lean into it. I shouldn’t compare, but as much as I thought I felt for Monty, it’s nothing like this. It’s so much different with Grayson. With Monty, I felt sort of like I was in a play or something, in a role I was never meant to be cast in. With Grayson, I feel like I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.
“What were you going to tell me before we heard that noise earlier?” Grayson asks after we’ve finished kissing a third time. That’s right, I’ve had three fantastic make-out sessions in the Hawaiian rainforest, under a moonlit sky, with my boss. Although right now, he’s just Grayson to me.
We’ve changed position so we’re now lying on the ground. Grayson’s got a rolled-up towel under his head as a makeshift pillow, and I’m on my side up against him and tucked under his arm, my head on the soft part of his shoulder.
“What do you mean?” I ask him.
“Before we heard whatever that noise was, you said you should tell me something.”
“Oh, that,” I say.
“Tell me,” he says.
“I was just going to tell you that the one time Jason was red-faced mad because someone drank his kombucha … that was me.”
“It was you?”
“In my defense I didn’t know it was his. I thought it was Nadia’s.”
Grayson laughs. “That was your deathbed confession?”
“I have so much guilt. I needed to repent,” I say, laughing with him.
“Never change, Mila,” he says, kissing me on the top of my head. “The world is a better place with you in it.”
