Page 31 of Winging It with You

“You know what I’m thinking?” I ask, my voice a barely there whisper. I lean into him to ensure my lips are concealed from the camera’s lens.

This is it.

The point of no return. The one that could change whatever dynamic has been brewing between the two of us, and if I’m wrong—if I’m wrong and somehow miscalculated whatever signals or insinuations that kissing me is something Asher is even remotely interested in—my humiliating rejection will find its permanent home in some depressing corner of the internet for me to relive at my leisure.

“What’s that?” he asks, his chest rising and falling rapidly from the sudden increase in cardio. His hair is wild, and his glasses are tilted ever so slightly on the bridge of his freckled nose. If I didn’t want to kiss him before, seeing a genuine smile dance across his face as he stares into my eyes seals the deal.

Something’s clicked this afternoon.

Something that has made the thought of kissing Asher Bennett stop feeling like something I’m supposed to do and instead feel like something I want to do.

Like if I don’t taste that smile on my own lips, this moment will somehow be forgotten.

An unexpected dip in the waves shifts our bodies suddenly, and with the sail’s ropes in one hand, I reach down to place a steadying hand on Asher’s waist, doing my best to hold him in place.

“I’m thinking a real couple would probably kiss right now,” I whisper through halting breath, intentionally grazing my lip on his temple.

Asher slumps against me, and I’ll never know if it was because of the force of the sea or my words but watching his lips part makes my stomach flip.

“You know, for the camera,” I add, reminding him of the roles we’ve agreed to play.

“Right,” he says, swallowing hard. “That.”

“Can I kiss you, Asher?” I ask after a lingering moment, our cheeks now pressed together, and he doesn’t hesitate to nod, slowly nuzzling his way toward my lips. My grip on his waist tightens, and I pull him even closer as he tilts his face to mine, a bracing hand intentionally placed on my chest.

It would be cruel to drag this out any further. To lean back and allow every second—every unexpected detail—of this moment to reveal itself like a candid Polaroid. Sliver by sliver and then beautifully, all at once.

But Asher’s pressing the entirety of his body against me now, so whatever patience I’ve tried to exhibit reaches its limit. With my eyes pinched shut, I search for his mouth, my lips dragging across the expanse of his stubble. His breath hitches, and if the wind hadn’t been forcefully funneling into the sails around us, I’d know with certainty if a soft moan just escaped his lips or not.

Desperate to have both hands on him before our lips fully collide, I fumble with the excess rope between us to tie it around the hook of the boat’s mast when a massive gust of wind comes barreling toward us from behind.

The boat lurches forward, its fully furled sail stretching against the force of the wind. Asher and I are ripped from each other and thrown backward.

We slam into the back wall of the stern and reach out for the lip of the boat or anything we can get our hands on to avoid toppling overboard.

But the rudder—and Arthur’s camera—weren’t so lucky.

Between the violent gust and our bodies careening backward, the rudder was knocked off its groove and sent crashing toward the ocean floor.

And Arthur’s camera and its entire mount follow right behind it.

“Well, that’s inconvenient,” I say, peering over the side of the boat. Asher slumps down and rests his back firmly against the boat’s wall. “What is it they say about sailing in a rudderless ship?” I can’t help but laugh at yet another mishap on the Asher and Theo reality show from hell.

He looks at me, glasses askew on the bridge of his nose and mouth agape in disbelief. “I’d be willing to bet it’s nothing good.”

“Nope.”

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“Well, now what?”

After scanning the boat for something, anything, with which to rig some sort of makeshift rudder—we even tried hanging off the stern of the boat and plunging our arms as deep into the water as we could reach—we gave up.

“Now, we wait,” I say, furling the sail and securing it back to the mast. Without a rudder, we’d be sailing around directionless, so there’s no point in leaving the sail up. “I’m sure production planned for some sort of mishap like this.” I hope.

Asher and I sit side by side in silence on the boat’s bench.

The burn of his scruff against my lips is still there. Same goes for the way I felt so pulled to him. And honestly, it would be so easy to straddle him where he sits now, grab his face in both my hands, and pick up right where we left off. But judging by his quiet demeanor and the deep flush climbing its way to his cheeks, I’m fairly positive whateveralmostmoment we had is officially over.

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