Page 19 of Secrets in Love
Shit! What am I doing? Yes. Back to Iris.“She’s perfect, Nate. Curled up—I mean, tucked up in bed, sound asleep after watchingCampRockand laughing at their hair.”Stop talking about hair.
“Evie, I…” He paused, scratched at his rather tasty-looking collarbone, and huffed out an extended, frustrated sigh. “That’s good to hear.”
There was an aftertaste of disappointment to his tone. One I had selfishly held no desire to delve into because I was too fearful of the answer. Clearly, he was equally hesitant to elaborate.
So, keen to avoid further eye-to-eye contact, I flipped the camera and began scanning my surroundings. First, the gardenia-lined front path, then the immaculately maintained dirt road leading not only to Jocelyn’s land but to the Hudson River. There, I began to narrate my trek. “It’s stunning here. You’d love it, Natey. The weather is cooler here than in the city. Next week is the first of fall, so the colors are changing. Every leaf on every tree is a different shade of orange, brown, or red, and they fall from the heavens like snow each time the wind blows. It’s like walking on a crunchy—whoop!”
Bang! A slippery pile of the very leaves I’d just complimented sent me and my phone dropping onto the gravel. Sheer embarrassment had me bouncing up to my feet in seconds, but the phone’s landing position meant Nate would have seen the whole thing.
“Evie! Evie, are you okay? What happened?” His genuine concern was definitely mixed with restrained laughter.
“Shit! Yep, yep, sorry! I skidded on some leaves and fell flat on my ass.” As elegantly as possible, I removed the slimy greenery sitting on my cheek and carried on as though nothing had happened. “As I said, it’s like walking on a crunchy, sometimes slippery, carpet.”
“Gidge…are you limping?” His face may not have been visible, but I could predict his expression. Brows furrowed. Lips skewed to the right.
Yes.
“Nah, I’m all good.”
“Evie. I can tell you are by the jolting of the phone. Your steps are all wonky. Just go back home. We can talk while you ice your foot.”
“Nope. That’s completely unnecessary.”
Sure, my ankle was swelling at an alarming rate, and the dull ache of an impending ass bruise was disturbing. Going homewasthe smart thing to do, but then again, little of my recent behavior inferred a Mensa-level IQ.
Even though I was not at my intellectual peak, I knew enough to know that at home, I had no excuse to remain off camera, and I was neither ready nor capable of facingthatman withtheforeign feelings bubbling beneath the surface.
So, I did what I did best. I acted like a defensive cow.
“Nathaniel. You seem to think I can’t look after myself, but I assure you I can. I’m fine. Now, do you want to talk and look at the prettiness, or do you want to hang up?”
“Prettiness, please… Oh, and Evie, I know you can look after yourself. You’re incredible. You can do anything you want once you set your mind to it.”
Predictably, this compliment was handled by snorting and stubbornly continuing on my path. Occasionally, I stole a brief glance at the screen and was rewarded with the image of Nate’s lovely pink lips. I hated to admit it, but when combined with his words of praise, the sight had a voodoo- morphine-like effect on the pain shooting up my leg. I felt numbed by a warm and fuzzy feeling of contentment…and a smidge of swooning.
By the time I made it to the block of land, I was a sweaty, huffing and puffing mess, ready to jump through the screen and join him in bed—purely for rest, of course.
“City life is making you soft, Eves. You would have been able to run up that hill with a board under your arm in the old days.”
“Pfftt, only because you, Shelby, and Finn would have been throwing crap at me. There was never any respect for the elders with you lot.”
“You’re hardly an elder, Lil Gidge. What is it, like, three and a bit years? Besides, you always looked younger than we did.”
“Yeah, because I was the smallest.”
Nate waited a beat before replying, “No, not just that. I think it’s because you have that soft, glowy, dewy skin that looks like you’ve just stepped from a photo shoot, even when you’ve been mucking out the pig pen. You’re beautiful, Gidge. ”
“And you’re full of shit. You’ve confused me with Shelby, yourrealsister, and not me, your sister-type friend.
“Uhh, number one, you are most definitely not my sister-type anything. And two, I have spent hours watching you throughout my life, Evie Austen, and trust me, my sister was never on my mind.”
I was overcome with a sudden burst of confidence. “Oh, really? What was on your mind, then, Nathaniel Myers?”
“Do you really want to know?”
“Yes. I do. Tell me what you think when you look at me. And be nice. I’m tired and possibly injured.”
After mumbling under his breath for a while, the deep, sexy tone was back. “Well. Alright then. But I need your eyes on me. C’mon. Spin that camera around and let me see you.”
