Page 45 of Secrets in Love
“Nate, we can’t dance in the middle of the street. People are looking at us.”
“They’re not looking at us, Evie. They’re looking at you…at the ballerina. Even swaying side to side with a clumsy sod like me, the way you move is breathtaking.”
There’s a moment in the 90’s movie,TheWeddingSinger, where Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler do a practice kiss for her upcoming wedding to demonstrate the appropriate amount of tongue to be used—“church tongue,” as Drew calls it. Anyway, the kiss is amazing, and Drew stands there, looking up at Adam like a giddy, love-drunk idiot, like he hung a crescent moon and she’s just a believer, looking up and hanging from its pointy end with all her might. It’s an adorable scene, and it’s also how Evie was looking at me, proving again she saw me in a way no one else ever had and leaving me feeling numb from the neck down.
“When did Nathaniel Myers, super hoochie, become such a romantic?”
“When he woke up…when he thought he’d lost you.”
I stopped swaying, and Evie continued to gaze at me in wonder. I took her hand and spun her beneath my arm again, but this time, I didn’t pull her back against me. I let her go, watched her spin away, and caught the hand of a cute brunette who happened to be checking me out as she walked by.
“G’day. May I have this dance?” I gave her my best smolder and thickest accent, which always worked with the tourists at home.
“Well, Good day to you too, handsome. Sure thing.” She smiled lazily.
As I gave her a spin, I stole a sideways glance at Evie and almost burst out laughing. She was watching—no, drilling holes into us, with her mouth hanging open, catching flies, and her cute little foot tapping the pavement so hard she could crack it.
I dropped my new touchy-feely friend—who had taken a sizable chunk of my ass into her hands—into a low dip, the bleached ends of her hair brushing the concrete before I pulled her back into my arms. “I finish work at five,” she swooned. “Are you free for a drink?”
Before I could reply, a hand, arm, then shoulder forced its way between our bodies, ripping us apart like the jaws of life would do to a wrecked car door. “No, he is not free. Now fuck off, desperado!” Evie stood before me like a bodyguard, her arms out horizontally at the sides, acting as a curly-mop, human barrier.
“Okay, okay, calm down, lady. Geez, you Aussies are freaking weird.” Even after calling me weird, the cute brunette still gave me a wink as she trotted off, keeping an eye on Evie as she left.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d swear you were jealous, Lil Gidge,” I said, standing dangerously close behind her, taking a deep inhale and smelling her curls. She turned to me but refused to look at my face. Instead, her eyes hovered anywhere between my neck and feet.
“Snort. You wish. I was trying to stop that poor woman from making a fool of herself.”
Capturing her jaw, I tilted her chin to meet my eyes.
“I dunno. You shooed her away pretty fast. I swear I see a bit of monster green in those baby-blue eyes of yours.”
“Nope. Just trying to get rid of her. I don’t have all day to watch you pick up randoms. You need to get new clothes…especially since Desperado has ruined your tee with all her drool.”
“Sure, Gidget. Whatever you say.” Her cute, freckled little face flushed, she spun on her heels and was off…but not before I gave her a nice little slap on the bum. “Lead the way, Boss.”
Evie
Nathaniel Myers and his heated gaze crawling across my thighs had been the first things I thought of when I woke this morning. He’d haunted my dreams that night, too. His stupid smug grin and strong hands gripping me at the airport had me waking up drenched in sweat, my fingers left to finish what dream Nate had started.
That intensity, the cauldron of heat and curiosity those eyes stirred, then accompanied me in the shower. When dressing, they were incredibly helpful, borderline demanding in ordering what I was to wear. The white, thigh-high stockings that my short skirt barely covered and belonged in a K-pop video were their first suggestion. The lacy yellow bra and thong were the second.
These random sexy dreams and desires to become a human thirst trap were coincidences. The thoughts I kept having about Nate being mine, about what that would look and feel like…romantic folly. I was just lonely…adjusting…maybe a bit confused, and definitely still reeling from the glut of emosh feelings all the messages he’d sent evoked. Seeing him so soon after reading them was a lot too.
I kept telling myself that was all it was, finding countless excuses, anything other than what I refused to admit—until I watched him get out of that pool. Till I saw him push off the concrete edge, his hard, lean body rising like a god from Atlantis. I saw each individual droplet slide down his body, pooling in the nooks and crevices of his abs and belly button. Till I saw the outline of HIM in those tiny shorts.
Even as I sat waiting for him in the cafe, my freshly lacquered nails digging into the arms of the chair, my legs pressing together to stop the throbbing I was sure must have been audible to passersby, I lied to myself. Sure, he was hot, and maybe I wanted him physically. But it was just the reaction of a sexually frustrated, immature virgin. And Nate was acting like a typical boof-headed bloke, lifting himself out of the water the hard way, the look-how-ripped-I-am way, when the ladder was right beside him. He knew what he was doing. It was all part of his game. Well, I wasn’t playing.
None of the thirsty, horny nonsense was acknowledged as genuine, honest-to-goodness feelings by the rational, mum-type part of my brain until I saw him hold that beautiful, elegant, probably experienced, feminine woman in his arms and dip her like in a movie.
Something tore inside me. Snapped. I wanted to scratch her eyes out, discard her, then pull him to the ground and ride him on the street, screaming, “Mine, mine, mine! GET OFF HIM, YOU SKANK. NATE IS MINE. NATHANIEL MYERS IS MINE.”
Of course, I did nothing of the sort. I swallowed the wave of like—‘cause god knew it couldn’t be love—and let it reemerge as snark. “Do you even want to be with me today, or do you want to just drink in some bar and find a woman to plunder in an alley?”
Hurt flashed across his face. “I was just fooling around. Of course I want to be with you. I don’t even want to look at another woman. You’re it for me, Eves. I’m sorry.”
I didn’t believe a word he said. Nate Myers not looking at another woman…please. But I couldn’t say the same for his expression. He looked pained and worried, and it hurt like a blunt knife twisting in my heart. “Fine. Just stop being so charming and Nate-ish, then.”
The smirk was back, but it looked a little forced. “Sooo, you think I’m charming?”
