Page 46 of The Gift
“You keep asking me that,” I grumbled without looking at him. “I’mfine.”
“Maybe you need somepie.”
Maybe I needed sex. Maybe I needed to stop fucking fantasizing about a guy who couldn’t give me what Iwanted.
“Yeah,” I agreed, kicking at a leaf on the ground as I passed it. “Pie would begood.”
“You worried aboutThanksgiving?”
I did look up at that. “Thanksgiving?” I blinked. “That’s over a week away.” It hadn’t made far enough up the list for me to start actively worrying aboutit.
Daniel shrugged and now it seemed like he was actively avoiding looking atme. “I was just thinking it might be awkward. With you and me. Pretending to beboyfriends.”
“Oh.” I nodded. Now that he mentioned it, all the concerns I’d initially had about this little plan—specifically, how shitty I felt about lying to my family—came roaring back. “It’s not too late to cancel, if you want. I mean, I told my mom you were coming, but I can tell her you had a change of plans. Or… maybe we could just confess. Maybe it’s time.” The words were hard to speak, because one part of me was so sure he was going to leap at thechance.
Daniel shook his head. “And open you up to all the questions everyone would ask? No way. Some other time. Maybe we break up after theholidays.”
His words felt like a stay ofexecution.
“I wasn’t thinking about calling it off,” he continued. “I was thinking about how we could be more convincing. Yesterday at the bakery was a little awkward, wasn’t it? The greeting part inparticular.”
The part where he hadn’t been sure whether to kiss me, hug me, bro-slap me, or shake my hand? “Yeah. A little. But we’ll arrive together, so that’ll make iteasier.”
“Sure. Yeah. But still, do you think it’ll be obvious that we’re not together in the way we relate to each other? Physically, Imean.”
A low-hanging branch, nearly naked of leaves, hung across the path right near my face, but I didn’t see it. I was dimly aware of Daniel reaching out to hold it back so it didn’t hitme.
“The way we relate to each other physically,” I echoed. “You mean, like, it’ll be obvious that there’s no chemistry. Or that we…you… aren’t attracted tome?”
“More like you can tell when people have been physically close. I’m worried that people will know we haven’t hadsex.”
I stopped in the path, my heart thrumming like we’d been walking uphill just because he’d said the word sex, because cool, professional me was actually still thirteen, mentally. “I have no idea what youmean.”
Daniel stopped too, and turned to look at me. “Sure you do! You can tell, watching two people interact, whether they’ve had sex. Guys, girls, whatever. You can see it in the way they move around each other. There’s a wholeI’ve seen you nakedvibe.”
I squinted. Pondered. Shrugged. “Okay, allowing for a second that this is a real thing… You’re thinking that we won’t be able to pull off fake boyfriends because we haven’t seen each other naked? Because I’ve seen you pretty close to naked, up at thepond.”
“But you weren’t looking at mesexually,” he explained patiently, and all I could think was,Oh, Daniel. Sweet, naïve Daniel,even though he was probably kind of right. I’d still been trying my hardestnotto notice him sexually over the summer. I might even have convinced myself that I’dsucceeded.
I cleared my throat. “Okay. So later on, we can have a couple shots with our pie, you can take off your clothes, and I’ll force myself to objectify you.” I motioned toward his jeans with one hand. “Goon.”
Daniel folded his arms over his chest. “I was thinking more like kissing—” He blinked. “Wait, are you saying it would be hard to think of me thatway?”
Oh, things would be hard. Definitelyhard.
“Drop them and I’ll let you know,” Isaid.
Daniel took a step closer and I had to fight not to retreat. All the flirting, all the banter, all the disappointment, and three fuckingmonthsof blue balls meant that I was hyper aware of exactly how much he’d invaded my personalspace.
“Just kissing,” hesaid.
Justkissing.Just.
I focused on his lips, on his tongue darting out to lick them. There would be nojust.
“As practice, so we can keep our cover,” he said, like he was trying to convince me to do something distasteful, and I wondered how well I was hiding my attraction to him, if he thought for a hot second that I wouldn’t want to kiss him under any circumstances, ever, even if it was going to amp my unrequited attraction into another stratosphere. I couldn’t resist him, and if he thought I could, I deserved anOscar.
My mindwhirled. People say that—hell I’ve said it myself, but I hadn’t the first clue what it meant until right then. Fragments of thoughts and warnings swirled inside my head, and my consciousness couldn’t grab hold of any of them. I wanted this so fucking much, I was consumed byit.
