Page 14 of Double Dared
“It gets very boring when you’re alone,” I said.
“There’s no way you ever get bored,” Taylor said, lifting his head to look at the sky. “I see your brain working behind your eyes all the time. You’re always dreaming something up.”
He saw that? I didn’t think I was so transparent. Maybe he was just observant.
“You have smart eyes,” he said.
I wiped my palms against my pants and turned away from him, even though he wasn’t facing me at all. I was so far out of his field of vision I mightas well not have existed. Except, he spoke into my soul. He spoke the words I hadn’t heard anyone say to me.
Where’s my wine? Ah, there.I picked it up.
Taylor chuckled to himself like we were deep in conversation. “You look like such an unapproachable ass from afar. That’s why they put me up to asking you out in particular. They never thought I’d get near your table. You’re a lot scarier than you realize. Well, until you open your mouth.” My gaze slowly drifted back to him, leaning off my balcony as he spoke. His shirt was tucked neatly into his dark brown pants, torso tapering from broad shoulders to narrow waist, one foot planted firmly on the floor and the other resting on the tip of his shoe, restless, swaying left and right. He threw a look at me over his shoulder. “And you can boogie.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, though my voice was so low and quiet that I wasn’t sure he’d heard it until he grinned.
He leaned his back against the railing and swirled his wine around the glass, looking at me like some kind of embodiment of all my most private dreams. Then he spoke the words that made me feel the kinship in my very soul. “Do you ever feel like you’re out of your own time?”
I pushed down the excitement of finding someone who understood what it felt like. I had to be wrong about him. He couldn’t be like this, not even close, because it just didn’t fit the way he was supposed to be. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, imagine if we’d grown up in the seventiesand eighties, driving a Cadillac El Dorado down a street at night, wind in our hair, going to an open-air cinema. Wouldn’t you rather do that instead of whatever the hell we’re all doing now?” He inhaled a deep breath, then drank the rest of his wine.
My foot moved toward him, but I planted it firmly on the parquet floor and measured him up. “Was there more to the dare your friends challenged you to?”
“No,” he said, his voice warm and confident, making me think of amber. “Why do you ask?”
Because you’re going above and beyond to make me fall for you, I thought. “No reason,” I said. “More wine?”
“Yes, sir.”
I went to the kitchen with both our glasses and set them on the counter. Mine had a bit of wine left in it; his was empty, but the rim had a faint print of his lower lip. I watched it, my heartbeat flooding my ears. I planted my hands on the smooth, marble surface of the kitchen counter and held my breath.
If Emma could just see me like this, at ease, enjoying a moment with Taylor, she would realize just how close she was to losing me forever. It would spark jealousy that would tell him once and for all that she did, in fact, love me. It would show her that I wasn’t just some artistic, philosophical softie who could be taken or left to no effect, who lacked all the excitement one wanted in a partner. It would show her that I could also move on from her, and it would scare her, because she would want me, too.
If she would just see me with Taylor like this.
I licked my lips and shook my head. Wine. We needed more wine.
Music came from the living room by the time I’d poured us a new round of drinks, and it brought a smile to my face. He’d dug through my collection again and found David Bowie. “Starman” filled the space as I walked back to the living room, and Taylor was playing an air guitar before switching to some imaginary drums.
He lifted his gaze from the invisible instruments to see me, but he didn’t stop drumming and greeted me with a grin that quickly turned into the iconic lines of the song’s refrain.
I brought him the glass, and he abandoned the drums to take it, his fingers brushing against mine and not even making me jump. This, too, would pass. I would put up my boundaries tomorrow, and we would stick to the script for the rest of our arrangement, and I would remind myself that I was messing around with a straight guy, and I would hopefully accomplish my objectives, thanks to this.
“Have you ever had a boyfriend?” he asked. “Other than me.”
“Yes.” I drank a little in hopes this would give him enough time to distract himself with a song or some other topic.
“What happened?”
A sigh got stuck in my throat. “Didn’t work out. He said so.”
“Oh? And what did you think?” Taylor asked.
“Ask me something easier,” I said.
He laughed and shook his head. “I have a plan. We could pretend to be together and make sure we run into him. It’ll make him jealous, and he’ll realize what he’s lost.”
“I’m beginning to think you just need reasons to fake-date me for longer.”
