Great Big Beautiful Life(60)

“Well, at least you were polite enough to reshelve,” he says diplomatically.

“Oh, you’ve got to reshelve,” I agree. “What about you? Was New York your dream?”

“I didn’t really have a dream,” he says. “If anything, I think I assumed I’d be a mechanic, because my best friend’s dad was one, so we were constantly working on his shitty VW van. But my parents really, really pushed college, and then I got into Purdue, which was a shock, because I only really did well in school the last two years. And then I got into writing my freshman year and stuck with it. Got an internship in Chicago after graduation, and that turned into a staff writer job.

“I didn’t really plan on ever leaving, but a better job came up in New York, and I’d just gone through a breakup, so I figured it might be good to get away for a while. My best friend from college lives there too, so that’s been nice. Watching him get married and have a kid.”

I beam at him. “Are you Uncle Hayden?”

“Of course not,” he says sternly, “I’m Uncle Nayda.”

I let my head settle against his shoulder as the laugh ripples through me. “Oh, excuse me,” I say. “I should have guessed.”

His chin tips down and he smiles, his mouth so close to mine, his eyes soft. After just a second too long, he says, “Do you ever come to New York?”

“A few times a year,” I say. “What about you? Are you ever in LA?”

“Not often,” he says.

I nod. We go on staring into each other’s eyes until it feels like I can’t any longer, not without brushing my mouth up over his full bottom lip, tasting him, feeling the heat of his tongue.

I pull away and lie back, staring at the sky and waiting to catch my breath. “What happened with your ex?” I ask, and this is a far more successful dousing of the mounting ember between us.

His brow rumples as he gazes over his shoulder toward me.

“The one in Chicago,” I say. “Before you went to New York.”

“Ah.” He turns back toward the water. “Piper.”

“Piper,” I accidentally repeat aloud, and hope he can’t hear the mix of desperate curiosity and (hopefully subtle) jealousy in my voice. “What happened with her?”

He clears his throat and takes a beat before answering. “We worked together. I mean, we were already dating before she started working there. Since college. But we’d been working together for two years when we applied for the same promotion.”

“Oh, shit,” I say. “Did you know?”

He looks back, a completely unconvincing smile on his lips. The expression, though small, makes him look a little feral. “It was my idea. I was applying, but I thought she might as well too. And then I got it, and things fell apart between us really fast. So I found a different job, quit that one, thinking they’d promote her instead and we could…I don’t know, go back to how things were. But instead they promoted someone else, who had started there four months before her, and everything got worse.”

“I’m so sorry,” I say. “That sounds horrible.”

“It was years ago now,” he says. “But honestly, it was the last serious relationship I was in.”

“Really?” I say.

His head cocks to the left. “I find it hard to believe that’s surprising.”

“Well, it’s even harder picturing you casually dating,” I say.

“I don’t, much,” he says. “Just feels like work.”

“Do you get lonely?” I meant it in the most innocent way possible, but as soon as it sneaks out, I tingle with embarrassment.

But he just studies me seriously, like it’s a perfectly normal thing to ask someone you very clearly want to sleep with. “Sometimes I…” He hesitates.

“You can tell me,” I say, almost a whisper.

His jaw muscles leap. “Sometimes I just miss this. Being close to someone. Being touched. Not just sex, I mean.”

The tingle on my skin turns inward, my veins whirring eagerly now. I pat the sand beside me meaningfully. He doesn’t move for so long that I’ve already accepted he’s not going to join me by the time he finally does lie back, his long body rigid and hyperaware. Slowly, watching his face for a reaction, for any sign that it’s too much, I shift closer to him, rest my head in the divot just inside his shoulder. I set one hand on his chest, and it expands with a deep breath, the muscles down his flank seeming to relax between us.

He sets one hand over mine, dwarfing it, and even though we’d already been touching so many places, incidentally, this purposeful contact makes me pleasantly shiver. His eyes flutter closed, his dark lashes kissing the tops of his cheeks.

“I love this,” he rasps after a second, in a rush, like the thought went straight from his brain to his lips, and judging from the way he tenses as soon as he’s said it, I think that might be exactly what happened.

“I do too,” I whisper back, and this soothes him. I let myself wiggle closer, his other arm snaking under my back to curl around me. I move a little, restless, and he squeezes my hand under his as he shifts too, turning onto his side, our arms and limbs rearranging until I’m on mine too, the medium spoon to his big one.

I can feel his heartbeat against my shoulder blade, and now his hand is draped over my stomach, lightly atop one of my own. I take a deep breath just for the excuse to feel more of the wall of him behind me. “I love this,” I admit, nestling back into him.