Charlie frowns. “Whoever said that clearly only met Professional Nora.”
“Most people do.”
“Poor assholes,” he says, almost affectionately. The same voice in which he said Of course you did when I told him I met my agenting goals eight months early.
I stop close enough to see his skin prickling. The droplets on his throat and jaw catch the moonlight, and my chest and thighs tingle in response.
I drift backward as he wades toward me, maintaining the gap between us. “What other Sunshine Falls rites of passage did you ignore?”
The muscles along his jaw shadow as he thinks. “People are really into bouldering here.”
“Let me guess,” I say. “That’s when you stand at the top of a mountain and wait for one of your enemies to walk by, then push a rock over the ledge.”
“Close,” he says. “It’s when you climb boulders.”
“For . . . what reason?”
“To get to the top, presumably.”
“And then?”
His golden shoulder lifts in a shrug, water sluicing down his chest. “Probably there’s another boulder, and then you climb to the top of that one. Human beings are a mysterious species, Nora. I once watched a bike courier get hit by a car, get up, and scream I become God at the top of his lungs before riding off in the opposite direction.”
“What’s mysterious about that?” I say. “He tested the limits of his own mortality and found they didn’t exist.”
Charlie’s pouty mouth tugs to one side in a half smirk. “That’s what I love about New York.”
“So many bike couriers with god complexes.”
“You’re never the weirdest person in the room.”
“There’s always that person in silver body paint,” I agree, “who asks for donations to repair his UFO.”
“He’s my Q train favorite,” Charlie says.
My skin warms. I wonder how many times we’ve passed each other in our city of millions.
“I like that you’re anonymous there,” he continues. “You’re whoever you decide to be. In places like this, you never shake off what people first thought about you.”
I swim closer. He doesn’t retreat. “And what did they think of you?”
“Not huge fans,” he says.
“Mrs. Struthers is,” I point out, “and—your ex is too.” I shoot him a glance and sink lower in the water to hide the way my body lights up under his gaze.
I don’t feel like Nadine Winters when he’s this close. I feel like I’m sugar under a blowtorch, like he’s caramelizing my blood.
“Mrs. Struthers liked me because I fucking loved school,” he says. “I mean, once I figured out how to actually read. Didn’t exactly make me a hit with other kids, though. In high school, things weren’t as bad, and then eventually . . .”
“You got hot,” I say somberly.
His laugh grates over my skin. “I was going to say ‘I moved to New York.’？”
We’ve stopped moving. Heat corkscrews through my rib cage, coiling tighter with each spiral.
I clear my throat enough to joke, “And then you got hot.”
“Actually,” he says, “that only happened four or five weeks ago. There was this big meteor shower, and I made a wish and . . .” Charlie holds his arms out as he drifts closer.
My heart feels light and jittery in my chest, my limbs incongruently heavy. “So you’re saying Amaya’s expression was less about longing than outright shock over your new face.”
“I didn’t notice Amaya’s expression,” he says.
My mouth goes dry, heaviness gathering between my thighs. He catches a bead of water as it trickles over my cupid’s bow. My lips part, the pad of his finger lingering on my bottom lip.
I’m acutely aware of how flimsy the space is between us now, slippery, finite, closable. Maybe this is why people take trips, for that feeling of your real life liquefying around you, like nothing you do will tug on any other strand of your carefully built world.
It’s a feeling not unlike reading a really good book: all-consuming, worry-obliterating.
Usually I live like I’m trying to see four moves ahead in a chess game, but right now I can’t seem to think past the next five minutes. It takes a lot of effort to say, “You probably want to get home.”
He shakes his head. “But if you do . . .”
I shake my head.
For a moment, nothing happens. It feels like there’s a silent negotiation happening between us. His hand catches mine under the water. After a beat, he draws me toward him, slowly—plenty of time for either of us to pull away.