We’re set up at the kitchen island post-dinner, and Theo’s been curved over me for the past ten minutes, watching as I add to our itinerary. Distracting me.
As we ate on the back patio earlier, I eyed Theo between our fits of sparring, wondering what his life looks like. Not the one printed in Forbes or any of the myriad industry rags he’s mentioned in, his actual life inside this house when he’s not Theo Spencer, CFO. It was jarring to realize I actually want to know.
I refuse to think too hard about why that is.
Once dinner was over, we moved into the kitchen to get to work. I emptied out my bag, popped open my laptop, and let Theo spread out the map, trying not to notice the way his palms smoothed over the paper, how his thumbs circled the curled-up edges, coaxing them into flatness.
But I’m wine lubricated, and so is he. My eyes have been lingering, and over the past hour he’s been slowly swaying his way into my personal space.
Now I’m painfully aware of how close he is, the way his body lines up against mine. I’m tall, but so is he, and so his chest brushes right up against my shoulder blades, his jaw grazing against my ear every time he leans in to look at my screen. When he pressed up against my back, complaining about one of the hikes I put down for Yosemite, I nearly turned around. To push him away or pull him closer, I still don’t know.
But if he doesn’t stop breathing down my neck, one option is inevitable.
“I’m not going to type faster with you staring at the screen,” I say.
“Well, you sure as hell can’t type any slower.”
I turn my head until his face comes into my periphery, letting my finger descend onto the f key.
“Let me guess, the next letter is u,” he says dryly.
“Sorry, you’ll have to buy a vowel.”
“Pretty sure I can solve the puzzle, Shepard.”
God, he’s annoying, and yet I have to press my lips together so he won’t see my cheek rise in a smile. He’s close enough to catch the barest twitch. Which means he’s still too close.
I push my elbow into the hard slab of his stomach. “Seriously, I can’t do this with you up my ass.”
Theo’s wicked, smoky snicker winds its way down my spine as he steps away. “Let me buy you a drink first.”
“It would take more than one, trust me,” I mutter.
We’ve got a robust plan filled out on an Excel spreadsheet now, although it took an exorbitant amount of back-and-forth to get there. Our first stop in Yosemite is fully booked via the Where To Next site, as is our overnighter in Las Vegas. We’ve plotted out our Utah and Arizona stops, too.
“We should do an Airbnb outside of Zion,” I muse, clicking through the site.
“Sure, whatever.”
“I bookmarked a few options. Do you want to look?”
He shakes his head, leaning an elbow on the counter as his gaze roams over the mess I’ve made. “You’re the boss here.”
Something like purpose flares in my chest. I am the boss, at least in this little corner of my life, and getting to fill that role over Theo feels unsurprisingly good.
Still, he’s playing his typical role to perfection. “Funny, since you’ve fought me on every decision so far.”
“Not every decision, but we’re not camping with an octogenarian.”
I sigh, toggling over to an adorable cabin outside the park. “I know I’m going to pick a place, and you’re going to bitch about it when we get there.”
Theo lifts a lazy shoulder. “You know my requirements.”
“Yeah, yeah, enough rooms and beds for all,” I mumble, exiting out of the site. I’ll figure it out later.
Theo’s quiet while I color code some columns. It’s almost . . . nice. It’s so nice, in fact, that I get suspicious as I finish up and save the document, then shut my laptop. I dart my eyes sideways, trying to look at him without him seeing me looking. But his attention is on something else, anyway.
“Why are you staring at my camera?”
“Because you brought your camera,” he says.
“And?”
He rolls his eyes. “And I’ve gotten the impression that’s not something you do.”
I open my mouth to brush it off, to deflect or make some pithy remark about how he’s taking notes on me. But something about the way he’s looking at me—challenging, but without judgment—has me holding back a verbal bite.
Instead, I eye the camera, frowning at the smudge of dust marring the mode dial. I thought I wiped it off earlier.
My eyes slide from the reminder of my neglect to Theo. “I’m thinking about documenting our trip.”
His brows lower in confusion. “I thought that was a done deal. You and my granddad are going to pal around with your Canons or whatever he’s using these days.”
“I meant like on social media. TikTok.”
“Oh,” he says, surprised. “You’re going to post more videos?”
“I . . . maybe. The one I posted is still popular. People want an update on us.” Theo straightens, and I hold up my hands. “I’d do a mix of stills and video, landscape stuff. I wouldn’t put you and Paul in it, other than potentially narrating his and Gram’s story as we go. I can give an update without even including you, actually.”
Theo’s mouth curves microscopically. “By all means, pretend I don’t exist.”
My gaze skims over him from head to toe before I can stop myself. Impossible.
“What will you get out of the TikTok thing?”
I square my shoulders, considering the question. “To tell a story, I guess. To remember it. To feel like the photos I’m taking serve some sort of purpose. To see if people even care.”
He nods, and we get caught in a moment where there’s no snark or deflecting. It lasts a second, maybe two. As long as it would take me to press my finger against the shutter release. As long as it takes me to capture an image forever.
I break away first, blinking down to the counter. “We never talked about how weird it must’ve been to see your granddad in some random video.”
He snorts out a laugh, sliding a hand along the marble counter as he moves closer. “It was pretty bizarre. I signed up a while ago because we have a big presence there. Eventually I got sucked into this vortex of, like, an hour of mindless scrolling before I went to sleep every night. The night I saw your video, I’d taken a sleeping pill. Thought I was hallucinating.”
I fiddle with my earrings. “I’ll bet you never imagined it’d play out this way.”
“No.” His voice is quiet as he watches my fingers. “I definitely didn’t have this on my bingo card.”
I clear my throat. “So, are you cool with me documenting some of the trip?”
He blinks and rocks back on his heels, running a hand through his hair. “That’s fine. Granddad will be into it.”
My chest warms at the thought, and I see a sudden snapshot of my Sunday morning explorations with Gram. She’d find the most picturesque places—Muir Woods, Cowell Ranch Beach, Land’s End—and watch me take a million pictures with a smile. We’d exchange our latest secrets over lunch, which, post-college, were either juicy details about my dating life or my anxiety over never accomplishing anything worthwhile.