“Despite your assurances, your mom seems to be under the impression that we’re…” She looks around the room like the right word will appear in one of the gobo lights projecting color onto the walls. “An actual couple.”
He’s close enough to catch the scent of her shampoo—grapefruit? Something subtle that he wants to keep breathing in. “It’s wishful thinking.”
She finally looks into his eyes. Her cheeks are red. “？‘Wishful thinking’？”
Did it have to be a song about seeing the light? At this specific moment?
Dozens of other couples sway around them: older people, second or third marriages, if he had to guess. They all had that moment when they weighed the risk of another failure against the possibility of forever.
“Josh…” She swipes the back of her hand against her forehead. He can’t tell if her tone is in the realm of “letting you down gently” or “confused about my feelings, too.”
It’s selfish to want more from this. But he’s always been selfish.
He spins up a few possible responses, most notably: It just occurred to me that you’re the perfect height for me right now and if I just tilt my head down slightly—
“Can we—can we leave before the countdown?” She gulps a breath, like there’s not enough oxygen in the ballroom. “And the kissing?”
She looks over his shoulder with a pained expression and Josh pushes aside the uncomfortable truth that dancing with him apparently flipped her mood.
“We don’t have to kiss.”
“It’s just that…” He notices a sheen of sweat on her forehead. Despite their lethargic dancing, her breathing is rapid and shallow. “I need air.”
“Oh.” Fuck. “Of course. We can get out of here,” he says, hoping to fend off the possibility of a romance-induced panic attack. Fuckfuckfuck. “Do you want to go home?”
“I can’t. I rented out my apartment on Airbnb. I’m staying at Gabe’s.”
“Right.” His mind skims a quick geographical survey of their current location. “I think I know where we can go.”
* * *
“CONGRATULATIONS,” ARI CALLS out. Josh is a few steps ahead of her on the paved path, moving faster than she can manage in heels. “You’re the first and last man I will follow into a poorly lit park at eleven-fifty p.m.”
If there’s a trace of lingering awkwardness from when they abruptly left the gala, Ari is determined to push past it. Being outside in the freezing air helps, cooling her face and neck. It felt tropical in the library or the ballroom or whatever it was. She’d been breathing in too much Chanel No 5.
“There’s a good spot up here, just around this curve,” Josh says. They make their way down a path that meanders and loops through Central Park. They’d passed a surprising number of bundled-up pedestrians streaming in through the Seventy-second Street entrance to the south.
“I’ve never seen this many people here at night,” Ari says, stumbling on her heels as she ducks under a temporary barrier blocking off West Drive. “Are they here for the fireworks?”
“The New York Road Runners have a race every New Year’s.” He leads her across Oak Bridge, toward something that looks like a stone wall with a narrow arch, nestled between two giant rock outcrops. “They fire the starting pistol right at midnight and a thousand people run four miles around the park.”
“That’s an admirable commitment to physical fitness, considering the wind chill.” Ari takes careful steps, balancing on her toes. “Seems like a thing you would do—skip a party in order to exercise.”
“I don’t run outside,” he says. “Controlled conditions produce the best results. The treadmill helps me maintain focus and proper pacing.”
“…in bed,” Ari adds, a step behind him. “Do you do that with fortune cookies? Add ‘in bed’ to the end of the fortunes and they somehow make more sense?”
He shakes his head. “Those cookies are always stale and flavorless.”
His cookie standards must be as impossible to meet as his dating standards.
Though the trees are bare, they create an effective barrier from the cacophony that reminds her of New Year’s Eves past.
Ari feels a jolt of panic as her stiletto slips down the pavement, now slick with a thin coat of frost.
“Josh!” she shouts, barely catching her balance. “I can’t get down the hill in these shoes.”