Chapter 24

I wanted to kiss him. Earlier, he suggested I improvise. Kissing would be improvising, right? Before that foolish thought became foolish action, Jake turned his head away. His gaze scanned the crowd as if he were searching for someone. The spell broken, I tried to do the same.

Beside him, I blew out a long breath. These temptations were piling up. I reminded myself that he wasn't my date. And he wasn't my boyfriend. And later on, we wouldn't be doing the naked pretzel, not that he'd offered.

A waiter walked by with a tray of champagne glasses. Jake snagged two glasses. He handed me one. I took a sip. I'd never been a fan of champagne, but whatever this stuff was, it was heavenly. I drank it way too fast and handed off the glass to the next passing waiter.

Across the crowd, I spotted Bianca talking to an attractive man in a business suit. She reached out and gave him a playful slap on the forearm. The guy laughed long and hard at whatever she had said. When she turned away to reach for a champagne glass, the guy looked down to study her dress. His eyebrows furrowed. A second later, he turned and disappeared into the crowd.

When Bianca turned back, the guy was gone. She froze, looking at the spot where he'd been standing. And then, as if feeling my gaze, she turned her head in my direction. Our gazes locked, and I felt my face grow warm.

Busted.

Trying for a recovery, I gave her a little wave. She didn't wave back.

Next to me, Jake chuckled.

Eager to break eye contact, I turned toward him. "What's so funny?" I asked.

"Nothing. Just imagining what she'll be telling you next."

"How can you laugh about it?" I said. "That whole thing in the car was awful by the way."

"Eh, I've seen worse," he said.

"I just bet," I said. "And you do know you were pretty hard on her."

"Hell yeah, I was."

"And she's okay with that?"

"I don't know. And I don't care."

The coldness in his voice surprised me. "So, did you two have a bad breakup or something?"

"No."

"Because…?" I prompted.

"Because she wasn't my girlfriend. No breaking up needed."

I gave Bianca a quick glance. She was looking daggers in my direction. "Does she know that?" I asked.

"She's smart," Jake said. "So yeah, she knows."

Desperate to look elsewhere, I shifted my body so I was facing a different direction. But when I did, something else caught my eye. A few feet away, a young guy was holding out his cell phone like a camera. The phone was aimed at Jake. A light flashed, and the guy pulled back the phone to study the image. He grinned.

And then, the guy turned his back to us. He raised the phone toward himself and took another picture – a selfie with Jake in the background.

Next to me, Jake was utterly oblivious. Or maybe he was used to it?

"I think someone just took a picture of you," I said.

He turned to face me. "How do you know they weren't taking a picture of you?"

I rolled my eyes. "Oh please."

He grinned down at me. "If I had a camera, that's what I'd do."

As I looked up at him, the noise surrounding us faded to oblivion. Everything else disappeared until we were the only two in the world. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't seem to pull my gaze away. He lowered his head. I raised mine.

And then, Bianca's shrill voice shattered the spell. "Here," she said, thrusting a gold-embossed certificate between us.

Startled, I shook off the trance and tried to look like I didn't feel like strangling her. 

Frowning, Jake looked down at the certificate. He didn't take it. "What the hell is that?" he asked.

She nudged her way between us and looked up at him. "A sponsor award."

His eyebrows furrowed. "From who?"

"The museum."

"You keep it," he said.

"But it's important," she said. "Look." She pointed to a scribbled signature at the bottom. "It's signed by the governor."

"So?" Jake said. "I didn't vote for the guy."

With an irritated sigh, she looked down at the certificate. "Should I get it framed or what?"

"Fuck if I care," he said.

"Is that a 'no'?" she said. "Or a 'yes'?"

"It's a 'get that thing out of my face before I wipe my ass with it,'" Jake said.

She pursed her lips. "You don't have to be so crude about it."

He looked at her with stony expression. "But I am crude," he said. "Get over it."

"Alright, fine." She made a "whatever" motion with her free hand. "I'll handle it. As usual." She turned and flounced away.

Watching her go, I heard myself laugh. Sometime in the last minute, the anger had evaporated. Probably, Bianca's interruption had saved me from making a fool of myself. I turned to meet Jake's gaze. I froze. He wasn't laughing.

"You wanna share the joke?" he asked.

"Oh come on," I said. "It's funny."

"That's one opinion."

"Seriously," I said, "you don't think they'd really give you a certificate without the frame?" I looked around. "For an event like this? Trust me, somewhere in this building, there's a nice frame with your name on it." I leaned toward him and said in a low, dramatic whisper. "Shall we search for it?"

He didn't crack a smile. "Screw the frame," he said.

"Oh come on," I said. "Aren't you curious where it is?"

"No. She interrupted us."

And it was a good thing too. I'd been almost ready to throw myself at him. Probably, I owed Bianca a framed certificate of her own. What I needed now was a distraction. I gazed out over crowded museum. "Do you want to look around?" I asked.

"Is that what you want?" he asked.

Well, it was either that or pounce on him. I felt myself nod. "Yup," I said. "Definitely."

Wordlessly, he took my arm and led me through the crowd. I'd never been an art-lover. And from the looks of it, neither was Jake. Still, as we strolled, I found myself getting lost in the experience. Together, we stopped to gaze at paintings, sculptures, and pottery from civilizations I'd never even heard of.

The music, the crowd, the energy, it all should've been distracting. But somehow, it wasn't. In a way, all of the surrounding commotion just made it easier to get lost with him, to enjoy the scenery without feeling conspicuous.

When we stopped in an alcove surrounded by colorful paintings behind glass partitions, it suddenly occurred to me that for once, I had Jake all to myself. If I squeezed just a little bit closer to him, we'd have a surprising amount of privacy.

To talk. That's all.

Still, as I gazed over at him, I couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to do more than talk. Last night, I'd heard the sounds from Maddie's room. Whatever he was doing in there, she'd obviously enjoyed it, and that was an understatement.

What would that be like? To be that close to him? For as long as I could remember, Jake had been my ultimate fantasy. In fact, he'd been my first fantasy, back when sex had seemed more of an abstract idea than a solid reality.

I moved my head close to his and said, "You never told me why we're here."

In a surprisingly intimate gesture, he leaned his forehead against mine. "Is that a complaint?" he asked.

Our lips were achingly close. If I tilted my head a little to the right, they'd be closer still. Kissing distance. My tongue darted between my teeth. It brushed the inside of my lips, and my eyelids threatened to drift shut.

With a mental slap to my forehead, I pulled away. "Heck yeah it's a complaint," I said. "If we're here because of me, I should probably know why."

"I'll tell you later," he said.

"Why not now?" I demanded.

"Because," he said, "in like thirty seconds, someone's gonna try to kick my ass."

I wanted to groan.

Again?