Chapter 40

CHAPTER FOURTY

LAKE

54 bobas left until we both die …

I wake up a few hours later, yet again confused by my surroundings.

I’m lying on a king bed in an unfamiliar hotel room, a warm divot next to me where another person might’ve been sleeping until recently. I turn my head to see Tam coming out of the bathroom in pants, but no shirt, towel slung over his broad shoulders. He turns to see that I’m awake, and smiles at me.

It’s seven o’clock in the morning.

“I wasn’t trying to wake you up, sorry.”

“Aren’t I … I think I’m late for work.” I look around, but I have no idea where my phone is. What happened last night?

I remember sitting down on the couch to talk with Tam and drink my boba.

Oh.

That’s right.

My head kept flopping backward or forward or sideways, and Tam caught me every single time.

“Why don’t you just sleep here?” he’d whispered, and then this.

I don’t really remember much else. I very quickly snatch the nearly full boba on the nightstand and finish it off while he smiles at me. I have to finish this. I’m counting down the days till my death with these drinks.

“You’re not coming to work.” He smiles like the naughty boy he is. “Ultimately, I did end up firing you. There’s a new badge for you on the table. Text or call me anytime while I’m out today, and I’ll answer.”

“Why?” I ask as Tam slings his towel off his shoulders and picks up his shirt.

It’s taut between us. I can feel pulling in every muscle. Want. I want to touch him, but I stay where I am. Looks like he’s about to leave for the day.

“If you want me, I’ll be your boyfriend,” he tells me, and I almost choke on a boba. I clear my throat, but he’s not done. “Please be my girlfriend, is what I meant to say.”

It takes a minute for me to figure out what to respond with, which is dumb because I knew exactly what my answer was to his other question.

“I’d like that, Thomas. Thank you.” Could I get literally anymore awkward?

“If you start talking to me like a sixteenth century duke, I’ll fire Jacob. I can only handle it from one person.”

I laugh at that, but it’s hard to pay attention to what he’s saying as he pulls his shirt on. Muscles under shower-warmed skin, that dash of freckles above his navel. His taste. Mostly, his taste. I dig my fingers into the sheets, and Tam notices.

“And don’t thank me for that. Why would you thank me?” He gives me a look, and I nod, trying to hold back a smile. “I’ll meet you back here, and we can do something for dinner. Until then … enjoy your day.” He hesitates, and it takes a lot of effort to remember this charming man saying the words, good girl. “Please go do something fun today. It’ll make me feel better.”

“Sure. But then I want to start working again. I liked having a job.”

Tam hesitates, but then he nods once, picks up a hoodie, and he’s out the door.

“Kaycee Quinn likes you so much that she wants me to sabotage you. She said I should wait until you were asleep, and then call her. She’d come right over.” I’m standing over Joules’ spot, curled up on the sofa in our shared hotel room. “Should I indulge her? Why or why not?”

“Kaycee is a done deal. You said it yourself. They’re breaking up.” Joules scoffs and rolls away from me, pulling his blanket over his shoulder. “I don’t need to see her anymore.”

I slap him—hard. Right in the center of his back, and he growls at me.

“I have Tam’s credit card, and I’m going out to do something fun today. I thought we could go together, but if you’re going to keep lying to me, then I don’t want to go with you, Joules Frost. Get yourself together.”

He rolls over suddenly and surges to his feet. I figured he’d be upset with me, but he’s not. He looks … sad.

“Kaycee and I aren’t going to work out, Lake. She’s interested in me in a way that I am not interested in her. I really don’t want to see her.”

I sigh and shake my head.

“Fine. Will you get dressed, so we can go to Alcatraz? Then I want clam chowder.”

“Fine,” Joules repeats, and then he stalks past me toward the bathroom, pausing halfway between the bed and the doorway. “Did you guys sleep together?” he asks, hoping maybe that the curse is broken, too.

“Nope.”

Because I fell asleep.

Wonderful.

“Good girl.” Did Tam seriously say that to me?

I try not to think about it, grabbing a cab with Joules so that we can get to Pier 33 for the tour.

We take a boat out to an island in the middle of the bay that used to be a famous prison. Thinking about Tam, I indulge in the audio tour, and Joules walks beside me, yawning, hands in his pockets.

Clam chowder and sourdough bread for lunch. Next, a mirror maze where Joules curses so loudly that I can hear him on the other side of the room. In one of the many reflections, I see him tugging on the plastic gloves they give you so that you don’t smudge the glass and ruin the illusion of the maze. He spots me and gives chase.

I find my way out three times before hotheaded Joules can escape.

He throws an arm around my neck when we get outside, walking me down the pier toward the ocean. His voice when he talks next is strange. It’s off. Whatever it is that he’s hiding, it’s bad.

“Let’s hang out like this more often, okay? Tam can only have half of you. Joe is gone, so it’s just me and you.”

I jerk away from Joules suddenly, and I scramble for his wrist.

“Stop it, Canoe!” he yells at me, raising his arm high above his head and breathing fast.

My heart breaks when his eyes meet mine, and I shake my head.

“No, no, you’re lying.” I’m backing up down the pier, but he reaches out to snatch my wrist when I nearly run into the railing behind me. Still, he keeps his left wrist well out of my reach.

I look up, and I can see that the mark is dulled, the beige and pink smudge that’s only a suggestion.

I drop my gaze to my brother’s.

“Are you covering it with makeup?” I can’t even believe that I’m asking such a stupid question. But it’s the only thing that makes sense. “Joules!” I scream at him, and he rolls his eyes. He drops his arm and then lifts it up for me to stare at.

“Why would I do that? I just want you to stop panicking because I say something nice.”

“That wasn’t nice, Joules. That was weird. People only say things like that if they’re dying. Are you fucking dying, Joules Frost? Did you get matched and not tell me about it? Because I would never forgive you for lying about something like that. Even in death, I’d curse your name.”

Joules just smiles at me and lets me rub at his mark for a few seconds. Nothing seems to be coming off, but I’d need some makeup remover and a washrag to believe it completely. He yanks his wrist from my grip and steps past me to put his arms on the railing, looking down at the sea lions.

“Let’s buy a brand-new car on the way back to the hotel, and then thank Tam for lending us his wallet.”

“Joules,” I warn, turning and mimicking his post at the railing. I’m not done with this conversation yet, but with the way Joules is acting, I need to step back. He’s dead sure that whatever is going on with him, he doesn’t want me to know it. Not even if I cry or scream or threaten him.

I’ll have to be sneakier about it. “You already punched Tam in the face. Don’t push our luck any further.”

“The faster, the better,” Joules breathes, turning to look at me. He scoffs. “My landlord said I could have my apartment back as long as I signed a new lease before the end of the summer. The sooner we go back home, the better.”

“Okay,” I tell him, certain that he’s still lying. He can get a new apartment easily enough. Even if he couldn’t, he doesn’t give a shit about that sort of thing. Joules needs me to break the curse as fast as possible. I open myself up to the idea of loving Tam Eyre. If I had more time, I’d enjoy the ride. But the curse isn’t going to give me that luxury. “I won’t hold back.”

“Good girl,” Joules says absently, because he knows I hate it. I shove him hard in the shoulder, and he stumbles, flipping me off as I leave him standing there. “You’re such a brat!” he yells after me, but I ignore him.

I’m still mad, but I do take Joules to the science museum down the way. Everything is hands-on, so it’s basically a giant playground for adults. We shoot laser beams to study color refraction, play with oversized musical instruments and fiddle with giant magnets. We make massive whirlpools by spinning huge ship wheels to learn about the way water moves.

And then, I’m getting a text from Tam that reads: on my way back to the hotel.

My heart explodes, and I hurry Joules toward the exit.

I wait for Tam in my own room, pacing a little in front of the TV. I went up to his room when we got back, but there were so many people crowded in there that I ran away as soon as I opened the door. I can just wait here.

The first knock makes me jump, and I force myself to slow down. I exhale and shake out my hands before I head to the door to answer it.

It’s Tam, of course.

I knew it would be, but … still.

Butterflies.

“Can I come in?” he asks nicely, and I give him a look. His answering smile is enough to make me want to shut the door in his face. I knew he would give me trouble. I knew it, and I was right.

“Sure.” I step to the side and usher him in, letting him pass by so that I can shut the door and dead bolt it. The chain is next. I’m sure Tam needs to be even more careful than the average person. I know that someone once tried to stab him at a meet and greet.

“Hey Joules,” Tam says blandly, pausing in the doorway between the hallway and the living room area. I remember him saying that he wanted Joules to like him, but I also think he has enough dignity not to show it. A neutral approach is good. Joules should respond to that.

“Are you going to sleep with my sister or what?” Joules asks with a sigh, scowling at him as he walks by. “And don’t worry, I already have the key to your suite upstairs. You two can have this room.”

My brother exits the room and lets the door swish shut behind him. Tam watches him over his shoulder before turning back to me.

“Jacob is with my mom and maybe two or three assistants in there. If he can deal with them, he can have the room.”

“Sorry about him. I think he somehow forgot that he’s supposed to encourage you to like me, not chase you off.”

Tam laughs softly as I edge past him, moving up to my room’s own minibar. I pick up a few of the alcohol bottles, searching for something easy and relaxed. White wine, maybe? I find a bottle, and then turn around to see that Tam is making himself comfortable on the couch. The city view on his left makes me remember our promise to get ramen in Japantown.

“Want to have a glass of wine, and then we can go get that ramen?” I ask, and Tam nods slowly.

“I think we can make that happen,” he says, and I remember suddenly that it’s hard for him to just go out. That it’s risky every time it happens.

“Actually, we could just stay here?” I lift up another wine bottle as proof. “Order in. Drink a little too much. Watch a movie.”

“I want to take you out, Lake,” he says, and I remember he said something similar back at my parents’ house. “Let’s go out.”

“Trying harder doesn’t mean being risky with your own safety,” I warn him, and he chuckles at me.

“I’m taking you out. Damn it. You almost had me there, and we could’ve stayed in and … But we’re going out for sure now.” Tam stands up and moves over to where I’m frozen at the counter. He sets the wine down, uncorks it in an instant, and pours one large glass. Hesitates. Commits to chucking his diet aside in favor of a nice evening. Pours a second glass.

We clink them and then we drink.

Tam calls for Pat and the Escalade, and out the back doors we go.

In the background, the tension burns.

“You know, I never asked Kaycee out,” Tam says, looking out the window. His elbow is on the door, chin in his hand. He looks unconcerned, relaxed. But his gaze shifts to mine, and I see that’s not true. We’re both well-aware of the other person’s feelings at this point.

He wants me, and I want him.

“What do you mean?” I whisper back. Pat has some classical music on a low volume, but I’m sure he can still hear us. Tam doesn’t seem to care.

“I didn’t ask her out. The CEO of our record label brought us both to his office, told me she had a crush on me, and asked if I’d consider dating her. I said okay. I want to say I was trying to be a good boyfriend, but I didn’t feel any of the urges that I feel toward you.”

“Tam …” I have no idea what else to stay. He’s turned fully in his seat to look at me now, wearing a long-sleeved sweater with clouds on it, a pair of jeans that says CRUSH down one leg, and some brown leather boots. Whoever styled him today had an aesthetic, and I like it. I decide to ask. This conversation is getting very intense, very quickly. “Who picked out this outfit? It looks really nice.”

“These are my clothes,” Tam tells me with a smile. “My own clothes. I dressed myself for you.”

“Well, I … It looks like something from a social media advertising campaign.”

He laughs at me, so hard that he almost chokes.

“Right here is good,” Tam calls out when we pull up to the curb beside an open plaza with a small pagoda and some cherry blossom trees.

Japantown, San Francisco.

Tam puts his black ballcap on, slips into that heavy jacket, puts on a face mask, adds some sunglasses.

He climbs out first and then offers his hand to me. I take it and hop down to stand in front of him. There are plenty of people here, but nobody is looking at us yet.

Pat drives away as Tam leads me into the center of the plaza. The key is making sure that nobody recognizes Tam. If they don’t recognize him, they won’t even imagine the possibility of him being here.

I look at my phone and see that there are easily a dozen ramen places within walking distance. Hmm. I pick two good ones and offer Tam my fist.

“I’m the first restaurant, you’re the second. Go.” We rock-paper-scissor, and that’s it. Second restaurant. “Told you I didn’t cheat,” I tell him haughtily as we wait for the crosswalk.

“I wouldn’t have cared if you did,” he replies, taking my hand when the crosswalk sign changes. We walk across the street together, and he still doesn’t let go. Not until we get to the restaurant.

Tam checks us in and finds a table in the back. He faces away from the main dining room and toward a wall. Only people coming back from the bathrooms will be able to see him. He removes all of his disguise-wear and sets the pile on the padded bench next to him.

I point at the sign at the end of the table. It’s one of those restaurants where you scan a QR code, order and pay online, and then the food comes out to you. It’s not like a traditional full-serve restaurant.

“Order on my phone, and I’ll pay for the meal. After the money that Joules and I spent today, I should at least do this for you.”

“Okay,” he says after a few minutes of hesitation. Maybe because he remembered that he gave me almost ten-thousand dollars back from that ticket. I think he kept the other four-hundred, so that it would seem like he wasn’t being too flirtatious with me. As if he were just doing me a small favor.

We order gyoza—pork dumplings—bottles of iced green tea, and bowls of ramen.

“The press release for my breakup with Kaycee is scheduled for next month.” Tam sits across from me with half of a smile on his handsome face, that tiny crease reappearing between his eyebrows.

I wet my lips, and then I just go for it. He asked me to be his girlfriend, didn’t he? I lean across the table, and his eyes track the motion like I’m half-naked and dancing burlesque. My thumb sweeps over his skin, and Tam closes his eyes.

“You’re not allowed to get wrinkles. That’s what I saw online,” I tease, slumping back into my seat. I should’ve dressed up for this, I think, but I didn’t. I’m sitting here in jeans and a hoodie because I didn’t realize we were going out on a proper date.

“Don’t worry,” Tam says, stretching out his long legs. One of them ends up between my own, and I’m reminded of the steakhouse all over again. “I get Botox. It’s time for a refresher.” He reaches up with his own thumb and rubs at the spot between his brows.

My mouth is hanging open. He pauses to look at me, like he isn’t sure what he could’ve possibly said that was so scandalous.

“You’re in your twenties.” My voice is a horrified whisper.

“Yeah?” Tam replies, and then he gives me that lopsided smile again, and I curl my fingers into the cushion on either side of me. “But it’s like you said: I’m not allowed to have wrinkles.”

“I can imagine you as an old man with a deep little groove between your eyebrows.” My mouth shifts into a smile of my own. “I think you’d look nice that way. Dignified.”

“You’re imagining me as an old man?” Tam asks, and there’s a breathless quality to his words that I can’t interpret.

“I watched the person I love the most in the world die young. Getting old is a luxury and a privilege.” I just stare back at him, and he does the same. We’re both breathing a little heavier than usual.

“Joe?” Tam asks, and I nod. “Not Joules, the person you love the most in the world.”

“I love them equally,” I admit, looking down at the gently scuffed surface of the table. There’s a bell near the front door that says, Ring if you loved your ramen today! And every few minutes it’s going off and making me smile through the pain. “Even now. Always.”

“Got room for one more?” Tam asks me, and I lift my gaze from the table. He’s dead serious, sitting there and asking me if I could love him as much as my brother and my cousin. “Not yet, but … soon.” His gaze shifts over to my wrist, and I nod.

I like Tam. I don’t want to die. I’m worried about Joules.

I am as open to the idea of falling in love with Tam Eyre as I have ever been.

“Did you do this on purpose?” I ask, pointing my finger at the tabletop. “Your leg between mine.”

“Tonight?” he clarifies, leaning in and folding his arms on the wood surface. “Yes. At the steakhouse, no. That was accidental.”

“And then you ran away to the bathroom,” I remind him, and his smile shifts into something private and sharp-edged.

“Well, you know, you have this crazy effect on me.” Tam exhales and then reaches out, tucking some of my hair behind my ear. The way he looks at me, like he’ll die if he can’t have me, I …

“I don’t understand,” I tell him aloud, loving his attention but wanting to get to the root of it. The reason for his sudden change of heart. “You blocked me. Left me outside by myself. How did we get here?”

Tam draws his arm back and looks down at his fingers, his lovely, rough-hewn, well-used fingertips.

“When Joules came for me, I could see in his eyes that me being Tam Eyre meant absolutely nothing to him. You’re the most amazing person in the world to him. To your entire family. The way you all look at each other … I could tell that you’d never lacked for love and affection.” Tam lifts his gaze to mine again, sending my heart into a flurry. “I knew that I had to meet you on that level, that without the threat of the curse you’d have already given up on me. I didn’t want you to give up on me.”

We sit in silence again together.

“I still can’t believe that you drove ten hours to get on your knees for me.” I can feel the blush in my cheeks even as I’m trying to make a joke out of it. Tam lets out this low, rough laugh that has me questioning my life choices.

Push-pull. I love the exchange between us, the verbal foreplay. Still, I’m wondering how the hell I let him leave that hotel room without taking off his clothes first.

“When I first hopped in the car, that wasn’t my intent. I just wanted to apologize to you, unblock myself, and maybe kiss you. What happened was … so different.” He looks up from under long, dark lashes, and the server brings over our bottles of iced tea. Thankfully, the guy is busy, so he doesn’t so much as glance in Tam’s direction.

I reach for my drink, but Tam grabs it first. He unscrews the top, and then presents it to me, and I know we’re both remembering how badly I fumbled the water bottle into the grass yesterday.

“Thank you,” I whisper, my own voice as husky as Tam’s. Push-pull. Tug-yank. A slow spreading heat in places low. I make myself keep looking at him, right at his face. I won’t look away.

“For the drink or for the oral?” he asks, and then I’m groaning and putting my forehead on my arm, strewn across the table in disbelief.

“Why are you doing this to me?” I mumble, but I’m not unhappy about it. Of course not. I peek up to see that he’s toying with his green tea bottle and smirking at me. He knows the effect he has on people, and he loves it. “Nobody could resist this level of charm thrown their way.”

“I already told you,” he says, and his voice gets a little rough, a little serious. “This is only for you.” Tam leans forward, and I feel the stirrings of a secret between us. “I’ve never relaxed enough to go to bed with someone, never been willing to take the risk.” He hesitates. “You know, like if they filmed it or if they were with me for the wrong reasons.”

I sit up straight, staring at him.

“Wait, wait, wait.” I take an emergency sip of my tea and then point at him with the bottle. “What are you trying to say to me right now?”

“I’m … am … was … a virgin.” Tam rubs his hand over the back of his neck. “I don’t know if what we did cancels that word out or not. I don’t really care. My point is: I’ve never done those things with anyone else. With you, that’s the furthest I’ve ever gone.” Tam ruffles his pink hair up until it’s truly messy and wild. “I’ve never even kissed a girl off-camera.”

I’m dead. I have been struck right through the heart. I imagine a giant wrecking ball swinging down from the ceiling and just obliterating me. How … what?

“A … wait.” Now I’m the one rubbing at my face. “You were a … you’re …” And then I start laughing. I start laughing because there are all these bubbles in my stomach and chest. Oh. I’m not the only inexperienced one here. I’m not the only person who has no idea what they’re doing. “We can learn together.” I choke that last bit out, and Tam blushes.

This is a guy who gets onstage in front of tens of thousands of people and dances with beautiful women plastered to him. Who kisses Kaycee Quinn on livestream. Who falls in love and gets married in a romance drama where he was the male lead.

“You can’t blush,” I blurt out, and Tam smirks at me, narrowing those pretty green eyes on my face.

“Can’t I though? I’m way older than you. I’ve waited a long time to get here. This is a really big deal to me, too.”

“Oh.” Now I’m flushing all over, too. That was a joke. Of course he’s allowed to blush. But … but … “I just can’t believe that you … with me … I’m not trying to put myself down, but Tam, you’re on a different level.”

“You have a family that loves you, a brother that would die for you. All I have is Jacob who talks to me like a duke, Daniel who never talks to me, and my mom who only talks to me about business.” Tam rolls his eyes here, and he looks so damn good doing it that I have to take another emergency sip of my tea. “Oh, and Adam and Dylan who are my friends because the label suggested we’d make a cute crew.”

“You mean Stricken,” I say, because Tam’s friend that I met at the escape room, Adam Stricken, performs under his last name. “And Dylan Bonne. I know I was mean to you about your own music, but I didn’t mean it. I’ve excluded Stricken and Dylan from my Spotify taste profile. I don’t ever want their music to come up on Smart Shuffle.”

Tam laughs so hard at that, I think I see tears. He collapses adorably on the tabletop in his beautiful pale blue sweater with the clouds, forehead pillowed on his arm.

“Neither of them is worth following,” he mumbles, turning his head to the side and gazing up at me. Shit. His mouth, is it supposed to be that pink and soft looking? His skin, is it supposed to be so flawless? Does Tam Eyre ever get pimples? I should ask him. That’d kill the mood. “They don’t write any of their own music. Lucky for you that I do. I should write a song about our tension.”

Tam hums under his breath, like he’s composing a song on the spot. He slides his left hand across the table, head still pillowed on his arm. His thumb sweeps gently over my knuckles, but when I move to pull my hand away, he grabs onto my wrist.

Tam keeps trying to take us closer to sex, and I keep drawing us back.

Push.

Pull.

“Good girl.”

“Mm.” Tam sits up, but he doesn’t release my hand. “You distracted me. Were you just trying to sit there and tell me that you weren’t on my level? Lakelynn, come on.”

“You’re wealthy, famous, have a beautiful voice, a dancer’s body, a worldwide following. That’s all I’m saying.” I take my hand back from him, but he doesn’t like it. I see his jaw tense, and his smile get a little more wicked. The cloud sweater is cute, but very misleading.

“You forgot grumpy and mean-spirited.”

“Tam.”

“Lake.”

I sigh.

“You’ve been around the most beautiful human specimens to ever walk the face of this earth. Hell, you’re one of them, and I’m just … normal. I’m getting a degree from my hometown university, so that I can work at my uncle’s construction company. I have freckles, and don’t know the meaning of working out. I was so sore after that one day in the gym with you, I almost died.”

Tam’s laughing at me again, but then he presses the heel of his hand against his forehead and luxuriously pushes his hair up and out of his face. Lips parted. Eyes half-lidded.

I glare at him, but I’m not sure that he even knows he’s doing it.

“I know what you look like and who you are, Lake Frost. It’s not like you tried to hide it for even one minute. We officially met while you were wearing lingerie and kicking a giant hot dog.”

“I’m never going to live that down, am I?” I grumble, but Tam isn’t finished embarrassing me. Now that I’ve gotten past all his barriers—and there are a lot—he’s fucking adorable. He’s so cute. I can’t breathe.

And I don’t just mean physically, though of course, I’m aware that he’s spectacular. It’s his personality that truly shines, and it’s the core motivation for his popularity. People can’t help but be drawn to him the way that they were (on a much smaller scale) drawn to Joe.

Tam is his own person, but there’s a bit of my two other favorite people in there. A little bit of Joules. A little bit of Joe.

“I don’t know how to explain it,” Tam says, dropping his hand to his lap. “Attraction is layered and nuanced. You’re right: I do see the most beautiful women on the planet. Sometimes, I dance or sing with them. Sometimes I even kiss them onstage or onscreen. I recognize that they’re good looking, but that is not the same thing as attraction.” He sounds a little flustered, like he’s not sure how to explain it. “I can’t stop looking at you.” Push. “I can’t stop thinking about you.”

I bite my lip and look at the wall. My fingers are so tense in the cushion beneath me that I’m afraid I might be poking holes in the fabric.

“It’s everything.” Tam leans across the table at me again. “Your freckles. Your dark sense of humor. Hell, it’s the way that you smell, and the way that you …” Don’t say it here! I think at him, but he does it anyway. “That you taste.”

Taste.

I exhale and look back at him.

“I like the way you taste, too,” I tell him, trying to be as honest as I can. He gave the opening, so I’m taking it. He’s giving me the full boyfriend experience, so I’m going to give him the girlfriend experience.

Boyfriend and girlfriend.

I like the way those words sit on my tongue in a way that I never have before.

This feels right to me.

“Really?” Tam looks shocked, tongue poking at the edge of his lip. “You guzzled two seltzers afterward.”

“I was just surprised is all,” I admit, and he blinks at me before turning away, like he was surprised, too. Surprised that he threw something like that in my face, and that I took him up on it.

“The point here is: I want to go all in on you. I’m going to trust you, Lake. But I need you to understand that I have no idea what I’m going to be like in bed. It’s all new to me, but you make me crazy. I want things with you that I haven’t wanted before.”

He shifts his gaze back to mine just in time for the food to be brought over. The server—a woman this time—sets two huge bowls in front of us, and the male server follows with the gyoza plate. The woman says something in Japanese that I think means enjoy. Tam responds, but he’s looking at the wall and not at the woman.

She hesitates, and I get worried there for a few seconds, but then she just shrugs and leaves. The other server is long gone.

Tam looks after her like he’s wondering whether she recognized him or not.

“Okay, we’re good,” he says finally, turning to me again. He smiles when he sees my confusion. “She’s talking shit about me to the other staff members.”

“Oh?” I ask, blinking in surprise. “How so?” I hear laughter from the direction of the open kitchen where all the servers are gathered, speaking in Japanese.

“She’s saying there’s a weird guy in the back corner who only stares at the wall. She says good thing he paid first or I wouldn’t serve him. So, there we are.” Tam and I are both laughing now, but neither of us has forgotten where we left our personal conversation.

“I still can’t believe you’re a virgin. I never in a million years would’ve expected that.” I pause with my chopsticks in hand. “Or did I? I guess I knew you weren’t a player like Joules. That much I was sure about. But you and Kaycee? You were so cute together online; I had no idea it was a contractual thing.”

“I tried my best with her, but there was no spark. No attraction.” Tam watches me open the paper wrapping on my chopsticks, unsnap the wood at the base. I pour some soy sauce, dip a gyoza into it, and then I put one forearm on the table to brace myself.

I lean forward with a smile, holding the dumpling out to Tam. With my left hand, I make a cup underneath the dumpling, so that I don’t get any sauce on his beautiful sweatshirt.

Tam’s lips part, and he takes the dumpling in his mouth in a way that he didn’t take the granola bar from me the other day. He chews slowly and swallows while I sit back in my seat, waiting to hear if he likes it or not.

“I like your sweater,” is what he says instead, and then he’s reaching out with his chopsticks and picking at the seaweed on the edge of his bowl first. He eats the naruto next (a little white flower-shaped fishcake with a pink swirl in the middle). “The color, and also the texture.” He laughs a little between bites of green bean. They’re layered nicely over the top of the soup. “Mostly, the shape of it over your breasts.”

Tam slides across the bench seat on his side, moves around to mine, and scoots in so close to me that I end up trapped between him and the wall.

Panting hard.

Chopsticks shaking.

He yanks over the gyoza plate and his bowl of ramen, and I see that he’s intending to eat right here next to me after saying something like that.

“When I asked you to try harder, you listened, didn’t you?”

“I wanted to do all of these things anyway, but I was trying to respect your space.”

“Don’t respect my space,” I choke out, shivering and wanting. “I need you in it with me.” Push and pull. Tug and yank. There’s a tugging in my lower belly, a need that demands to be satisfied.

I’ve never felt this before in my entire life.

I want Tam to touch me and hold me. I want him to kiss me and make love to me. I want him. Period.

“Okay,” he whispers, voice as rough and desperate as it was in the hallway before he left my parents’ house. “Okay, I’ll stay close.”

We eat in silence, just touching each other. It’s enough, the press of his thigh into mine, the sound of him sighing after he lifts the bowl of broth to drink it. I’m starting to think he isn’t going to touch the noodles. Right. His diet.

A large group of girls comes into the restaurant, chattering excitedly.

“Oh my God, you made it!” one of them yells to another.

“I wouldn’t miss this for anything. Tam Eyre? Are you fucking kidding me?”

The girls are laughing together as I turn to Tam, to see what he thinks about this. It must be weird, huh? To hear people talk about you everywhere you go. I’d hate it.

“When we announce our relationship, everyone is going to know who you are, too,” Tam tells me, like he’s admitting a dirty little secret. “It won’t be like this. We’ll be followed and stalked and harassed. We won’t get to go out for a little while.” Tam surprises me by taking a single bite of noodles, and then pushes them aside, looking sad that he has to say goodbye to them. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

One of the girls who was talking about him heads in the direction of the bathroom, and Tam turns suddenly, wrapping his arms around me and putting his chin on my head.

He’s holding me from behind, arms tight, cheek gently touching my hair.

“Let’s wait for her to leave,” he suggests as I put my hands over his and close my eyes.

The girl doesn’t take long, footsteps retreating back the way she came.

Tam releases me, planting his elbow on the tabletop so he can watch me. When he reaches out for his chopsticks again, I think he’s going to eat some more, and I’m happy about that. Instead, he picks up another one of the gyoza and holds it out to me.

“Open up,” he commands, looking right into my eyes.

I do, and I take the dumpling from him, and he sets his chopsticks down again.

We’re quiet for the rest of the meal.

“I’ll be your assistant again tomorrow, right?” I clarify, because I really want to go to the concert with Tam. I want to see what it’s like backstage when he’s paying some attention to me. Last time, he gave me those backstage passes, but I’m not sure that I even existed for him.

Now … now … I definitely exist.

More than that, I mean something.

I don’t look at the curse mark on my wrist. It’s still too soon. I know we don’t have much time, but this is going as well as I ever could’ve dreamed. I feel lucky to have gotten this far. Tam is letting go as much as I am. If he were ever going to love me, it’d probably happen quickly anyway.

We will break this stupid curse.

But I can’t shake off that inner tremor that reminds me how Joe and Marla got to this stage. They were having sex, kissing each other in public, talking about getting an apartment together.

They both died.

“No,” Tam says belatedly, like he was considering his response. We’re strolling back toward the pagoda across the street. On either side of the plaza, there are two malls with Japanese-themed shops. Food, clothing, anime. “I don’t want you to fumble with a water bottle or to”—and here he points right at me—“wipe instead of dab. I might’ve fired another assistant for that, you know.”

“I call bullshit. I’ve seen you, and Jacob is right: you’re too nice. You’re only mean to people you’re close to, but we’ll work on that together.”

Tam chuckles at that and shakes his head.

Cherry blossoms skirt past in the breeze. I can’t believe they’re still in bloom (it’s a bit late in the season), and that I’m in this place with Tam at this exact time. It feels like a fairy tale. It would be a fairy tale if the curse wasn’t involved.

It’s ruining my romantic journey, and I hate it.

“I want to take you with me everywhere, but I don’t want you to be my assistant. You’re my girlfriend.”

“I’m happy to help though. Whatever you need from me.” I mean that, too. “I’d rather spend time with you—regardless of what you’re doing—than be apart.”

“Because of the curse?” he asks curiously, and I shrug.

“There’s that part, but there’s also … You know, this.” I gesture randomly between us, and Tam stops walking. There’s an expression on his face that tells me we’re about to take another huge step forward in our relationship. I move away from him and yank the building’s door open. “Let’s get a mochi doughnut. Just one. We’ll each only take one bite for taste.”

“Have you had a boba today?” Tam asks, following me in and tucking his hands into his pockets. We avoided whatever was just about to happen, but not for long. Push-pull. A waltz. Extended foreplay. “Besides the one you chugged in my bed.”

“Sorry, by the way,” I add in a whisper. “For falling asleep.”

“Don’t be,” Tam says happily, pausing in the lobby to study the map. He seeks out a boba tea shop with his fingertip and then takes my hand. “I wasn’t going to fuck you anyway. You said try harder, and I haven’t tried hard enough yet.”

He takes me to the tea shop with a blush on my face, and we both settle for unsweetened, iced oolong. It’s not technically a boba, but that’s Tam for you, shaking up my everything.

We grab a mochi doughnut next—a Nutella-flavored one—and we each eat a single bite. It’s chewy and amazing, and I wish I could have a dozen right now. All to myself.

But if Tam can only have one bite, then I’ll only have one.

“Let’s just split this together,” he says mildly, and I pretend like I’m not super thrilled about that. We walk together, finishing our dessert, and then slip into a shop filled with cute, little collector items in blind boxes. As in, you have to buy a whole bunch to complete the set because you don’t know which one you’re buying, basically a mystery box.

There’s a set of Tam-themed blind boxes on one of the shelves, and I just stop and start laughing. He’s pulled on a sea green beanie and has his face mask tucked under his chin. There are a lot of guys here imitating Tam’s iconic hair style and color, so honestly, he just looks like one of the bunch.

“Please tell me you didn’t personally approve of this,” I whisper, pointing at the tiny figures of Tam in different outfits and poses. “This is the least sexy thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”

He rears back to look at me like he’s been slapped, but then a huge grin spreads across his face, a grin that catches the attention of a girl across the shop from me. Her eyes drift to the Tam statuettes beside us. He reaches up and yanks his face mask into place before leaning down to whisper.

“No, my mom makes all of the merchandising decisions.”

“So, I just insulted your mom. Got it.” I roll my lips inward and then take him by the hand so that we can get out of there before he gets spotted. Tam follows me down the steps into the main part of the hallway, a broken fountain across the walkway from us. It’s cute in here, but it’s only Japantown. I want to go to actual Japan.

I think about the international portion of Tam’s tour that’s coming up. If we live through the curse, there’ll be an after in my life. It’s not just getting to August, but what happens after that.

“If we … are a thing, are you taking me to Europe with you?” I ask as he moves up close behind me.

“I’ll take you everywhere with me that you want to go. Preferably just, everywhere in general.”

I smile at that and turn around, but I have to tilt my chin up more than usual because we’re so close. We’re not that different in height, are we? Or I just never realized it before. “Too much?” he asks, that wrinkle between his brows again. Tam tilts his head slightly to one side, waiting.

“Don’t stop unless I tell you,” I whisper, and he gives me a look that’s a promise.

Tam’s song—“Break Up With Me”—starts playing from the speaker in the corner, replacing the J-pop track that was just on.

“I … did you know what I was doing with this video on repeat?” I ask, because I know he saw my phone that morning. “I was touching myself to it.”

“I know; I could tell.” Tam is still smiling, hands kept to himself and in his pockets. He moves around me and keeps walking. “Come with me …” he calls out, and then he sings along to his own song. People turn to look, but nobody stops us. “… if you dare.”

Tam stops next to the Peace Pagoda, this five-tiered concrete structure that’s supposed to be—according to the plaque—a Buddhist stupa. Five concrete circles are speared through the center with a decorative tower. It’s cute, and the cherry blossoms are a nice touch, blotches of gentle pink softening the rough edges of the concrete.

It’s dark out now, strings of white lights strung up over the busy plaza.

Tam turns toward me, but I’m busy reading the plaque because I assumed he’d be busy reading the plaque. He likes all the informational parts of the tourist spots we visit. The brochures and the audio tours and the plaques.

Just … not this plaque.

I stand up, tucking some loose hair behind my ear. It’s a little windy out here, but that’s okay because I like the way it plays with both Tam’s hair and the loose pink petals from the trees.

“Lakelynn.” He pulls his face mask off and tucks it into his jeans pocket. He keeps the beanie on though, and I want to touch it. Looks soft. I wonder if he feels that way about my sweater.

Tam steps into my space and puts his hands on my waist, just like he did when I bumped into him in the hallway. But this time, his touch isn’t brief and perfunctory, it’s slow and spreading. He touches me with his fingertips, and then the palms of his hands, slides them around me and along my back. Tam gathers me into his arms, pulling me nice and tight against him.

When he tilts my chin up, and I find him looking down at me, I don’t make a single move.

I wait.

The push and pull comes to a slow, deep close. In its wake, there’s the lingering air of desperation.

He doesn’t say a word as he puts one hand on the side of my neck, sliding his fingers into my hair. Tam’s mouth closes the distance with effortless intent, lips sliding over mine with a sigh of relief. He squeezes his right arm around my waist so that my back arches. My hands find his shoulders, and my eyes slide shut against the gold-pink brush of hair on his forehead.

My lips part to his tongue, and Tam groans as his finds mine. He moves his lips and his hands and his tongue, and it’s the most complete kiss that I have ever had. Tam is everywhere, all at once, and I don’t have any other thoughts in my head except for him.

Tam kisses me with such perfect clarity, such confident focus, and he lets us linger there. For minutes, maybe longer. Maybe a half hour. We’re just kissing and sighing, and he’s enjoying the soft fabric of my sweater, and I’m loving the fact that I could collapse right now and never hit the ground. He has me. He has me, and it feels so good.

Tam draws back, leaving his nose near mine. And then he nips my lower lip once. Twice. Three times. I shudder and press my forehead against his chest.

“Let’s go back to the hotel,” he suggests, without even the smallest attempt at pretending like he’s asking for anything but sex.

“Please,” I tell him, and then he releases me just enough to call Pat to bring the car around.

As Tam does that, I sneak my own phone out, and I text Kaycee. I told Joules that I wasn’t going to, but I lied. This is for his own good. He’s lying about something, and if I can’t shake it out of him, then maybe Kaycee can?

Despite what he says, I think he does like her.

Joules is in Tam’s room at the hotel. He’s staying there tonight. Go get him now. This is your chance.I send that message off, and then accept Tam’s hand so that he can lead me back to the SUV, and from there, to our hotel room.