11. Claire
CHAPTER 11
CLAIRE
I stared straight through my laptop screen, seeing nothing at all. Conrad had kissed me. I had kissed Conrad. We'd kissed each other, and it had been… something.
I tried to remember the kisses that'd come before it, boys in high school, in college. Men from the apps. Shy kisses, sweet kisses, goodnight kisses. Goodbye kisses. Had any of them made the ground tilt under my feet? Conrad had kissed me, and it had been like falling. Falling into my past. Falling into a dream. Falling through galaxies, stars in my hair. It had just been a kiss, two seconds, three, but my heart was still pounding, my face hot and dry.
Out on the balcony, Conrad was pacing, on his phone to someone back in New York. He kept raking his fingers through his hair, the way I'd seen him do when he got nervous. He never did that in public, where people could judge him. Only in private, then I'd remind him to comb it. When I wasn't around, did he leave it all messy?
He caught me staring and smiled. I waved and turned away, not wanting him to see the color rise to my cheeks. I was about to get back to work when someone tapped on the door.
"Coming," I called, and checked my hair in the mirror. If it was Verity, I wanted to look perfect. But when I opened the door, it was a man in a blue suit, a pin on his lapel declaring him RANDALL PRICE – MANAGER. I flashed him a bland smile.
"Is there a problem?"
"No, not at all." He stood up a bit straighter and sneaked a glance past me. "I see your companion is busy — I wanted to thank him. That scene in the lobby with the Adelfords, that could've been ugly. I heard Mr. Farley calmed Mrs. Adelford right down."
I smiled. "Yes, he did. He's always had a way with difficult people."
"Well, please let him know we're all very grateful, not just my staff, but the guests who were waiting. If he'd like any spa treatments, that'll be on us, anything special from room service, just say the word."
"I'll tell him," I said. "Will that be all?"
Price nodded, then caught himself. "Actually, no. I also stopped by to tell you your hot tub's back up. The heater is working now, if you'd like to use it."
"Thank you," I said. "Good of you to stop by."
Price headed off, glancing back once at Conrad. I went back to my laptop, but the screen made my eyes cross. It had been a long day, and a long night before it, and now that I thought of it, a soak did sound nice. I headed up to our roof terrace and turned up the heater, then trotted back down and slipped into my bathing suit. By the time I was changed, and my hair all pinned up, the water was warm and bubbling away. I slid in, grateful, and wiggled my toes. Bubbles tickled between them, making me giggle.
I stretched out my arms and lay back in the water. Knots loosened between my shoulders and down my back, and the headache I'd been nursing since breakfast melted away. I groaned with relief and let my eyes close. Steam rose up, soothing, and I let myself drift. Tomorrow we'd be out of here, or maybe the next day, and all this with Conrad would feel like a dream. It already did, kind of, even as it unfolded.
I became aware of shadows shifting behind me, falling over my shoulders then slipping away. I didn't open my eyes, just leaned back and smiled.
"Conrad?"
"Mm-hm." He circled around me to lean on the railing, gazing out over the garden to the beach beyond. I waited for him to say something else, and when he didn't, I sat up in the water.
"What are you looking at?"
"It looks perfect in this light, the ocean, the beach." He tilted his head to look up at the moon. "You wouldn't guess, looking out there, there'd been a storm."
"It's beautiful," I agreed. "Night time in paradise."
"It even smells good." Conrad took a deep sniff. "Some kind of flower out here, I should find what it is. See if I can grow it in the garden at Constel. Imagine going on your lunch break in the middle of Manhattan, and you sit down to eat, and it smells like this."
"You can't—" I began, and bit my tongue hard. I'd been about to say to him, you can't take it home. But that would've meant we couldn't take us home. Which, yeah, we couldn't, but I didn't want to say it.
Conrad stepped back and sighed. "It's like a whole other world, apart from our real lives. Like we took a sidestep somewhere and stole these few days here."
My breath hitched in my chest. It was like he'd reached in and plucked the thoughts from my head. Was he thinking, too, how anything could happen? How we could take our time here to explore our what-ifs, to taste what we could've had if our lives had been different? When it came time to go, it would be like awakening, like leaving a pleasant dream to rejoin the real world. We could, if we wanted. The question was, should we?
Conrad came over and sat by the hot tub, dangling his legs into the water. I hopped up next to him, onto my towel. People came here for honeymoons, anniversaries, vacations. They came for romance, for an escape from the world. We could have both those things, no strings attached. But, if we did, would our friendship survive it? Could we really go back and just?—
Conrad leaned in.
I held my breath.
If we kissed now, we would cross a new line. We'd be doing it because we wanted to and no other reason, not for my business, for our charade. No one would see us. It would be just for us.
I closed my eyes and stretched up, ran my hands through his hair. He pulled the pin out of mine so it tumbled down my back. We kissed, sweet and gentle, a brush of our lips. A shivery promise of more to come. I inhaled the scent of him, his skin, his cologne. He whispered my name, and then my laptop pinged, an obnoxious bing-bong drifting upstairs.
"Ignore it," I said.
Conrad's phone chirped.
"Damn it." He pulled it out and held down the button, but it chirped again twice, and his face darkened.
"Problem?"
"I want to say no, but I really should take this. But?—"
I pressed my finger to his lips. "Go ahead. Take it."
Conrad stared at me for a long moment, eyes burning with what could've been want or frustration. Then he kissed me once on my forehead and hurried away. I flopped back, head spinning, and kicked my feet in the bubbles. Who'd texted Conrad? What was so urgent? Was it even urgent, or had he changed his mind? Had I changed mine, and he'd somehow seen it? Sensed my hesitation before I even felt it? Did I want this with him, or was it a mistake?
I scrambled upright, frustrated, head spinning from the steam. My towel was damp from me sitting on it, but I snatched it up anyway, tied it around my waist and headed inside. I found my own phone on the table by the fruit bowl and flopped down on the couch and thumbed it to life.
Hey. You awake?
I texted Sunny and lay waiting, tapping my nails on my thigh. She took almost two minutes to send her reply, a peach and an eggplant. An exploding heart. I shook my head, irked.
What's with the eggplant? I wrote.
She texted back lol , then a laughing emoji, then sry, sry. u txted u up. thought u were Ben.
I snorted. Well, I'm not. And this isn't a booty call. I'm in SERIOUS TROUBLE here, so tell me you're sober!
Sunny ditched the emojis. jober as a sudge. tell me. what's up?
You jinxed me, I wrote. You and your romcom crap. We're stuck here, and don't laugh, but we kissed. Twice. And I don't know what he's thinking or even what I'M thinking, except what if I'm making an awful mistake?? He's one of my best friends, maybe THE best (besides you lol). What if it's weird now? If we can't go back??????
Sunny texted back AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA , just a long line of A s. I held my phone away from me like she'd screamed for real. She probably had screamed, in her bed in New York. Her next texts were calmer.
don't panic.
breathe deep.
ur asking the wrong questions.
I bit my thumb, waiting for her to say more. The little ellipses popped up. Blinked out. Popped up again. I breathed like she'd told me, slow in and out.
what you need to be asking is what do you want. not whats real or whats practical or what u think you can have. you need to slow down and ask yourself, what do you want with Conrad? how do you feel? you can't start with the hard questions or you won't start at all. and you WILL miss out on whatever this could be.
But it COULD be a disaster.
or it could be great. you'll never find out if you chicken out now. then you'll be old looking back on your life, and you'll be like… but what if Conrad??????????????? but he'll be dead by then and it'll be too late.
I burst out laughing. Why would Conrad be dead?
b/c women live longer and you'll be like 90. and you'll never know if he was your one.
I told Sunny she was ridiculous, then I told her thanks. Then I dropped my phone on its face and stretched out on the sofa. She'd made some good points in a general sense — most relationships did start with a leap of faith — but she didn't know Conrad's life. She didn't know mine. Well, she did know mine, but not every detail. She couldn't know how hard I worked, or what it cost me. Or maybe she could, given her own work. When had she last dated long-term?
I grabbed a pillow and pulled it over my face. I was back to the hard questions, like what about work? When would we see each other? Would we find time? Sooner or later, we'd plan a date. He'd back out, our I would, and we'd say it was fine. But then it would keep happening, and… what did I want?
I lay and tried to imagine a future I'd want, but the picture was blurry, like an old TV. I saw a penthouse, then a brownstone, then a country McMansion. I saw kids, then no kids, then a gleaming new office. Conrad was there with me, and then he wasn't. I was cooking him dinner, then he was ordering in. Then we had a chef, then a butler, a nanny, and I flung the pillow off. I didn't want that .
If it were just the two of us, what would that look like?
One night together, how would we spend it?
I pictured us on the set of some family sitcom, me on the couch, Conrad rubbing my feet. But, no. We wouldn't get many whole nights together. We'd want to make the most of them, go out. Do something. Go to the opera. Go out with friends. Fly to New Orleans for gumbo, then back the same night.
That sounded exhausting. I yawned into my shoulder. I was tired, was my problem, why I couldn't do this. Why I couldn't answer the simplest of questions. Tired and overthinking. Tomorrow, I'd do better.
Tomorrow, I'd figure out what I wanted with Conrad.