Page 14 of Story Of My Heart

Craning my neck, I try to at least see if there’s a screw cap involved on any of the reds. “But…”

“I will hop in that car and drive right back to Minneapolis. Don’t think I won’t. And you will be stranded here. Alone.” Reluctantly, I fork over the cellphone, and she slips it into her purse. “And why did we have to take a rental, again?”

“Because the Mercedes would be a dead giveaway.” Giving the wine an experimental sniff, I decide to my satisfaction that it isn’t real Champagne. I extend my glass toward Piper’s, bringing the rims together with a soft clink. “To being normal.”

“To being normal,” she repeats, and we each take a swig from our glass. “At least for you. I am already decidedly normal.” Definitely not real Champagne. I must make a face at the taste, Piper scowling threateningly in response.

“Would you rather it be Bollinger, Mr. Scrooge?” she teases, draining the rest of her glass before allowing the bartender to refill it. I follow suit.

Noticing my brother Gibson’s best friend, Aiden, I give him a wave. “Not at the rate you’re drinking it.”

Piper threatens to elbow me again, and I wince reflexively. She laughs, this bright and tinkling noise, and I can’t remember the last time I heard her so relaxed. Then a woman taps her on the shoulder, telling her that she loves her shoes, and the moment is broken. We end up drawn into small talk with the woman and her husband, a couple doing a road trip all the way down the country from Winnipeg to visit their grandkids in Arkansas. They aren’t the kind of people I usually have to mingle with at the parties that Oscar drags me to. Her husband is wearing cargo shorts with socks and sandals, for crying out loud. But there’s something nice about them, something far more genuine than all of the venture capitalists and nebulously internet famous women they drag around with them. It doesn’t hurt seeing Piper in her element either. By the time we part ways, she’s managed to learn the names of all of their children, their children’s children, what colleges they’ve gone to, and is asking to be updated about their son’s Shih Tzu’s diabetes when they make it into Little Rock next month.

“I don’t know how you do it,” I confess, grabbing a small plate from the hors d’oeuvres table. A quick examination reveals it to be cheese, crackers, and a handful of olives. The cheeses seem to be of a price point that I can live with. The olives are the regular green ones stuffed with pimentos, and not a more extravagant Castelvetrano either. Score another point for Fallon who’s always had her head screwed on straight.

“Do what?” Piper asks, snagging a vibrantly green olive from my plate.

“Make people feel comfortable. People don’t act like that around me.”

“Because you’re uncomfortable. People are like horses. If you’re uncomfortable, they are too.”

Before I can decide if this is an insult or not, there’s a rumbling of excitement from the front of the boat. Fallon adjusts the microphone clipped to her polo shirt, and bounds over to our Manitoban friends with a grin.

“Alright, Jim and Nancy! Here at Sunset Lake we have a tradition. It is said that a kiss shared between two lovers while passing under our historic Wagon Bridge will bring good fortune in matters of the heart.”

I look at my sister, who refuses to make eye contact with me, her gaze reaching anything but my face. Tradition my ass. I’ve never heard of anyone kissing anyone under this bridge, other than seagulls kissing tiny fish and bits of old French fries. I’ve never seen my parents kiss each other, and neither has Fallon. This is some kind of marketing gamble for the resort, and unless some other Sunset Lake resident calls her out on it, I guess it’s working.

As we near the bridge, everyone buddies up with misty eyes and flushed cheeks. My brother’s best friend, Aiden, and his new wife Iris, as well as several other couples, are all poised for liplocking. Jim and Nancy gaze at each other with that sickening look of a couple forty years into an actually happy marriage. Fallon herself even prepared for this, her old friend Leo slipping an arm around her waist. The desire to ask her what the hell that’s all about is put on a back burner while I panic, realizing that it would be really odd to drive my “girlfriend” all the way back home and not kiss her under this stupid bridge.

“Now, get ready!” Fallon cheers. “Everyone has to kiss!”

As the boat passes under the bridge, the kissing begins like some kind of mass hysteria rippling through our little crowd. After Leo plants a simple kiss on Fallon’s forehead, my sister stares at me over his shoulder, disappointment in her giant puppy dog eyes. I turn and look at Piper, who is staring at me in equal parts confusion and horror, bobbing her head around like she’s searching for a cop out, ready to plant a chaste kiss on my cheek.

I can feel Aiden starting to look, too, alongside our Canadian cohorts, and something in me snaps. Planting a firm hand on the back of her head, and another at the base of her spine, I pull her in. She stiffens at first, then relaxes into my hold, her lips softening against mine. After caressing my way up her back, both of my hands grip her hair, my fingers tangling into the strands as I tilt my head to a new angle. At the heat of her tongue darting between her lips, my stomach bottoms out. A fresh burst of sensation unlike any I’ve ever known swirls inside me like a tornado. I had expected this to be awkward, but it isn’t at all. In fact, it’s the most comfortable I’ve ever felt. It’s like every cell in my body is coming alive.

Then, Fallon, in her infinite wisdom, has the audacity to clap. The illusion is shattered, and I’m falling right back down to Earth. Everything about the moment snaps back into focus, and I push Piper away from me in a panic, which is probably the worst thing I could do.

She looks at me, eyes welling with tears, before shaking her head and composing herself as Aiden and Iris walk over to introduce themselves. There isn’t any time or space for me to apologize or explain. All I can do is reach for another glass of sparkling wine and seethe. I’ve hurt the single most vital person in my life, on a stupid party boat, doing a tradition that my baby sister made up for clout. Then ruined just because she could. I hate Sunset Lake, and I hate my brother for bringing me here.

Because now the best thing in my life has changed.

Chapter Eight

Piper

I don’t think this tea is going to fix the way my life is going, but it has to help. Staring at the pink color leaching from the bag into the mug of hot water, I try to enjoy the pleasant lemon aromas and not to feel too much shame or confusion about what happened tonight. I’m hoping the tea will be hot enough that it will burn the feeling of his tongue and teeth right out of the inside of my mouth.

Tate kissed me. Tate kissed me and I liked it. He seemed to like it at the time. Then he panicked, and we both made awkward small talk with the other couples until the boat docked, at which point we made a silent bee line for the cabin. I intended to talk to him about whatever all that was, but he went directly into the shower and turned it on full blast, effectively blocking me and reality right out.

So I’m left to sit here with my tea, and wonder how we’re possibly going to sleep in the same bed tonight. The couch is too short, and I can’t sleep on the floor or I’ll wake up with a back so stiff I won’t be able to move. We could sleep in the bed lying head to foot. Or maybe I can sneak out to the rental car and sleep there. The weather’s not too bad.

“Piper!” Tate calls out from the bathroom, shower still running. I already know what it is that he’s asking for before he says it. “I need my—”

“Notebook. You need your notebook,” I finish for him, fishing his Rocketbook out of the bag alongside one of his erasable pens. While he prefers the Moleskine and Montblanc combo for his usual writing, enough ideas have occurred in the shower that we’ve had to add a waterproof option into the rotation. Bringing him his notebook while the shower is running is not an unusual request. However, he is usually wearing a robe or a towel. The nudity is quite a surprise.

I let out a noise somewhere between a gasp and a yell. Tate turns his head around to look at me, which makes things worse. At least we know the housekeeping team keeps the shower doors exceptionally clean. Not a single detail is missed, Tate’s entire body imprinted on my memory at once like seeing a scary movie when you’re small.

My heart thuds painfully against my ribs, each beat a sharp reminder of the unexpected turn this trip has taken. The lines between professional and personal blur more with each passing moment, and here, with Tate unexpectedly bare before me, they don’t just blur—they vanish. It’s mortifying yet undeniably thrilling, this forbidden glimpse into a side of him I’ve never seen, stirring a dangerous curiosity within me. More than a couple of times I wondered if all those hours in the gym resulted in sculpted muscles. And blimey, that time has been well spent. Even though I know I should, I can’t look away. I savor every sliver of an entire second until I almost swoon. My only saving grace is that I’m being spared a full frontal, or my brain might go totally haywire.

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