Page 15 of Story Of My Heart

What is happening to me where Tate is concerned? This trip, with its intimate accidents and shared confidences, feels like I’ve unwittingly opened Pandora’s box, unleashing something wild that refuses to be tamed or put back.

I blink, and I can still see his bare ass behind my eyelids.

His surprisingly perfect bare ass.

Panicked, I spin away, staring at the wood of the bathroom door, pinching the skin of my arm in the hopes that this is all one big nightmare and I’ll wake up at home, waiting for Elijah to take me to go get vaguely disappointing noodles.

“I still need my notebook,” Tate shouts over the water.

“Um,” swallowing hard, I clutch the notebook in my hands hard enough for my knuckles to turn white. “You’re naked?”

He scoffs in response, and I recall that this is the same man who sat outside my bathroom door asking me if I needed Imodium. There has to be some correlation here between net worth and lack of boundaries or shame. “What does that matter? Just hand me my notebook. I got a really great idea on that pontoon yacht my sister never should’ve purchased and I need to capture it.”

“It wasn’t a yacht,” I point out, my need to be right overriding the awkwardness of seeing his entire bait and tackle this evening.

“Well, it wasn’t a normal pontoon. Party barge, my ass.”

Bringing up his ass isn’t doing me any favors. I distract myself by talking business.

“Wait. Are you about to calculate the costs of the barge versus the costs of the tickets and the amenities… gas, carry the one, multiply by…”

“No,” he hums for a second, following my train of thought. “But I should. I’d need my phone for that. Here. Hand me the notebook. It’s safe. I’ve covered my junk with a loofah.”

“It better not be my loofah,” I groan.

“It isn’t. At least I don’t think. Yours is pink, right?”

I turn around, quickly passing him the notebook over the top of the shower, noting with satisfaction that it is at the very least his loofah.

“Thank you.” He looks at me through the glass, narrowing his eyes, and it’s only then that I realize I’m staring. It’s like the absurdity of this entire situation has made me go offline. Clearing my throat, I turn around quickly. “I’m thinking about a new dating app. One that isn’t bogus.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in love.” Propping open the bathroom door, I take a seat on the bed, still within earshot but safe from any surprise bits of Tate I shouldn’t be laying eyes on. My mug of tea is sitting on the nightstand, and I take a long sip before grimacing at the now lukewarm liquid. I wonder what he would do if I took my clothes off and joined him in the shower.

If I fell to my knees.

If I took his cock in my hand and then in my mouth.

If I sucked his rock-hard length until he twined my wet hair between his fingers until he mouth fucked me to a weak-kneed release.

I shake my head before my thoughts can gallop completely out of control. And it’s a good thing because the next words out of his mouth just solidify why salivating over a man like him is an exercise in futility.

“I don’t. But I believe that other people believe in love, and that alone is worth something. Who am I to push my beliefs onto others? I don’t want them doing that to me.” He pauses for a moment, and I hear the small plastic click of the body wash being opened before being squirted onto his loofah. “Look, the way I’m seeing things—why limit it to just one person? Was speed dating such a bad idea? Don’t answer that. It was, but that’s not the point. What if you could do what we did tonight, but better? I mean the party barge concept, obviously. Not the weird bridge kissing tradition—you know what, let me finish. You match up with individual people, but then we put you in a pool of couples who are also potential matches via an amazing algorithm that I create. These pre-vetted couples go on some kind of low-stakes, meet and greet group activity. Then, it’s in their hands. You end up with your match, or you end up with somebody else. Maybe you just go home with a new friend or two. No hurt feelings. No awkward Ubers home or ghosting. It’s a win-win.”

I can see the logic from his perspective. But if he thought there weren’t any hurt feelings or awkward walks back to the room tonight, he’s sorely mistaken. I just nod along, swirling the tea in my cup, and wonder what the hell is wrong with this man.

And why my body is still buzzing with desire for him.

Wanting someone who’s oblivious to how much you want them is like a hunger gnawing at the heartstrings, twanging a tune right beneath your ribcage—so close yet achingly out of reach. It’s that wild, desperate craving that seeps deeper than your veins, staining your soul. This isn’t just any old want; it’s the kind that burrows into your bones, stubborn and deep, making a home where it’s painful to evict but impossible to ignore. It’s as much a part of you as your own breath, as intrinsic as your next heartbeat.

And as I sit here, listening to the shower shut off and Tate’s casual musings about love—a concept he can discuss so clinically—I’m left feeling exposed, raw. The revelation of his detachment slices through the soft, dangerous hopes I might have harbored, maybe without fully admitting them to myself. How peculiar and painful it is, to recognize that the very person who stirs such profound longing in you, views love as just another marketable commodity. As my tea grows ice cold, I’m left with an unsettling question: how does one reconcile the heart’s yearning with the stark reality of another’s indifference?

Chapter Nine

Tate

My head swims with ideas until it feels like my brain is buzzing around in my skull. I struggled to get them down on paper fast enough, feeling like my hands just couldn’t write anywhere near the same speed as my thoughts. I could get maybe halfway there, but my writing would be barely legible, although Piper seems to be able to read it regardless of how quickly and haphazardly it flows onto the page. As I splash my face with cold water, making sure to give my under-eye area a brisk rub to wake up the skin, I consider learning to write in shorthand. Piper could pick it up fast enough. She’s always been a quick learner. It could be fun, too, like we have a secret code between ourselves.

I take a last look in the mirror, feeling freshly invigorated by the shower and my brainstorming session, before slipping a robe on over my sweatpants. I’m not sure what Piper was freaking out about earlier when I was in the shower, but she seemed uncomfortable about my nudity, and recalling what she said about people being like horses and needing to feel comfortable, I think I should be careful to be pretty well covered from now on. Certain that I don’t have any extra skin showing that doesn’t need to be, I poke my head out of the bathroom.

---