Page 91 of Fake It 'til You Make It

I know all of the reasons that me kissing her would be a bad idea. A pointless idea.

But right this second, watching the breeze blow the fallen wisps of her hair away from her face, seeing the sun dance on her skin, her cheeks rosy with heat, I’m struggling to focus on them.

‘You’re really making me work for this walk,’ I croak, mythroat hoarse. ‘I’m expecting big things from the view. Postcard perfection.’ Honestly, I couldn’t ask for more than I’m already witnessing. It seems like every time we step outside in Alberta, I’m gripped by some of the finest views on Earth, transposed into tranquility with one sniff of the wildest, freshest air.

‘Ready?’ Abbey says once we’ve hauled our kayaks to the lake’s edge, ready for us to nudge off the shore when we’re in position.

‘Let’s do it.’

This. This is the version of Abbey who has me utterly captivated. Her sense of adventure, her inner wild, her ease in her own skin. This is the Abbey I lo?—

Whoa, hold up there, Theodore.

Likethe most. That’s what my next thought would have been. And with my jumble of thoughts comes the stark reality that today is the day. I’m going to tell Abbey who I really am. I have to do it because I care. I care a lot now about how this is all going to end. At some point, this trip has stopped being about escaping New York and started being about Abbey and me.

Maybe it always was and I just didn’t know it. Or maybe there has been a shift and that’s why she revealed her story to me last night.

‘I’ll hold it steady for you,’ she says, crouching down and putting a hand on my kayak.

I’m actually grateful, given I know this will be more of an inelegant, grunting struggle into the seat for me and my big frame, but there’s no way I’m looking like a wimp who can’t help himself.

‘I’ll be fine, you do you,’ I tell her, knowing that I shouldn’t bother offering my help in the reverse. There’s a fine line between manly and anti-feminist.

It feels like Abbey clicks her fingers and lands perfectly into her seat, as if a wind has pushed her off the shore and gently sether sailing. She’s already gliding her paddle through the calm waters of the lake, sending picturesque ripples that sparkle under the sun’s light in my direction.

Then she stops moving forward, turns in her kayak and catches me watching her – gormlessly, practically drooling over this impressive woman.

Yes, I definitely care too much to continue the lie.

With one foot onshore and one in the boat, I lower myself toward the seat.

Maybe if she can see how much I genuinely feel for her, she’ll see past the lies.

I lift my standing leg off the shore and come to sit in the kayak but… ‘Holy shi?—’

I crash into the lake. Waves bow around me as I’m fully submerged in the cold water and thrusting my arms and legs against the stone-covered bottom to come to stand. Chest high and completely saturated, the only sound I hear above my own heavy breathing is Abbey’s laughter bellowing out around the lake.

She paddles toward me, her amusement making her breathless as she says, ‘So much for being an athlete.’

She’s dead right. I’m not. And now seems as good a time as any to confess.

Her kayak comes close to me and I reach out for her paddle to gently bring her my way, except she raises it to paddle and we’re in an unintentional tussle until?—

‘Arghhh…’ She’s in the lake with me, gasping and splashing around until she’s standing in front of me, shoulder-high in the water. ‘I can’t believe you just did that.’

‘I genuinely didn’t do anything, all I did was grab your paddle. You?—’

She cuts me off by resting her hands on my chest and throughmy wet T-shirt, I feel her gentle warmth, a contrast to the cold bite of the lake.

Silencing me with the way she looks so deeply into my eyes, she says, ‘Shut up and kiss me, Mike.’

So I do. Without any doubt or apprehension. I kiss her because I’m desperate to. Because not kissing her these past days has been agony.

41

ABBEY

Finally, his lips crash against mine and I match his ferocity, entirely consumed by him, by lust, by want and need. A desire I’ve never felt in my life.

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