Page 92 of Fake It 'til You Make It

My stomach knots, my pelvis nudges forward toward him and my hands seem to move without instruction from my brain to the hem of his wet T-shirt, the feel of his hips. My fingertips slide onto the skin of his lower back.

His breath hitches with my touch and he breaks our contact briefly, his gaze still on my lips, his chest rising and falling as quickly as mine.

Then he reaches out to my cheek and with his other hand, he pulls my back until I’m fully pressed up against him.

I don’t think I’ve ever been described as a sexual person. I don’t think I would have considered myself to be a sexual person.

Before now.

Mike drops his forehead to mine and groans. ‘God, I’ve wanted to do that for days.’

Never have I ever been looked at the way he’s looking at meright now. Not in all the years I was with Andrew did he look at me like he wanted to tear my clothes off, like he’d stop at nothing to get what he wanted, and that what he wanted was me.

It isn’t someone looking at me out of jealousy and wanting me purely because he thinks I’ll come crawling back, the way Andrew looked at me in the hotel yesterday.

This is what it feels like, what it looks like, to be yearned for.

I feel like more of a woman standing in this shockingly cold lake, wearing sports clothes, with messy tied-up hair and make-up free, than I have ever felt.

Perhaps it’s less about the clothes and more about the way people,someone, can make you feel.

If we were anywhere more practical than submerged in near freezing water, I don’t think I’d let this end.

Solely because voices of other hikers reach my ears do I lessen my grip on Mike’s body. With his loss of contact, in the space between us, I can feel the imposter in my subconscious coming back, telling me to be wary. Either those thoughts, or the water, turn the heat I just felt between Mike and me into a shiver.

He drapes an arm around my shoulder. ‘Let’s get you out of here. There’s something I need to tell you.’

I feel his body sigh against mine, then we’re dragging our kayaks back to shore and I’m afraid. I don’t want to burst the bubble we’re in. I don’t know if I want to hear what he has to share.

So as we stand on the pebbled waterline, I tell him, ‘Let me go first, please.’

He takes a deep breath in, as if he’s also feeling the enormity of what just happened in the lake. Okay, here goes…

‘I’m nervous, Mike. Nervous and terrified because I think I’m falling for you. I’vefallenfor you.’

Finally, he exhales.

‘But you’re a sports star. You date models and live in San Francisco.’

‘Abbey—’

‘No, wait. Please let me say this. I’ve changed my life for someone before. I moved across the continent for him. And I was burned by his lies.’

Mike’s eyes narrow now, as if he’s truly processing my reservations, listening to me.

‘I’m also afraid I’m just a rebound fling to you and you have the potential to be so much more than that to me. I guess I’m saying I’m afraid because I just don’t want to get hurt again.’ I puff out my next exhale, my shoulders dropping from where I didn’t realize I was holding them, by my ears. ‘But just for now, for the rest of today, I’d really like to put everything and everyone else out of our minds and pretend, for real, that we’re free to enjoy each other and be whoever we are and want to be whilst we’re in the refuge of the Rockies.’ I reach for his hand and lock my fingers through his. ‘Can we do that? Can we just have one day?’

He stares at me for so long that I think he’s going to say no. Then he brings my hand to his mouth, where he presses his lips to my skin. Then he kisses my temple and tugs me into his side, so that we’re both looking out in the same direction, across the lake, up to the mountains, where fellow hikers have moved on and the only sound is the chirping of grey jays.

‘Abbey, I can be whoever you want me to be for another day. But just promise me something. When this week is through, please remember that not everything is a lie.’

It’s not a confession of love. It’s not even an admission of like. It certainly isn’t confirmation that at the end of this week, we might be left with something real.

But for today, I rest my head onto his shoulder, content enough, for now.

‘Abbey?’

‘Mmm?’

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