Page 52 of Wait For It

Turns out, there was no Halloween party tonight.

“So, all of that was because you thought there was a costume party?” I shook my head with a relieved laugh. Ari hadn’t lost her mind; she’d just been playing a part. “And here I thought it was your everyday outfit.”

She winced.

Do you think we could start over and you forget everything I said? Hi, my name is Ariana.

It was the same thing I’d said to her during our first lunch together, and a request I was more than willing to accept. She wasn’t the only one in need of a do-over. I’d spent the better part of our time together in the cafeteria imagining her naked, something that now left me feeling like an ass.

Clearly, I was a mess. One second, I was giving up on there being anything romantic between us, and the next, I was convinced I could have my cake and eat it too. I needed to take a step back to consider the situation from every possible angle.

It was the right thing to do.

“Ari,” I began, trailing off when her face scrunched up in a completely adorable way.

Adorable?

I scratched my jaw and tried again. “I don’t know what you’re referring to, but as we’ve got two meals and nowhere else to be, what do you say we eat?”

My watch vibrated as I was balancing on my right leg to reach our food. I pulled the table toward the bed before glancing down and shaking my head.

Dad-

You going to be up for a bit? I thought we could go over your strategy together.

Ol’ Joe was just persistent as hell tonight. I must have fucked up epically if he was calling and texting on a weeknight.

Well, he’d just have to wait because I wasn’t dealing with it tonight. I sat back down and watched as Ari idly played with a strand of hair, twirling the curl around her index finger. Sensing my stare, she looked up, her mouth curving into a genuine smile that transformed her entire face.

“You’ve got a sexy smile,” I said hoarsely, wanting to reach out to touch her. “Not that the rest of you isn’t—it’s just really noticeable without all the crap on your face.”

Well, I’d fumbled that spectacularly. The nurse cleared her throat, and I briefly considered telling her to read her damn book. She hadn’t turned the page once in the last five minutes.

I made it as far as parting my lips when several things occurred. The mattress dipped, and then the table between us was gone, careening into the wall. Ari leaned forward and placed her hand flat against my chest, her emerald eyes dazed.

The room seemed to grow smaller under her palm, the temperature rising with each passing second. My throat bobbed in a swallow at the feel of her warm breath against the shell of my ear.

“Thank you,” she whispered, raising every hair on my neck.

I didn’t know what I’d done to deserve her gratitude, but it seemed important that I do my damnedest to find out. By the time I registered the feel of her lips against my jawline, she was settling back against the pillows with a satisfied grin.

It was over in seconds.

I exhaled and stared at her mouth, wondering how, in one move, Ari had managed to break through the bars of my ribcage to wrap herself around my heart.

We couldn’t stop there. I hadn’t fully appreciated what she’d been offering.

“Let me get some towels to mop that up,” the nurse said, pulling me away from my mental self-flagellation and reminding me that we weren’t alone.

In the heat of the moment, a glass had been knocked over, sending a steady stream of water running over the edges of the table.

The almost kiss had left even my good knee a little unsteady. I wobbled as I moved off the bed. After cracking my knuckles and rolling up my sleeves, I turned back to Ari with a gruff, “I’m going in. If I don’t make it out alive, tell the world I died a hero.”

She scrunched her nose and gave me a lopsided grin in response.

After shaking the water off, I passed the containers over to Ari, before emptying the flooded tray into a nearby trashcan.

A scrap of paper filled with cursive handwriting clung to the bottom, and I pried it off to drop in when something caught my eye.

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