Page 24 of Hard to Pretend

I relaxed more.

By the time our food came, we’d exhausted all the usual date topics and had moved onto things that felt more intimate. He gave me an update on the crisis he’d had to deal with the day I’d come over. His friend, Matt, had been contacted by an ex-boyfriend who was moving back to town. From what Seb told me, it seemed like they’d had some epic high school romance and Matt had freaked out a little that the guy was coming back into town.

Eli, the curly haired guy he’d been with earlier that night, had come over to talk about it that night too. And to help him get ready for our date.

“He also wanted to try to sneak a peek at you to report back to the other guys, but I shooed him away. Trust me, he’s not the one you want to meet on a first date.”

“Is it a first date though?” I teased.

“Firstrealdate,” he amended. “Eli’s cool, but he can be a lot.”

“He wouldn’t have scared me off. Besides, I have met him, remember?”

I’d met all of his friends very briefly at Goliath that first night. I didn’t really remember anything about them, but Ihadmet them.

“You didn’t meet him. You said hi to him, and I’m not even sure if he was still at the table when we left. If he’d come over to the car, you’d have had to deal with actually meeting Eli, and that’s not for the faint of heart.”

“Why?”

“You know how some people have a filter between their brains and mouths that tell them that something is inappropriate to say?” I nodded. “Eli either wasn’t born with that or figured out a way to completely disengage it. He’s very blunt, and a lot of people don’t appreciate it.”

“I can’t wait to meet him.” I meant it. He sounded like he’d be fun in conversations. “How’s… Jonas, right? He’s the one who moved in with his boyfriend?” The one whose anxiety had given away my own on the drive over.

Seb told me the latest about Jonas and his boyfriend, Silas. Then he asked about my friends, listening as I told him the latest goings on with them. Conversation flowed as we ate, and by the time we’d paid, I didn’t want it to be over.

I suggested a walk along the beach just to prolong our date. There was something romantic about walking with him, hand in hand, as the sun set over the water. I suddenly understood why peopleput the cliche of long walks on the beach on their dating profiles. I understood it a lot more when he stopped by the water and kissed me. It wasn’t the same tentative kiss that we’d shared in the car.

This kiss had some heat behind it. It was the kind of kiss the original kiss had evolved into in my fantasies, and I had to pull away from it before I did something crazy—like attempt to take things further on a very public beach. The sound he made when the kiss broke and the way he chased my lips made me want to take him home and get him undressed. Which wasn’t very gentlemanly for a first date, but like he said… it wasn’treallyour first date.

“Do you want to head back?” Seb asked, pulling me out of my dirty thoughts.

I looked at him and saw the same hunger I was feeling reflected in his eyes. “Yeah,” I exhaled. “My place or yours?”

“Mine’s closer.”

9

Tensioncrackledintheair as Chris drove us back to my place.

It was a palpable thing, a physical presence in the space between us. It pulsed between us with every breath. My heart pounded in my chest, and I wished that the drive would take less time. I wished that we could just magically travel from the beach to my apartment in the blink of an eye. It would be pretty cool, but unfortunately, it wasn’t possible. We had to suffer, and maybe I could tell myself that the anticipation was just going to make the experience better.

Chris finally pulled up to my building and found a parking spot. Time moved strangely. One moment we were parking, the next moment we were at my door. I fumbled with the key and wished that my apartment was as fancy as Jonas’s new digs with Silas. They had an electric keypad and never had to make an ass out ofthemselves by almost dropping the keys because they were so excited their hands were shaking.

I finally got the apartment open after what felt like an eternity. Like I said, time was moving strangely.

That tension had traveled with us from the car and into my living room. Only it had grown and had electricity crackling over its surface. This time, I didn’t have to try to convince myself that it was just anticipation. I knew that was exactly what it was. I wanted to pick up from where we were on the beach. I wanted to kiss him again, to feel his hands over me. I wanted the same magical experience that we had that first night.

Only this time, he wouldn’t be a stranger.

This time, we wouldn’t lose track of one another.

It would make everything different; it would make everything better.

Unless I was looking back on our first night with rose colored glasses, and it hadn’t been as good as I remembered. Time had a funny way of doing that.

I was painfully aware that my apartment wasn’t as neat as it had been the first time he came over. The lemon blanket was balled up on the couch from where I’d been watching a movie the night before. Mine and Eli’s empty glasses were still sitting on the table from hanging out earlier. When I took him into my bedroom, the clothes I’d rejected were still on my bed. I grinned as a memory floated into mind: crumbledclothing on Chris’s bed that he pushed off to clear space for us.

I looked over at him and the faint smile on his lips, and I felt myself relax a little.

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