Page 51 of Secret Nights and Northern Lights
And such a bad,badidea.
Underneath the table, Ben’s knee brushes against mine. It hardly even counts as touching with two layers of denim between our skin, but it’s enough to spark what comes out of my mouth next.
“Would you maybe be interested in taking a bottle of wine back to my hot tub? Since yours isn’t working, of course.”
Ben doesn’t miss a beat before signaling our waitress. “Check please.”
* * *
“So…I fucked up.”
“Fucked up? Or fucked Ben?”
“Jesus!” I pull the phone a few inches away as Jacklyn’s exuberant laugh bursts against my eardrum. “No! I didnotsleep with him!”
“Yet,” she replies as if this fate is already written in the stars.
“Okay, this isn’t what I called to hear.”
“Fine, fine,” she mutters. “I’ll be serious. Go on. What predicament have you gotten yourself into?”
I stand in front of the bathroom mirror in her barely-there, emerald green swimsuit with a V cut down to my navel, my dark hair pulled up in a high ponytail. Switching the call to speaker, I lay the phone on the counter so I can apply some shimmery highlighter to my cheekbones before Ben arrives. “Okay, so I’m a bit all over the place and probably not making the wisest decisions…”
“Spill.”
I fill Jacklyn in on everything that’s happened since our last call: the night Ben held me in the dark, our kiss in the ravine, how I yelled at him on the black sand beach just last night. I tell her every last detail, including how I decided to tempt the gods of lust by inviting him over for a nightcap in my functioning hot tub. When I finish, there’s silence on the other end. I hold my breath. Jacklyn’s never at a loss for words.
“Okay, here’s what I think,” she finally says, and I let out a long exhale. “I think you have to sleep with him.”
“WHAT?” I choke on my own saliva, sending me into a coughing fit.
“Just listen to me here,” she continues once I recover. “You’re clearly unfocused. You clearly want him. And I don’t think you’re going to be able to do your job until you get this out of your system, one way or another.”
“This isn’t any random guy,” I argue. “This is someone I cared about for a very, very long time.”
“But it doesn’t have to be about that. Trust me, sex can bejust sex. It could be a what-happens-in-Iceland situation between two consenting adults.”
“What happens in Iceland?” I repeat as if she’s speaking a language I’m not fluent in.
“Yeah, you know, when in Reykjavík, whatever. You get the point.”
I don’t think I do. “We’re not in Reykjavík right now.”
Jacklyn sighs. “That literally doesn’t matter. Listen, from what’s happened so far, it sure doesn’t sound like Ben’s going to turn you down. Do the deed, break the tension, and get back to work.”
“I don’t know…” Everything in me rejects this idea. But what I’m doing now—seesawing back and forth from hot to cold hour by hour—isn’t working, either. Jacklyn always has her life together, so who am I to judge her methods?
There’s a knock at my door, and my stomach drops.
“Fuck,” I curse, rolling my head from side to side and shaking out my arms like I’m an athlete loosening up for a sportsball event. “I’ve got to go.”
“Keep me posted.”
I end the call and take one last look at the flushed woman in the mirror, silently telling her that just because there’s a hot tub and wine, and despite Jacklyn’s advice, nothing lascivious will happen here tonight. Unfortunately, her hazel eyes stare back at me with a judgment that says,You’re a goddamn idiot.
Two deep breaths later, I pad barefoot across the room, stopping to pull a T-shirt on over my bathing suit before opening the door.
Ben stands on the other side in black swim trunks and a faded gray tee, andshit, this was a terrible idea.
