Page 33 of The Best Part of Breaking Up

“And I graciously agreed to give you the last of the tequila, like a gentleman.” He smiles as I snort. “And to repay me for my generosity, you offered me a spot in your boat.”

“Mm,” I say, nodding. “Are you sure I did it for that reason or because I heard rumors about your past experience with all those class five rapids.”

He ignores the jab. “Regardless, here we are. Now, what are you going to do about it?”

I suck in a breath, considering. My window of opportunity to get good enough at this to win is quickly closing.

“What were you telling me about how to hold the paddle, again?”

The corner of his mouth quirks, quietly pleased. He takes his own paddle in his hands, demonstrating the proper positioning. I attempt to mimic it, while trying to overlook the way that his muscles flex beneath the fitted fabric of his shirt.

“Like this?” I finally say.

He lowers his paddle across his lap before reaching for mine. When he leans forward, I can smell his woodsy, summertime smell.

“Like this,” he says. His touch is tentative and warm as it moves across my wrists. “This hand goes here,” he says, as he moves the fingers of my top hand until they curl around the grip of the paddle. “And this hand stays on the shaft. But, a bit lower. And… a little tighter.”

He slides my bottom hand down until it rests directly above the blade. My face heats. I tell myself it’s because it’s a million swampy degrees out here and not because he’s got his hands on mine while saying things like ‘lower’ and ‘tighter’ and ‘shaft’.

He taps my pinky finger. “Sink your paddle up to here. If you’re doing it right, your hand will be wet.”

I bite my bottom lip, trying to keep my focus on the task at hand. Definitely not letting my mind wander to that place where Quentin is not my coworker and is saying words like ‘wet’.

“Okay,” I offer. “Anything else?”

“Once you’ve got the proper grip, it’s really just the stroke. You want to make sure it’s…” he trails off. “Why are you laughing?”

“You’re purposely trying to make this sound dirty, and I need you to be serious.”

Now it’s his turn to laugh. “I am being serious. But we can talk dirty, if you want.”

His eyes flash with mischief. This look twists effortlessly through my center. I will never admit how much I want him to talk dirty to me.

“Really close to pushing you out of the boat, asshole,” I warn sweetly.

He arranges his smile into something slightly more serious. “When you stroke – that is the technical term for it, by the way, so please retrieve your mind from the gutter – lean as far forward as possible before you bury the blade, and then pull your body weight all the way back before you pull it out. Use your core – it’s going to give more power than your arms. Also, try to keep the paddle perpendicular to the water. Everybody thinks they need to angle it away from the boat, like you see in movies, but you’re wasting effort that way. You want it to go straight in. It’s basic physics.”

“Physics,” I nod.

That’s all this is. Science. Math. Coordinated movement. It’s definitely not flirting.

I attempt all this, exactly as he explained, blocking out anything that could be misconstrued as innuendo. When I thrust myself back, I realize he was still leaning forward as part of the demonstration. My upper back lands hard against his chest. The boat rocks with the force of it, and suddenly everything feels a little too much like one of those dreams where I’m falling.

Oh my god are we falling?

An embarrassing yip escapes me. I nearly drop my paddle as I clamor for something to hold onto, which turns out to be… well, him. His hands seem to find my upper arms instinctively. I realize belatedly that I’ve got one hand clasped around his forearm, and another squeezing his knee.

I feel the huff of his laugh against the back of my neck. My grip softens, but he holds me for a moment more. The deep rumble of his voice tickles across my ear.

“You’re going to have to try harder than that if you want to push me out of the boat, PBG.”

His hands slip away from my arms, and I hear him pick up his paddle. My heart is doing something in my chest.

Skipping, my brain seems to supply. Like the stereo in your first car when you hit a bump too hard while playing a favorite CD. Like grinning kids at the Girls Going Places headquarters playing double dutch in the middle of the courtyard.

Like you like him.

Or at least, that I like the feeling I get when he teases those half-whispered words across my ear. The feeling travels down my neck, along my collarbone, following the deep V neckline of my romper. It suddenly seems so ridiculous that I chose this outfit – the kind that you have to take all the way off to access your bottom half.

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