Right. I guess he’s not letting that slide.
I fight the urge to angle my knees and block Vincent’s view of my backpack. The boy may be perceptive as fuck, but it’s not like he can see through canvas and three layers of notebooks. Still, I feel weirdly exposed. I catalogue the faces of the scattered students and professors and baristas around the Starbucks, but they’re all fully absorbed in their conversations and laptops and caffeinated beverages. The only eyes on me are Vincent Knight’s.
“It’s a good book,” I say. Then, more honestly, I amend: “Actually, it’s a little silly.”
Vincent waits. He wants me to elaborate.
“Okay, so,” I say, taking a giant breath and hooking one foot up underneath my butt, “this duke asks this woman who can’t stand him to pose as his fiancé because there was a clause in his father’s will that says the title will get passed on to his shitty brother if he doesn’t marry in a year. And the brother’s addicted to gambling and knocked up a married woman back in London, so it’s all very high stakes and—well, messy. There are lots of balls and scandals and plot twists. It’s not at all historically accurate, but it’s fun. And silly. But in the right way. If that makes sense?”
If Vincent thinks my book sounds like a waste of time, he doesn’t show it. He doesn’t laugh at me. He doesn’t shame me.
But he does say, “So, college boys are trash, but a duke with family baggage is fine?”
A laugh bubbles up in my throat, partly because I’m relieved he’s not being completely judgmental about my genre of choice and partly because he actually remembers what we talked about in the library. I wonder if he’s replayed our conversation in his head the way I have.
“In my defense, dukedom is the highest possible rank of the peerage.”
“So, he’s rich,” Vincent says flatly. “That’s the appeal.”
“It definitely helps.” I lift my straw to my mouth. “But he’s also responsible and educated and apparently very talented at horse riding and other . . . physical things.” I’m proud of myself for not stumbling over the words. I feel very cool. Very casual.
Vincent arches an eyebrow. “Yeah?”
I nod and take a sip.
He smiles wickedly. “And how do I measure up?”
I choke on my cold brew, which is neither cool nor casual. But in my defense, I’m a little caught off guard. If I’d known we were going to do this—this flirty, bantering thing—I would’ve coordinated my underwear. I would’ve taken Nina up on the devious dress idea and asked her to be out of the apartment for the rest of the day in case Vincent and I needed somewhere private.
I glance around Starbucks again and lock eyes with a barista. Nope. No privacy here.
“Measure up how?” I ask. It feels like a dangerous question, so I pad it with: “Last time I checked, you don’t own any land in England.”
“But I’m a good kisser.”
My heart hiccups. “Well, that’s presumptuous of you—”
“I’ve also been playing basketball since elementary school, so I’m disciplined and I understand the value of hard work. I’ve been a team captain before too, so I can handle responsibility. Leadership. All that good shit. And I have a 3.7 GPA, so I probably won’t graduate summa cum laude, but I’ll definitely get magna—”
“Is there a reason you’re giving me your résumé?” I interrupt.
“I’m trying to prove a point, Holiday.” Vincent shrugs. “Seems like you have pretty high expectations for your love interests. You don’t seem interested in being courted by anyone who isn’t a billionaire or a royal or some kind of supernatural creature.”
That one hits a little too close to home, so I resort to my usual defense mechanism: snark.
“Courted? I’m sorry, is this Victorian England?”
“No, this is Starbucks.”
I could kick him. I really could. “You’re incorrigible.”
“And you have unrealistic standards.”
His knee bumps against the inside of my thigh—the one that isn’t tucked up on the chair. I startle at the contact, but he doesn’t move to break it. He lets the weight of his leg and the heat of his skin press into mine.
I think of Nina’s parting words to me this morning: At least give him a handie under the table.
In one unrestrained burst of imagination, I see the appeal. I have long arms. All it would take is some clever but discreet maneuvering, and I could have my hand tucked under his shirt and pressed to the soft skin just above his waistband. At least, I imagine that it’s soft. My brain is pretty good at summoning the rest of the scene: the little trail of hair below his belly button tickling the pads of my fingers. The tug of elastic as I slip my hand into his shorts. Hot skin hardening in my palm while Vincent’s dark eyes pin me to my seat and say, wordlessly, all the things I want to hear.
I want you. I feel this too.
A little harder, Holiday, you won’t break it.
The trouble, of course, is that I don’t have a fucking clue what I’m doing. I’ve read enough romance novels to appreciate the mechanics of it all (the positions, the movements, the dialogue), but reading about sex feels different from staring into a boy’s eyes and knowing you want him inside you.
Vincent isn’t an empty shell I can project onto. Not anymore.
Right now, I don’t feel the same electric confidence I felt in our dark corner of the library. In fact, it’s hard to feel any confidence at all when I consider how Vincent left me that night. He didn’t stick around to say goodbye or let me help him check out Engman’s Anthology or talk me down from my panic attack in the girls’ bathroom. He’s given me no indication that he wants me in his life as anything other than a tutor. So, what does he want? A one-night stand? A girlfriend? A little fool he strings along for months just to see how far she’ll run after him?
“Talk to me, Holiday.” Vincent nudges his knee against mine. “You look like you’re spiraling.”
Because I am.
I huff and slam my iced coffee onto the table between us. “What do you want from me?” It comes out much harsher than I mean it to. “Because your note—I just—I thought this was a tutoring session, and then I get here, and you’re—” I gesture vaguely at the way he’s lounging in the chair across from me, arms wide and legs sprawled so they cage mine.
Vincent’s expression shifts. He sits upright, hunching his shoulders. It’s a move that, as a tall girl, I recognize well. He’s shrinking himself. Making himself smaller.
“I really did need help with the poem,” he says. Then, more softly, he admits, “But I wanted to see you again. Obviously.”
My heart is hammering. I really shouldn’t have had so much of the coffee he bought me.
“Obviously?”
Vincent sighs, exasperated. “You know why I’m here, Kendall.”
But I don’t. He watches me blink at him, open-mouthed and too stunned to speak, and leans over the table, close enough that I catch the scent of laundry detergent and warm, spiced cologne (a scent I didn’t realize I missed until right now).
“The real question,” he says, eyes narrowed, “is why are you here?”
Because I wanted to know. Because I had to know if what happened two weeks ago during my night shift was a fluke, or if I could feel that way again. And now I think I regret that curiosity, because seeing Vincent again has confirmed that something about him in particular makes me feel giddy and grounded all at the same time.
I’ve never felt this vulnerable before.
So, I say the safe thing: “Because you needed a tutor.”
The words come easily, even if they’re patently false, and they land like a belly flop in a swimming pool. Vincent leans back in his chair, his face suddenly blank. His dark eyes—so hauntingly pretty under those thick, feathery eyelashes—give nothing away. I watch him rub his palms on the front of his athletic shorts, my eyes catching on the muscular slope of his thighs, and realize I’ve fucked up harder than I previously believed possible.
“Great,” he says with a smile I don’t believe. “Glad we’ve cleared that up.”
No, wait.
My stomach twists. I feel like I’ve lost my grip on the English language. I don’t know which words to pluck out of the file cabinet inside my head to fix this. I wish I knew how to drop a scene break here and get us somewhere new and secluded and full of all the right narration and dialogue that will lead to Vincent’s mouth being on mine again.
“I mean—” I blurt, then wince. “I didn’t mean—”
Vincent shakes his head, and it’s very kind, but in a detached sort of way that stings. “Don’t worry about it. You said Venmo was good, right?”
I deflate like a popped balloon. I don’t want this to be just a transaction. But my heart is lodged in my throat, and Vincent is reaching for his pocket and pulling out his phone, and if he pays me for this, so help me, I’ll lose it. My hand flies out before I’m entirely aware of what I’m doing. It lands on Vincent’s wrist. The one without the brace. The feel of his bare skin against my fingertips sends a jolt up my arm. When he stills and looks me in the eyes, I feel it in two places: between my legs and in the hollow of my aching chest.
“Don’t,” I say with far too much emotion. I clear my throat and reel it in a little. “Don’t pay me. Please.”
Vincent stares at me like I’m speaking Latin.
I wish, in this moment, that I was more of a writer than a reader. I wish I knew how to steer a plot and how to make things happen the way I want them to. Reading is so much fun, but I’m tired of feeling like all the best parts of my life have been lived inside my own head.
I meet Vincent’s eyes and hope that he sees written on my face all the words I’m incapable of summoning.
I want you. I feel this too.
Please don’t listen to the shit I say when I’m scared.
And then, over his shoulder, I catch a blur of movement.
There’s a group of six extraordinarily tall boys—a few of them in matching white Clement Athletics T-shirts—filing through the door and into Starbucks. I recognize Jabari Henderson first. After that, it’s easy enough to identify the other basketball players with him. Most of them are starters. A couple of them are second string. All of them are incredibly large humans.
Jabari and I lock eyes. He turns away immediately, and it’s almost believable that we’re just two strangers in a Starbucks who accidentally looked at each other. But a moment later, he turns to say something to the guy beside him before tipping his head very discreetly in our direction. Whatever he said is then relayed to the rest of the group, and the six of them quickly shuffle over to a table on the other side of Starbucks, directly across from where Vincent and I are seated.
And as clueless as I feel right now, I’m quick enough to catch on to what’s happening.
We’re being watched.
