“Well, uh . . . who’s next?” Keir asks, obviously nonplussed, but trying to recover.
I take advantage of the attention shifting to the next players. Swiftly and on unsteady legs, I leave the saloon and head up to the observation deck without sparing Kenan a glance.
The vibrant New York skyline never gets old. I let the beauty of the night — the Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge’s trail of lights—comfort me. The evening air calms my racing pulse and the faint breeze lifts my hair, cools my burning cheeks.
I look up at the stars accusingly, like they’ve orchestrated this. It’s too much of a coincidence, this man surfacing just as I’m starting to deal with tough things from my past. I search the indigo sky for an answer, for confirmation of this cleromancy, but there’s no shooting star. No cosmic crisis reflecting the turmoil beneath my skin. Not even a cloud or a strike of lightning.
“Here you are,” Yari says, joining me near the rail. “You and Kenan shoulda charged admission for that.”
“It was a game, Ri,” I say, side eyeing her. “Don’t make it a big deal. It wasn’t real.”
“With that man down there looking like a snack, I’d make it real if I were you.”
“Remember this . . .” I draw an air square around my V-zone. “. . . is a no-dick area for the foreseeable future.”
“If that man looked at me the way he looks at you, I’d reconsider.” She goes quiet for a second. “You like him, don’t you?”
What gave it away? I ask silently. The vacuum cleaner kiss?
I don’t answer. There’s a connection between Kenan and me. I knew it the first time I saw him. I felt his eyes on me the whole time in that hospital room when I visited August. I had to force myself not to stare back.
Me crying in Chase’s shower, the inexplicable emptiness I’ve been feeling—they’re symptoms of a bigger issue, something I haven’t talked about even to Yari. Something I haven’t really dealt with. It’s been chasing me for years and it’s finally catching up. I can keep running or I can turn around and face it, conquer it. I haven’t decided what I’ll do yet, but I know I don’t need a complication like Kenan while I figure it out.
“Ahem.”
The clearing throat draws my attention and Yari’s, too. Kenan stands at the top of the stairs leading to the lower deck.
Our eyes collide in the semi-darkness. The glittering Manhattan skyline casts a warm glow, adding to the air of intimacy building between us, even with Yari standing watch.
“Um, well this is awkward,” Yari says with a chuckle. “Imma . . . go. See you down there, Lo.”
Kenan steps aside for her to pass, but doesn’t look away from my face.
“How did you get that button?” I lead with the thing I want to know most. “JP had it. So how did you get it?”
He crosses the deck between us in a few measured steps.
“I told him I’d do the watch campaign if he’d give me the button.” There’s no apology in his voice, nor in the look he gives me.
“Why did you do that?”
“Because I wanted to kiss you.”
His admission, frank, honest, snatches my breath, but I disguise it. Look away, down. I turn my back on him and face the night-darkened waters instead.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” I tell him.
“It was a game, Lotus,” he says from far too close. From right beside me, but I lift my eyes to the still-silent sky above. “You didn’t have to play.”
He touches my arm lightly, but I jerk at the contact—electric and molten. He glances from my arm to my face.
“But you did,” he says. “You played because you wanted to kiss me, too.”
The truth floats between us on balmy summer air, and I can’t draw an easy breath. I bite my lip, debating what I should tell him—how much to reveal.
“That’s true.” I meet his eyes. “But it doesn’t make a difference about what happens next.”
“I’d like it to happen again, preferably without a roomful of people watching,” he says, wry humor curling the edges of his sensual mouth.