Shut Up and Kiss Me (Happy Endings 2)

I’m glad I did too. I just didn’t expect her reaction, the purity of it, or that it would make me fall a little harder for her.

Trouble is, I also want to protect her from guys like me.

Guys who can’t give her everything she deserves.

19

The Truth of Terrible Taste

Emerson

* * *

As we leave the park, Nolan asks if I want to take the afternoon off.

The idea sounds brilliant. “I do.”

“No shop talk,” he commands.

I mime zipping my lips.

We walk around Chelsea, then catch a subway uptown, and stop at The Met before turning around and deciding art isn’t our speed.

Instead, we wander through Central Park, stopping at Bethesda Terrace and staring at the New York skyline. “Did you ever think about putting New York on your road trip?” Nolan asks.

I shake my head. “Callie never liked New York. She loved all things vintage and retro. She wanted to see the places you’d visit on a great American bucket-list road trip. But I like New York. It suits me.”

“Because to really succeed here requires a ton of preparation and life hacks, and you’re amazing at that?”

I laugh. “Because New York is kind of a jerk, and I can be one too.”

His eyebrow arches with doubt. “I’m not really sure you are.”

I growl at him and narrow my eyes. “Don’t you dare say I’m nice.”

“You’re kind of nice sometimes, Emerson.”

I pretend I’m going to jump him, wrapping my arms around his neck in a faux headlock. He laughs then drops a kiss onto my nose. So, it’s like that. We kiss in public now. My stomach does a loop-de-loop. Boyfriend-y indeed.

But I don’t want to label this just yet. It’s too risky, too new. I don’t even know how we can pull it off, or whether we should.

I’d rather linger in this glowy state for a little longer.

“But seriously. Sometimes I wonder if that’s why my relationships haven’t worked out,” I muse as I let go of him. “If I speak my mind too much.”

He tosses his head back, cackling. “Em, your relationships didn’t work out because you’ve had terrible taste in men. Would you like me to go through and present the evidence?”

“By all means. This should be a real character assassination,” I say, but in my head, thoughts are racing. Do I have terrible taste? Is that a thing?

“First, there was Topher. He brought his friends on a date with you. His fraternity brothers,” Nolan says, and I groan at the horrible memory.

I defend myself. “And I didn’t go out with him again.”

Nolan clears his throat. “You saw him one more time.”

Ugh. Busted. “I believed in second chances,” I grumble, looking out at the lake.

“And then there was super-boring useless-fact guy. The one who tried to scare you off roller coasters.”

“We already agreed about that one,” I say, faking a huff, but something nags at me—the start of an answer to the terrible taste question.

“And then there was that dude. What was his name? Paul? Larry? Bob? And it turned out he was just kind of creepy. He would show up on your doorstep unannounced.”

I shudder at the memory and concede, “Fine. Fine. You’re right. I have terrible taste.”

Nolan strokes his chin, gives me an intense stare through those glasses. “Now, tell me, why do you think you have such terrible taste in men?” he asks in a German accent, affecting an old-school therapist vibe.

The uncomfortable idea starts to color itself in. A reason, perhaps, or the beginning of one that I don’t quite like.

So, I deflect. “I suppose it all goes back to my childhood,” I say, as if I’m on a shrink’s couch. Then, I answer him with a piece of the truth. “But it doesn’t make sense. My parents have a good marriage. They’re still together. Callie had a couple good relationships. I’ve had good examples. I don’t really know why I’m drawn to men who are wrong for me. Men I don’t see a future with.”

But the sketch becomes clearer, the lines drawn in. Is it because I’ve carried a torch for this guy all along?

Or . . .

Wait.

Is there some other reason? Something deeper, something that I’ve pushed down even further?

My chest constricts. My airways tighten, and for several seconds, the world spins, like I’m suffocating.

No matter what, no matter why, this romance with Nolan won’t end the way I want. I’ll lose someone I love again.

I try to shake away the thoughts, to stuff them down again. I throw the spotlight away from me and onto him. “What about your taste? Inés was bad news,” I say.

“As we discussed earlier today.”

“So, you’re the same. You have terrible taste too!”

“Present company excluded,” he says with a soft smile and a poignant gaze that settles my anxious mind a little.

Especially because he says it so easily, then sighs as he watches boaters skim across the lake. “I think with Inés it seemed like we had so much in common. I guess that’s why you shouldn’t mix business and pleasure,” he says, turning to me, those hazel eyes serious. “But then, that’s not why it didn’t work out with her.”