The Cheat Sheet
2. Nathan is a natural-born flirt. Don’t embarrass yourself by misinterpreting his personality for flirting.
3. Don’t look at his bare skin or you will burn alive.
I halfway broke that last rule, and I’ll suffer the consequences from now on. I gather all of these feelings buzzing around my body like a hornet’s nest and put them in a jar. I screw on the lid. Seal it with Lock Tight just to be certain no stragglers get away. And then I turn around. Oh my gosh, I need to hold my hand in front of me so I can’t see his body.
“So…kidding?” he asks, and the boyish uncertainty on his face nearly kills me.
“Yeah!” I laugh a little too loud. “Oh my gosh, no way would I actually let you get those pants off. I don’t need to see all that. Just wanted to mess with you and see how far you’d go.”
“Pretty far,” he says with an amused tick of his lips. It makes my stomach turn inside out like a reversible jacket.
I stare one more moment at all that he is and then clear my throat and head for the door like a woman who still has all of her faculties intact. I need to start carrying around smelling salts.
“Okay, well this has been fun! But whew, look at the time. I’ve got to be up early in the morning to bake cookies for the week! Early bird catches the worm!”
“Bree?” Nathan asks with a drawn-out amused tone. “Are you okay over there?”
I stop just briefly to flash gloriously wide eyes at him. HOLY MOLY his body…it’s sculpted clay—soft, taut lines cut over every muscle to perfection. “Moi?” My hand covers my heart. “So okay! Why do you ask?”
I’m now performing the flight of the bumblebee, buzzing around the room and collecting my things. Shoes. WHERE ARE MY SHOES?! I turn three circles and look like I’m chasing my tail.
Suddenly, Nathan’s big hand covers my shoulder. I drop away from his touch like I’m in The Matrix avoiding bullets. He looks completely shocked as he silently holds my heels out to me. “Well, glad you’re okay.” His tone conveys that I’m fooling absolutely no one.
I take my heels and quickly slip one on while hopping on one foot. Nathan’s hand shoots out to wrap around my forearm to steady me. I want to whimper/cry/laugh because I feel extra sensitive to his touch. Once my heels are on, I start wobbling away. Wobbling because I have put my heels on the wrong feet. I’m a little girl who snuck into her mom’s closet and tried to sneak off with her best heels. No time to stop and fix them though. I gotta get out of here.
?
??It’s been so nice to see you as always, bestie!” That was a strange thing to say. “Good luck with the game this weekend! I’ll call you to—”
I feel his hand slide into mine and he tugs me back. I yelp as Nathan spins me around, a dangerous playful glint in his eyes. “Just a minute, bestie.”
I hold my breath, only three—maybe four—inches from his bare chest. My palms ache to flatten against his pecs. But then his chest disappears from view as Nathan drops down to one knee. OH MY GOSH IS HE PROPO—
His hand wraps around my ankle and lifts it slightly off the ground. Then my heel gets slipped off—the tale of Cinderella played backward. “You’ll sprain your ankle like this.” He lowers my bare foot to the ground then lifts the other ankle. That heel gets peeled off, and then the correct one gets slipped on. This time his hand lightly taps the back of my calf, signaling for me to lift my other foot again—and if you’re guessing I’m deceased at this point, you’re right.
Nathan finishes putting my heels on the correct feet, and I notice something odd before he stands back up—he stares at my legs for two breaths. In those two breaths, WILD ideas I have no business imagining race through my head. He looks down again and then stands, but by the time he rises to his full height, I’m already turned toward the door and racing out, promising him I’ll call tomorrow, and maybe also that I’ll bake him a cake? I don’t know what that was about, but clearly my ovaries feel like they owe him something.
I move like a zombie all the way down to the lobby. My eyes are unfocused, and I’m sure the lady working the front desk assumes I’m on something. My heels echo loudly across the empty expansive lobby, and I’m aware of every sound. Like maybe when I look back on this day, that will be the thing I remember most—the sharp clicks.
I’m not letting myself think about what happened back in that apartment yet. I absolutely will not poke it, or prod it, or dissect in any way. Instead, I’m floating out of the main entrance’s sliding doors. Chilly air-conditioning collides with a balmy ocean breeze, and I’m still floating. Choosing to hyper-focus on how I feel and what I see just so I don’t let my thoughts tiptoe back to that moment upstairs.
Outside on the sidewalk, I find the SUV Nathan and I rode in earlier pulling up, and that’s when I remember that he asked his driver to remain on standby in the parking garage until I was ready to go home. Thankfully, I haven’t had too many issues with intrusive paparazzi or obsessive fans, but I’ve also not been taking my chances by walking alone too often. Tonight though, I need the walk to clear my head.
Robert, our same driver from earlier tonight, cuts the engine and dashes from the driver seat like a NASCAR driver at a pit stop.
“Ms. Camden, wait! Mr. Donelson asked for me to drive you home.”
I look from the driver to five blocks down Cherry Avenue to where I can literally see my apartment building. Sure, it’s nighttime, but it’s well lit and the road is pretty empty. It seems a little overkill to drive two inches home.
“That’s okay. Thank you, but I’d like to walk.”
I don’t need to get in Nathan’s fancy SUV and be full of every single reminder of the night. I’m afraid I’ll short-circuit. I need to walk off my nerves and get my head on straight, because something definitely almost just happened between us and I have no idea how to feel about it. Not sure I want to feel anything about it.
I keep walking, and Robert hops into the SUV and starts crawling along beside me. I cut my eyes sideways, trying to figure out if he’s following me or not. I speed up and he does too. I abruptly stop and so does he.
I turn to him with my hands on my hips. “Robert! Roll down the window.” He complies, and now I can see his sweet smiling face. It’s hard to be mad at Robert in his cute driver’s hat. “What are you doing?”
“Seeing you home. Mr. Donelson was very specific that I need to make sure you get home safely.”