The Cheat Sheet

“Very. Are you?” My gaze darts to his mouth and back up.

“Right now? Yes. I’m always happy when I’m with you.”

My lips part on an inhale. We’re going to kiss again. I can see it in his eyes, can feel it in his fingertips pressing me closer to him. The waves splash against our sides, and I wrap my arms around his neck, rising up on tiptoe to reach him. Our lips are just about to meet when Nathan’s head turns abruptly to the side.

For one terrible second, I think he just rejected me. I’m ready to slip away from him and swim into the ocean, never to return again, when he pivots both of our bodies so his back is to the shore. His eyes are stormy now when they look down at me.

“Paparazzi found us. A guy with a long lens is hunched down by the boardwalk snapping photos.”

“Oh!” I say in a relieved rush, happy to know I don’t have to become queen of the crustaceans. “That’s…bad? I thought we wanted paparazzi to see us being coupley?”

Nathan shifts me behind him, ducking his head and shielding me as much as he can as we make our way out of the water. Which I’m beyond grateful for since my clothes are practically painted on my body right now and that’s really not the image I want my dad to see when he’s shopping for milk at the grocery store tomorrow.

When Nathan’s voice reaches me, low and quiet, I almost think I’ve heard hi

m wrong. “Yeah, but that was when it was just fake.”

Nathan and I are soaking wet and jogging back to the apartment. The paparazzi was relentless, following behind us all the way down the boardwalk, snapping away even when Nathan asked him to stop. Nathan’s jaw was flexing in a way that made me worried for his teeth, and he kept his arm tucked protectively around me until we were back to the main sidewalk and could head back to his place.

This time, he seems determined to run at the breakneck speed I was encouraging earlier to get us back to privacy. Only problem, I’m now wearing sloshing clothes that I’m sure are going to leave a terrible chafe on my inner thighs. I feel like I’m running in weights. Sure, Thor over there runs in weighted vests all the time. Not this gal, though, so I am horribly unprepared for this level of physical endurance. It also doesn’t help that my mind keeps wandering back to what Nathan said in the water. That was when it was only fake.

Because it’s not now?

The next thing I know, I’m tripping over my own feet and hitting the pavement hard. Instinct has me protecting my bad knee by landing mostly on my good one, my hands, and my elbows. Everything stings—but nothing as bad as my pride.

I curl up in a ball and wrap my arms around my smarting knee as Nathan crumples down beside me. “Bree! Are you okay?” He’s fussing over every inch of me. “You’re bleeding. How’s your other knee?” He immediately assesses it like he’s a doctor and knows what he’s looking for.

“It’s okay. I didn’t land on it.” Tears fill my eyes, making me feel like an idiot. I don’t want to cry in public over a few scrapes, but my body seems to have other plans. “I’m fine, Nathan! Just look away for a second!”

“Why?” His voice is tender, which only heightens my emotional state.

I cover my face with my hands. “So I can cry like a little baby.”

He doesn’t laugh, but he does smile softly. He takes my face in his hands and forces my leaking eyes to meet his. “Bree, you can always cry with me.”

Later, back at the apartment, I’m lying on the couch like Cleopatra (if she were sweaty, bleeding, and tearful). My knee was really bleeding and stung too bad to walk, so after Nathan whipped off his shirt and used it as my new favorite bandage, he piggybacked me all the way to his place where I was laid like a delicate porcelain doll on the sofa despite my protests of soaked clothing and bloody limbs ruining his furniture.

“I’ll buy a new one. Don’t move,” he said gruffly. I didn’t argue or point out the wastefulness of his statement because I’ve seen this look on Nathan before, and it’s the one he gets when he’s worried down to his bones. I won’t tease him when he’s like that.

A few minutes later, he’s walking back into the living room carrying a first aid kit and an ice pack. He’s put on a clean white t-shirt, and I could swear I hear a choir of women around the world collectively groaning in annoyance. We all despise that opaque material.

Nathan sits down beside me on the edge of the cushion and twists his hips to face me. He takes my leg and gently pulls it into his lap. It stings as he doctors up my three-inch road burn, but I barely notice because I’m too busy staring at him. Occasionally, his fingers glide over the healthy skin of my legs, and it sparks everywhere in my body. My elbows get fixed up next, and now I look and feel like a clumsy, awkward child, wearing three ugly brown bandages with frizzy curls swelling rapidly around my head as they dry. I’m sure I have tear stains. She’s looked cuter, folks.

Once I’m completely bandaged, Nathan sits back and positions the ice pack over my wounded knee. He’s frowning down at it.

“What is it?” I ask cautiously, afraid I’m bleeding out or something and I just can’t see it.

With my leg still in his lap, his index finger traces a soft line around the bandage. I can feel the reverence in his touch. “Nothing. It’s just…seeing your knee bandaged brings back memories.”

“Of my accident?”

He nods, still not looking at me. “I’ve never felt more terrified or helpless than I did that week.” His eyes snap to me. Heavy. Serious. Aching.

We rarely ever talk about that time in life—though I’m not sure why. It’s just something we avoid for reasons I don’t think either of us really know.

“I wanted to…I don’t know. When you told me ballet was over for you and you cried over the phone…” He sounds anguished. “Bree, I would have sold my soul to be able to get your dreams back for you in that moment.”

I smile at the hard edges of his jaw. The stern set of his brows hanging over his black eyes. His shoulders are rigid like he could plow through a mountain and knock it down, but the pressure of his finger lazily moving over my skin is a feather. A tender kiss.