Everything in my body shuddered. “Hey, I don’t want to kiss you either. But I want to become an actress.”
I should’ve felt worse than I did about the lie. After all, my desire to become an actress was akin to my desire to become a circus clown. As in, not quite. Or not at all. But somehow, I told myself the end justified the means.
“I expect two tickets to whatever film you star in when you grow up. And a limo waiting outside my house to take me there.” Nicky was still wagging his finger.
“Limos are a little outdated.”
“My balls, my rules.”
“What else?”
“It better not be a bad movie. If you pull a Demi Moore in Nothing but Trouble, I swear to God, Ari, I’m washing my hands of you forever.”
A canned laugh escaped me. “Fine.” I pushed stray locks of hair from my face. “I’ll send a limo and make you proud if you promise to bring a girl no prettier than I am as a date.”
“First of all, this is not a negotiation. I’m the one taking all the risk here. Second, easy peasy.” He rocked on the balls of his feet, a little embarrassed. “I don’t really know anyone as pretty as you.”
The silence between us felt heavy all of a sudden. Full of things we were too afraid to say. He cleared his throat.
“Also, if you don’t give me some company, my mother is going to make me scrub your ceiling clean. So you better haul ass outside this room, or this whole deal is off.”
Breathless hysteria took over my body. It was happening. Nicholai Ivanov was going to kiss me.
“Wait for me in the library,” I instructed.
“’Kay, ballbuster.” He turned to leave.
“Oh, and Nicky?”
He stopped but didn’t turn around.
“If you skip over the rails again, you don’t have to worry about falling. I will kill you myself.”
His back was to me when I entered the library.
Something compelled me to stop on the threshold and soak in the view of this boy that I loved, watching New York sprawled in front of him, hands clasped behind his back, stance straight, looking no less powerful than the city that devoured dreams and hopes on a daily basis.
It was suddenly terrifyingly clear to me that Nicholai was going to go places, and wherever they were, he wasn’t going to take me with him. He couldn’t afford baggage. His last stop wasn’t Hunts Point.
“Is your dad here yet?” Nicky asked, his back still to me.
I stepped inside, clicking the door shut softly. “He has a fundraising event tonight. Said he won’t be back until after dinnertime. Coast’s clear.”
My knees felt like jelly. I’d checked the time before I’d gotten here. It was four in the afternoon. My mother was on another yoga retreat, an ocean away. Ruslana might come back from grocery shopping, but she always made herself known whenever she knew we were together. Banging pans, vacuuming the hallway, talking on the phone loudly. She didn’t want to catch us in case we were doing something wrong. Knowledge came with liability.
Nicky spun on his heel, his face both grave and determined, like he was about to walk death row. I knew he was doing this for me. A part of him—most of him, I assumed—dreaded kissing me. I could call the whole thing off. Spare him the discomfort.
But I wasn’t good enough.
Virtuous enough.
Dad said scruples were a beggar’s jewels. That I shouldn’t bother myself with morals. “We pay too much tax to be good,” he’d once laughed out.
I glided toward one of the floor-to-ceiling shelves, pressing my back against it and closing my eyes. I felt like I was acting, so at least that part wasn’t a lie. Not in that moment. The sound of his footsteps echoed behind my rib cage. The heat of his body told me he was near. When he stopped right in front of me, my eyes opened. He was so close I couldn’t take his entire face in. Just those turquoise eyes that twinkled like an excavated part of the ocean. I wondered if I looked as lost as he was. He looked so scared. So . . . not sexy.
“It’s my first kiss.” My voice came out syrupy and apologetic. Foreign to my ears.
“Mine too.” He gnawed at his lower lip. The pink hue on his cheeks made everything more precious. I wanted to devour this moment like it was a juicy peach. To feel the sweet, sticky juices of it on my chin.
“Oh, good. I’m pretty sure I’m going to suck at this.” I giggled.
“Impossible,” he said gravely, and for some reason, I believed him.
He leaned over to kiss me and missed. Our foreheads bumped clumsily. We drew away and chuckled. He tried again, this time palming the sides of my neck and guiding his mouth to mine. His lips were hot and soft and tasted of tobacco and ice cubes and boy. We both kept our eyes open.