A part of me wants to slow down, make this last, but that part has already lost the battle. I’m tipping over the edge. My hands climb up the back of Miles’s shirt to feel his smooth skin, one of his hands still between my thighs, edging me closer until I’m crying out, sinking nails into his skin, losing myself, losing any sense of the room, of the world, of anything other than this feeling.

Than the smell of ginger and woodsmoke.

The skin and muscle beneath my hands. The cool air kissing my chest. The needful pressure crashing over me in waves. A rough palm slipping behind my neck, lips grazing mine, guiding me through to the far side of the wave.

It’s like emerging from water, the way everything else comes back into focus, but he’s still clearest. His lips on mine, our tongues slipping together, the rasp of his beard on my jaw. His pulse thrums everywhere we’re touching, and he’s still hard, and despite all the pleasant heaviness seeping through my limbs, it sends a thrill of hunger through me.

I take hold of him again. His dusky eyes lift, glinting in the dim light, and he wraps his hand around mine.

His phone starts ringing. Again.

“Shit,” he says, voice scratchy. “I’m so sorry. I’ll just—” He leans over to turn the phone off. The word JULIA flashes onscreen.

“Shit!” he says again, but this time it’s clearly a different kind of shit.

Not Shit, let me throw my phone into the sea so we can get back to this, but Shit, I really should’ve answered my phone the first time.

“I’m sorry,” he says, sliding me gently from his lap.

“It’s okay!” It comes out too loud. The sudden absence of his heat, his humming blood, his eagerly beating heart makes me feel like hallucinogenic fumes are being whisked out a window.

He grabs the phone. “It’s my sister.”

Another jarring push back to reality, from the lust haze.

I manage an awkward “Ah.”

“She wouldn’t call this many times unless it was important,” he says.

“Of course, yeah.” I wave him off, barely meeting his eyes. I wonder if my cheeks, jaw, and throat are red. They sting from the scrape of his facial hair.

He flashes an apologetic smile, pinches my chin a little.

Even this little gesture is intensely hot to me.

The phone is still buzzing in his hand. His eyes are on me.

I clear my throat. “Take it,” I get out, already buttoning myself back up.

OceanofPDF.com

13

I’ve switched over to live TV in an attempt not to eavesdrop, but the floorboards creak as Miles paces in his room, and the indistinct murmur of his voice is tinged with something akin to frustration—at least, Miles’s chill version of that.

Then, something less indistinct: “No, no, I mean, obviously I want you to. It’s just . . .”

A pause. “Shit, Julia,” he says. “Just ask me next time. Don’t pretend you’re asking me when it’s already a done deal.”

After a beat, he opens the bedroom door. “Okay,” he’s saying. “See you then.” Another second and then, “Love you too.”

He takes a deep breath, then emerges from the hall, looking exhausted.

“Everything okay?” I mute the TV: another show about a perfect couple house-hunting in a nondescript suburb with a four-trillion-dollar budget.

Miles tosses his phone into the chair and rubs both hands over his face. “My sister can be kind of impulsive.”

I sit up further, pull a throw pillow into my lap. “Is she okay?”

He comes to sit on the couch, leaving a foot between us. With a sigh, he says, “She’s at the airport. In Traverse City.”

The airport closest to us.

“What?” I say. “Why?”

He drops his face into his hands, massaging it for a second before meeting my eyes. “It’s . . .” He laugh-huffs. “I don’t know. She says she’s here to ‘help me take my mind off everything.’ ”

Well, that’s a sharp reminder of the state of things.

His jaw and forehead tense. “But something else is going on. Julia’s spontaneous, but she’s not fly across state lines with no warning spontaneous.”

He groans and massages his eyes again. “Sorry. This isn’t your problem. I just . . . She’s already here. So if it’s okay with you, I’m gonna go pick her up and bring her home. We don’t have to let her stay all week. Or if you don’t want her here at all, I can find her a hotel. I would’ve asked how you felt about it, if I’d known—”

“Miles, hey.” I grab his arm to get his attention. “Of course she can stay here. Unless you want me to say no, so that you don’t have to be the bad guy. In which case, absolutely the fuck not.”

He smiles. “She’s going to give me shit for the beard.”

“Oh, the mourning beard?” I tease. “The moving-to-the-woods-and-never-loving-again beard? Why would she have a problem with that?”

“Will you pretend to like it?” he asks.

My heart squeezes as I nod. It’s nice, feeling like we’re coconspirators.

“Anything else?” I ask. “You want me to pretend your bong is mine? Need to move your nudie mags under my bed?”

His head tips back on a bright laugh. “No nudie mags,” he says, “and for your information, I don’t have a bong.”

“What kind of a pothead doesn’t have a bong?” I ask.

“The kind who mostly uses weed when he needs to deep-clean the apartment, de-pill the couch, or watch Prehistoric Planet.”

“Okay, so the kind I’ve absolutely never met,” I say.

He points both thumbs at himself. “This guy.”

“You’re just one of a kind, aren’t you,” I say.

I was trying to be jokey, playful, but his face softens and he catches my hands in his, running his thumbs up mine, a frisson of want bolting through me. “If she gets to be too much and you need me to kick her out,” he says, “just say the word.”

My throat feels desert-dry. “What should the word be?”

“Ryan Reynolds,” he suggests.

My laugh breaks up some of the growing tension. “That’s two words, and also comes up way too often in casual conversation.”

“Okay, just scream enough at the top of your lungs and I’ll use context clues to figure it out.”

I ask, “Why are you so worried about this?”

“Well, for one thing,” he says, “she’s twenty-three.”

“Are you calling me old,” I ask.

“I’m calling you thirty-three,” he says.

“Rude,” I say.

“She’s the best,” he promises. “But she’s very much a little sister. She’s going to make herself completely at home. If your toothbrush goes missing, you’re going to want to just assume the worst and buy a new one.”

“I can’t even begin to imagine what the worst is in this scenario.”

“Whatever it is,” he says, “it’s bad. Probably just don’t leave anything you’re really attached to in the bathroom.”

Our gazes hold for a second too long.

“So—” I begin, right as he says, “We probably shouldn’t—”

He laughs. My abdomen feels like one of those water wiggler toys, the glitter and liquid inside bubbling furiously to the top as it flips. I’m sure I’m blushing.

“After you,” I say.

He rubs the side of his head with the heel of his hand. “That was a bad idea, right?” He’s looking at me closely, like it wasn’t a rhetorical question. “I mean, we’re both just coming off of horrible breakups.”

He has a point. I’m not exactly myself right now. I don’t normally do things like this.