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Eleven

Stella

Huck Sullivan was an amazing kisser. His books had always featured the kind of slow-burning passion that built, and then right before it came to the part where one might be inclined to use a euphemism for an intimate body part or make mention of a condom, the door would swing shut and the chapter would end, leaving readers to use their imaginations regarding whether Clark Casablanca was a considerate yet commanding lover or not.

The past few minutes had been sort of like that.

It’d been so unbelievably good as it escalated, his touch on my neck, the way his fingertips skimmed the sensitive skin of my clavicle, how he’d walked me back and trapped me against the bookshelf and pinned my hand above my head exactly how I’d hoped he would.

It was without a doubt the sexiest kiss I’d ever had, and now I was pressed up against the bedroom door willing him to come back and finish what we’d started.

Actually, it was good that Teddy had interrupted things.

If the way Huck had kissed me was any indication, no one could’ve lived up to the legend of Huck Sullivan after this. It would be too easy to get close, too close…to get attached.

Still. I spun around. I could just knock on his door. He did say that he’d felt inspired, and wasn’t that the whole point of his trip? It wasn’t like he admitted he had feelings for me.

“Stella.” A low voice through the door sent a startled thrill up my spine.

I rotated to open the door slowly, silently.

Huck’s hair was more messed up than it had been a few minutes earlier, even after I’d had my hands through it.

I’d noticed he had a habit of mussing it when he was deep in thought—why was I cataloging his idiosyncrasies?

—but he wasn’t doing that now. His hands were in the pockets of his sweatpants. He rocked back and forth on his feet.

“Mind if I come in for a second?” His voice was low; he almost sounded nervous.

I stepped aside, trying to ignore my entire body crackling with electric desire.

“I was thinking…”

Was he thinking what I was thinking? That maybe we should just stop thinking because if I let my brain have its way I would talk myself right out of whatever this was quickly turning into, wherever this might go, and I didn’t want that.

I wanted him . His hands on me, his lips, his stories. I waited for him to finish.

“Would it be cool if I stayed with you tonight?”

I hesitated while my body and the last shred of logic in my brain battled it out. “Okay.”

“We won’t do anything. I just want to be near you.”

“Oh.” The sound practically fell from my mouth, surprising me. I hadn’t expected the mix of happiness and disappointment I felt.

“I don’t think we should,” he added. There went the hand for the hair again. “Not that I don’t want to. I mean, I want— What I mean is, there’s something here. At least for me. But I don’t want to mess this up or rush the physical part.” He was flustered and so was I.

I bit my lip. “I understand what you’re saying. So yes, you can stay with me.” I reached for his hand to reassure him, and he wove his fingers between mine. “I probably should tell you, I’m kind of a restless sleeper. Wandering hands, all that. Don’t say you haven’t been warned.”

Huck grinned and leaned down to brush his lips over mine. Then he moved on to my forehead, my cheeks, dusting over them with his touch. “What are you doing?” I asked. “Not sure this is the best strategy to prevent us hooking up.”

“You have this magical Milky Way of freckles that I can’t resist.”

“Seriously? I don’t like my freckles, actually. I used to get teased about them when I was a kid.”

“No. That’s not possible. They’re the best thing ever. I want to kiss every single one.”

“Again, not the best way to avoid being intimate.”

“I don’t want to give you the wrong idea. I definitely don’t want to avoid intimacy with you…I just want us to have the chance to make sure we really know each other.”

“Okay, in that case, you might want to turn around so I can get into my pajamas.”

Huck covered his eyes and swiveled away from me. I’d never been shy, but there was something about this that I liked. “Tell me more about how you met Ted. He said you raided him on a beach?”

I smiled, even though the memory was bittersweet.

“Yeah, well, I grew up in the Outer Banks. I guess fate brought us together. I was having a horrible day when we met. It was the kind of bad day that almost made me hate the beach. But you know how it is— Teddy’s the kind of person who makes everything better.”

“Very true.”

“You can turn around now.” I pulled the covers back on the bed and climbed in. Huck gave me a long look before he moved toward the bed. “So you don’t hate beaches?”

“Not at all. I love them. Though the beaches back home are completely different than the ones here.”

“You know, there’s a beach near this cabin. It’s a short walk down a path just off the back deck.”

“I’d love to see it.”

“We should go out there one night. It’s no diamond beach, but it is black and it shimmers a bit. The stars are absolutely incredible. Kind of like those freckles of yours.” He reached for the bedside lamp.

“That sounds amazing. There’s nothing better than a night at the beach or on the sea, underneath trillions of stars, to remind us of our place in this world.”

“I’m more of a wisher, myself.”

“Why is that?”

“I guess I manage to feel insignificant on my own without infinite points of light flickering down from millions of light-years away to remind me.”

“That’s a lot to unpack. Not that I’m against wishing, I just think that the sky is sort of the great equalizer…we’re all underneath it, right?”

“Truthfully? I don’t get to see much of the starry night sky at home, living in New York.”

“Well, you have lots of other things to do there, I’m sure. Isn’t it the city that never sleeps?”

“And I’m the guy that never sleeps in it,” he said, and forced out a dry laugh.

“Is that insomnia or you staying up late brainstorming?” I asked, hoping that mentioning writing wasn’t a sore subject since he’d struggled so much with it until today.

“Fully insomnia. I can’t get out of my head. Honestly, before things went sideways, I spent most of my time writing at night. I’ve never been a great sleeper.”

“And what do you do when you’re not writing?”

“Other than jet off to Iceland and tag along on treasure hunts with a charismatic woman I met in a bar and my old boarding school roommate?” He laughed. “Not much. I write. I worry about writing. I worry about not writing.”

“Sounds like a lot of worrying.”

“Yeah, I guess it does. I never really thought about it. I do other things in addition to worrying. I cook—I make a really good lasagna. Some people say it’s better than the one at Eataly.

I volunteer at a writing project for at-risk youth; that’s probably my favorite thing I do.

I research. I could spend whole days at a time at the New York Public Library. ”

I’d seen pictures of those famous lions outside the library but had never been to New York. I had to imagine Huck, head bowed over a book lit by the warm glow of one of those old-fashioned task lamps with the green glass shade.

“Is that why your books always feel so believable? The research?”

Huck lowered his head to the pillow next to me. We both tucked our hands next to our cheeks. “That’s right, you’ve read all seven of my well-researched books.”

I buried my face in my pillow for a second before answering. “I swear, Teddy’s on some kind of mission to humiliate me. First he spills my dark secret and then earlier when he barged in…”

“He can be an agent of chaos, that’s for sure. Mostly good chaos, though,” Huck said this gently, running his fingers over a tendril of my hair that had fallen out of the messy sleep bun I’d crafted. “Fascinating that you consider reading my books your dark secret.”

I used my hands to hide my face from him.

“It’s sort of reminiscent of when people call romance novels their guilty pleasure.

I read a fascinating essay about how that’s rooted in internalized misogyny not long ago, actually, but I still have to ask…

are my books your guilty pleasure?” I was sure he was just teasing, but his books did feel a bit like a guilty pleasure given the level of crush I’d developed on Clark Casablanca and the man who had written him.

I peeked through my fingers and found him still looking at me.

I crumbled beneath the weight of his stare. “No . ”

“I’m sure you have some thoughts about them,” he said.

“This is embarrassing.”

“I don’t think so. I’m honestly desperate to know what you think.”

I took a breath. “They’re good.”

“ Good is the polite thing that friends say when they don’t want to tell you that something is actually the opposite. You hate them, don’t you? Did you hate-read my books? You seem like someone who might.”

“Are we friends? I know you and Teddy are old pals, but we just met. I have no reason to try to spare your feelings. Besides, I didn’t hate-read. I didn’t even know that was a thing.”

“Sorry, was the friend label presumptuous of me? I guess I’ve been feeling some kind of connection with you. After all, we are in bed together…platonically as it were.”

I smiled at Huck’s words, despite my best efforts.

“I know I shouldn’t be using you for validation. Blame the fragile state of my ego; my agent told me not to call him until I had a solid first chapter, and he’s usually the one who feeds my need for praise. No thoughts, then? Constructive feedback?”

“If I recall correctly, you made out with me against a bookshelf to avoid reading me your new story.”

“That’s right. I did, didn’t I?” He kissed me lightly, as if reminding both of us what had gone down. “Any feedback on that?”