Page 49 of The One Month Boyfriend (Wildwood Society)

Kat

It’s goddamn Sweet Caroline.

Of course it’s Sweet Caroline. Everyone here knows it, even if it might be older than their parents. Everyone loves it, especially when they’re drunk, and by the end of the first chorus of course Silas is leading the whole bar in a very off-key ba ba ba!

So good!

So good!

Even I find myself singing along, quietly and in my seat with my back against the wall where no one turns around to look at me. Even I—probably because I’m four drinks in and at least that many sheets to the wind—can appreciate the man’s stage presence, the way he walks across the small, shitty karaoke space like he owns it, the way people respond because he thinks they will.

I’m not exactly jealous, but there’s a space in me for it, a space that holds the knowledge that this is unfair, a tiny tangle of anger that he gets to have this and doesn’t even know it.

Then it’s over, and he comes down, and they applaud. I applaud. He grins and runs a hand through his hair, and I can see a rivulet of sweat trickle down his neck in the multicolored karaoke lights, and I sit forward on the bench seat, ready to act the smitten girlfriend with a good job! or that was great! or, most likely, that was job!

Silas is all good-natured swagger, his shirt sleeves rolled up and the top button undone as he walks toward me at my table. I wrap my hands around my empty glass. I sit up straight, make sure I’m smiling, the bright and sunny and proud girlfriend who’s not going to say that was job.

He walks up, plants his hands on the table, leans down, and kisses me.

There’s a second when nothing happens, when I’m too surprised to do anything but go still because we didn’t talk about this, we didn’t plan this, and it’s in the rules but I didn’t know it was coming and there are people around and oh, no, what do I do—

And then I kiss him back. He’s warm and solid and still breathing hard, and it’s warm and sticky in this bar and I rock against him, slightly, pressing my mouth to his harder than I mean to as I lever my elbows against the table like I’m asking for more.

There’s a noise. God, there’s a noise, a single low syllable from Silas that’s half-lost in the opening bars of Shake It Off. I feel it more than I hear it, from his chest to his mouth to mine, into my spine, down to my fingers and my toes.

It shouldn’t feel like this. It wasn’t supposed to feel like this.

I’m sure it’s not because of him. I’m sure it’s the noise, the lights, the too many drinks that make me half-stand, that make me open my mouth under his and deepen the kiss, that get a responding noise from me when he slides the tip of his tongue along my lip.

It’s been a year since anyone touched me who wasn’t a relative or Anna Grace. A long, lonely, sad year where I uprooted everything in my life and planted myself somewhere new, where I gritted my teeth and bent the world to my will as best I could, where I developed a bad habit of snarling at anyone offering me comfort.

And now Silas is here, and I’m drunk and he’s kissing me like he can’t help himself, so of course I’m going to kiss him back. I’m starved. I’d kiss anyone.

Then the table shakes under our hands and someone says, “Sorry!” and they’re already walking away as we pull back. Fuck, I’m breathing like I was just in a fight, and Silas worries his bottom lip between his teeth, his bottomless eyes staring into mine before he smiles.

“Your hand is freezing,” he says, pitching it low, for no one but me. He’s not six inches away from me, barely far enough for me to see around him to everyone else in the bar glancing at us.

It takes a moment for me to register that I’ve grabbed the back of his neck. I pull my hand away, still wet from my glass, and wipe it on my thigh. I try to ignore that we’re being observed.

“Sorry,” I say.

“I didn’t mind.”

“Should I put it back?”

Silas tilts his head toward the doorway that leads to the rest of the bar, the lights reflected from the stage playing across his face, his neck, the flushed lips that were just on mine. I’m staring at them. I can still feel the echo.

“I could use another drink,” he says, thankfully not answering me, and I’m not disappointed that he didn’t say yes. “You want anything?”

“I’ll come with you,” I say, my eyes still on his mouth.

I could kiss him again, right now. I could kiss him and everyone in this entire room would find it completely ordinary except for the two of us, and we have an agreement. I’m already drunk, but the thought gives me a head rush of power.

“I don’t mind,” he says, but I’m already standing, and I tear my eyes away from his mouth so I don’t trip over the table legs or my own feet. He puts his hand on my back as I walk past him, the room not quite steady, and I don’t think at all about the shimmering feeling that radiates out from his fingers.

* * *

“Water’s good,”I tell the bartender, since I spent the walk here from the karaoke room trying not to fall off the floor. Easy to drink four strong gin and tonics when you’re sitting down and trying not to crawl out of your own skin with nerves, only to realize what you’ve done as soon as you stand.