Page 10 of The World
But if I gave into it, if I said anything that might take this further, he’d start to have expectations, just like everyone did. He’d want me to stop working so much, he’d want me to be home more, he’d be pissed when I cancelled dinner dates and birthday celebrations. I’d seen it happen, slowly but surely, with each of my friends and the one other guy I’d tried to date.
“I’m gonna turn up the air conditioner,” I said, delaying the inevitable. “It’s sticky in here.”
I glanced up when I heard the jangle of springs and saw he’d flopped back onto one of the two queen-sized beds, arms and legs out like a starfish. “So… what do you want to do first?” he demanded.
It seemed inappropriate, but his shirt had ridden up when he’d flopped down and the peek at the pale skin of his stomach made my mouth go dry. I wanted to know what made him moan besides chocolate.
“Your choice,” I said gruffly, leaning against the wall with my hands stuffed in my pockets. “I mean, I’d be fine just taking a nap, since someone didn’t let me sleep on the plane.”
Ethan’s head came off the bed. “That’s so not going to happen.”
I felt my mouth twitch. “Figured.”
“And for the record, I told you I’d let you sleep.”
“You said you’d let me sleep after I answered your question. And then you kept telling me I was answering incorrectly.” In truth, the electric energy pouring off him had been palpable, infectious, and I’d actuallywantedto engage in his ridiculous conversation, hard though it was for me to believe.
“Well, you were,” he insisted. “I asked you what one food you’d want to eat every day for the rest of your life, and you said…”
“Macaroni and cheese,” I told him, pushing off the wall. I laid face-down on the opposite bed and stacked my hands under my chin so I could see him. “All day, every day.”
“Seriously? In a world where you could have lobster or Kobe beef?”
I half-shrugged. “I mean… in my world, Icouldhave lobster or Kobe beef.” I didn’t like alluding to my money; in all of our texts we’d only danced around it, but he knew I had a lot, I knew he didn’t have much, and I remembered all too well what that felt like. “Not everything has to be fancy or exotic though. Sometimes simple, good things are just the best.”
Ethan sat up and frowned at me, then nodded. “Okay,” he said. “I accept that.”
“So now I can finally sleep?”
He reached behind him for a pillow, then launched it at my head.
“Fine, fine,” I said, tucking the pillow under my chin. “Then let’s go to the park.”
“We’re taking the monorail,” he announced. “Then we have passes for Spaceship Earth and Test Track.”
“The one in the giant ball and the one with the car?”
“You remembered!” Ethan gave me that grin again, and I swear I felt it pulling me in like a tractor beam, locking me firmly in his orbit.
“You only messaged me about them three thousand times. I feel like I’ve already been on them.”
“Some people think it’s cool to be spontaneous travelers, and I guess it is if you get to do it all the time. But when it’s rare…” He shrugged. “This way I get the fun of planning, then the fun of experiencing.”
I had the sudden impulse to take him with me the next time I went somewhere… anywhere. I wondered what he’d like best. I wondered what it would be like to see it through his eyes.
I wondered why I suddenly cared so much about someone I barely knew.
“Race you to the elevator,” I told him, heaving myself off the bed.
* * *
Three hours later, my button-down shirt was plastered to my skin and the humidity of the afternoon threatened to swallow us whole.
“Is that enough rides?” I begged. We’d toured ancient human history on Spaceship Earth, designed a car on Test Track, and gotten whirled like a smoothie at Mission Space.
I was still kinda dizzy.
“I’ll give you anything you want if we cannotgo on the ride with the purple dinosaur and go get a cold drink,” I begged.