Page 9 of The World

Taika:Yeah, a plane out of here.

Ethan:OMG, TAI MADE HIS FIRST JOKE. #proud

Taika:Ethan? The answer to your follow-up question was yes.

Ethan:You don’t play fair.

Ethan:That selfie of you from Chicago was bleak. I’ve seen more lively corpses.

Taika:Uh, thank you? If this is the response, I’ll stop sending them.

Ethan:No! Don’t you dare. It’s just… Don’t you ever smile, Tai?

Taika:I dunno. I don’tnotsmile.

Ethan:YOU. SENT. ME. CHOCOLATE.

Taika:Yes. I. Did.

Ethan:Swiss chocolate. From actual Switzerland. I forgive you for all the wrongs you’ve done me.

Taika:Oh, good. Tomorrow, send me a picture of you eating it for breakfast.

“Holy shit!" Ethan said, taking in the view from the hotel room from the balcony door. "The view! We can see Cinderella’s castle from here!”

I dropped the luggage and mumbled, “Uh huh,” which had become my standard reply whenever Ethan insisted on pointing out the obvious, like how tiny the houses looked from the sky, or how tasty airplane cookies were, or how hot Florida was. The guy had been practicallythrummingwith enthusiasm since the minute I'd met him at the airport this morning, so freakin'excitedabout the things I'd long ago stopped noticing, if I'd ever noticed them to begin with.

It should have been annoying.

It absolutely was not.

What was annoying was trying to keep myself from falling all over him.

When we'd met at the charity event a month ago, I'd found him sexy. Incredibly sexy, even. But I had attractive people in my path all the time, and that was nothing special. Sometimes one thing led to another, sometimes it didn't, and either way, I forgot about them the moment they were out of my sight.

What Ididn'thave were people who called me out on my shit the way Ethan did. Or people who were bizarrely, profoundly interested in the minutiae of my life and opinions. Or people, other than Simone, who called meTai, when everyone else in my life called me Mr. Parata.

We'd spent weeks exchanging text messages. It hadn't been my idea, but before I knew it, I’d found myself sharing info I never shared and taking pictures of the view from each of my hotel rooms. He’d replied with bizarre facts about the articles he was researching, or what the weather was like in Boston, or what he was eating for breakfast.

Stupid stuff. Nothing life changing. But… connection. Friendship, maybe, if it could be called friendship when I got hard watching a video of him moaning around a bar of Swiss chocolate.

I’d gone from being annoyed at Simone for forcing my hand — though I still refused to believe Ethan and I were chosen randomly for this — to actively thanking her.

When contract negotiations in Shanghai had stalled two days ago, I’d balked and told my assistant that I’d rather cancel the contract than cancel this trip. She’d been stunned. So had I.

Threatening to end a major contract for a trip to atheme parkwhere we would experience food from “around the world” that I’d already experienced while traveling around theactualworld? That was not my parents’ son talking.

But then, I wasn’t sure Ihadreally experienced the world, not the food or the culture or any of that. Not the way Ethan would. I couldn't remember the last time I'd been as wholeheartedly engaged with anything as Ethan seemed to be witheverything.

“Are you gonna come see it?” Ethan demanded, grinning at me from the balcony door.

I realized I’d been standing across the room, just staring athimstaring at theview,like some moony teenager. I hadn’t been that way even when Iwasa teenager.

And that smile.God. It had nearly knocked me to my knees and shaken all the thoughts from my head the first time I’d seen it at the event. He’d held out his hand and I’d stammered like an idiot… or maybe I hadn’t been able to make myself speak at all, I honestly couldn’t remember. I just remembered thinking, “Shit.So this was what attraction was supposed to feel like.”

It felt the same way now, only worse. Like a minor earthquake, shaking my foundations and realigning them.

I didn’t like it at all. I didn’t know how to guard against it. When I was with him, I found myself thinking things I’d never thought, saying things I hadn’t known were true. He made me want things I couldn’t afford to want… like permanence.