“Perhaps,” I whisper.
“And what song is playing on repeat right now?”
I take a breath. The words come out shaky. “‘Steal Away’ by Robbie Dupree.”
He still smells like a sexy grandpa, and I hate that this is turning me on.
The lights go off again, and this time, they don’t come back on after two seconds. We stand there in silence and darkness, except for a lightning flash that illuminates Nick’s face. He is too close to me, and his hand is entirely too on my arm. I can barely see him, but I can feel him, the warmth and Nick-ness of him right in front of me, the heat from his chest radiating toward me like he’s a portable space heater. I want to hold out my hands in front of his chest to warm them.
I should take a step back, away from his hand. I should go find my coat, walk home, let the rain function as a cold shower, and then go to bed, where he can haunt my erotic dreams and nightmares. That would be the logical thing to do.
But I’m not always a logical person.
“The last time I played Robbie Dupree . . .” I say in a low voice. He leans in closer to hear me. “You said you wouldn’t be responsible for what you’d do.”
My eyes adjust to him in the glowing red light of the EXIT sign. I may be imagining it, but I think I see the outline of his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows. “I did say that.”
Reason #9: You know that grumpy demeanor is just hiding secret wells of passion.
“Well, Nick,” I say, attempting to sound more confident than I feel. I’m poking at him, needling him, pushing him with the typical banter we always use, but even I know that this feels dangerous. This feels like I’m going too far. “What are you going to do?”
Without replaying security footage, I’ll never know the exact order of events, whether Nick grabs my hips or whether I grab his shoulders first. All I know is that we smack into each other like high-powered magnets, locking so tight that no one could pry us apart. Every second of built-up tension that’s occurred during all of our ridiculous arguments explodes here, now, as his mouth covers mine. I’m so out of my mind that I wonder if we’re going to have sex right here on one of the café tables, which seems unsanitary, but also maybe like a good idea. My hands run up and down his body, which I’ve admired but never been able to touch. There’s just so much of him, and I want to get my hands on every single inch of it.
He’s not built like a bodybuilder, and I’m not tiny, but he effortlessly spins me around and pushes me up against the brick wall, pinning me there with his mouth and his hands. I’m making noises I didn’t even know I was capable of making, and listen, I’ve made some noises before, okay? His hands are rough on my neck and I think I’m going to die if I don’t feel them all over my body tonight. His tongue in my mouth makes me forget about everything—my dad, Milo, school. This is Nick Velez, and he’s kissing me up against a brick wall like he’s been training his entire life for this.
Wait.
This is Nick Velez. As in, the guy I have to work with day in, day out. The guy I’m going to have to continue seeing in a professional context, even though I now know exactly how his tongue feels against mine.
“Ack!” I shout, pushing him off me.
He shouts back.
“What are you shouting at?” I ask, wiping my mouth.
“I don’t know!” He throws his hands in the air, his breathing ragged. “You startled me!”
“This,” I say, pointing back and forth between us even though it’s dark and he probably can’t see the gesture I’m making. “This is not a good idea, Nick.”
“Maybe I’m misreading some context clues, but it seemed like we both thought it was a good idea thirty seconds ago.” Nick crosses his arms.
“Well, we were wrong!” I say, waving my arms wildly. “We were under the spell of the rain and the music and the power outage. Everyone knows power outages are extremely sexy.”
Even in the dark I can tell he’s smiling, that infuriating Nick Velez half grin, the one that means he finds me funny even when I’m not trying to be. “Does everyone know that?”
“Weather phenomenons are sexy!” I shriek. “I can’t help it that a thunderstorm is affecting my libido. This was . . . not smart. We work together.”
Nick rubs his hands over his face. “Shit. Right. You’re right. I’m your boss and I came on to you. That was . . . God, that was not okay.”
“Oh, give me a break,” I say, getting angry. “You’re my boss in name only. I practically run this place half the time. You didn’t bully me into sticking my tongue down your throat, okay? I have some agency here. I came on to you.”
“Even if you came on to me, it’s not—”
“We both,” I say slowly, “need to stop saying the word came.”
The lights flicker, then come back on. “Great timing,” I say to the ceiling.
I hazard a glance at Nick. He’s looking straight at me. I can still feel the scratch of his stubble against my cheek, the way his hands grabbed my ass, the feel of his—
Well. There are a lot of things I’m going to have to excise from my memory.
“This was a mistake,” I say, my voice firm. “Both of us have been acting weird ever since stuff with Annie’s movie started ramping up—”
“You think this happened because of the movie?”
“And the Buzzfeed lists.”
“What the hell is a Buzzfeed?”
“Why are you a million years old?” I shout. “Wait. Forget it. I don’t have time to explain the concept of websites to you. We have to remember that Annie’s movie is fictional. It’s about characters, not about the real us, the people who should absolutely, under no circumstances be making out in their place of work. We just . . . need to forget about this.”
“Chloe.”
“Stop saying my name.”
Nick scowls. “Fine. Valued Employee . . . I think this is going to be a little hard to forget about.”
“Well, try,” I say, taking off my apron and tossing it over the counter. “Put the memories in the ol’ spank bank and throw away the key, dude.”
Nick screws up his face into a look of horror. “You are disgusting, you know that?”
“All the more reason to pretend this never happened,” I say. “You good with cleaning up the rest of this?”
He takes a step toward me. “At least let me give you a ride home. It’s pouring.”