She wondered what Blake made of their relationship, but she knew that wasn’t something they were likely to discuss. Talking about relationships—even if it wasn’t your own—probably wasn’t on the list of acceptable conversation topics for people just hooking up for the short time their paths crossed.
Maybe talking, period, wasn’t part of the deal, judging by how quiet Blake was being, practically giving her one-word answers all night. But what did she know? It wasn’t like she’d ever done anything like this before. She was just going to have to make her brain shut up and go with wherever the night took her. It had worked okay so far.
Jamie draped his arm over the back of Chris’s chair in an easy gesture, sharing a laugh with Blake about the first time they’d tried the fiery rum drink before realizing its full bite. Chris was hardly paying attention, leaning over to fiddle with Lukas’s camera as he explained the different aperture settings he could use for a night like this, where the dark water contrasted with the bright pinpoints of light on land. Julia looked over at Jamie and wondered if he even noticed that anything was wrong with the picture.
The photography lesson was interrupted when the drinks arrived, five oversized glasses floating with ice and a fat wedge of lime.
“Cheers!” Chris raised her glass, and even though everybody groaned, Julia’s stomach did a little flip remembering how she and Blake had looked at each other when they clinked glasses—was it only yesterday?—and made a promise they had been more than able to fulfill.
“To the waterfalls,” Jamie said.
“To making travel last,” Lukas added.
To being someone new, Julia whispered to herself. She glanced up at Blake as they clinked glasses. But this time he blinked and looked away when he lifted the drink to his lips.
The first touch to her tongue burned, and then a burst of sugary lime exploded in her mouth. It was sweet and tart and burning all at once, sour and aching and so strong it brought tears to her eyes.
“That was terrible,” Chris commented as Julia coughed from the liquor, and she thought maybe she’d done something wrong and that was why it felt like her whole insides were bathed in lighter fluid.
But it was the eye contact, of course, that Chris was complaining about. “Never met a sorrier lot in my life. Every single one of you is going to be doomed to nearly a decade of lousy lays.”
So not funny, Julia thought to herself as she recalled the streak of celibacy Blake had broken her of. It wasn’t the ritual, of course, that had made them so explosive together. But they had held each other’s eyes, and it had worked, and she wasn’t about to tempt fate.
Blake didn’t seem too worried, though, as he tipped the liquid back, and so Julia followed suit. The second sip burned less and the third warmed her all the way through.
When Chris, Jamie, and Lukas walked down to the water’s edge to take pictures, Blake didn’t make any move to follow. Julia didn’t mind. She was happy to stay admiring the view, sipping on the sweet, tart caipirinhas, and reaching for another piece of the fried yucca they’d ordered.
“Did you like the falls today?” Julia asked, breaking the silence between them.
Blake looked up from wherever his thoughts had taken him. “Yeah. You?”
“It was spectacular,” she said.
“I didn’t mean us,” he chided, and Julia was relieved to see that familiar, flirty glint in his eye.
“I was talking about the waterfalls! We did a few things today besides have sex, you know.” With the quiet around them and everyone else down by the water, she spoke more freely, without worrying about being overheard.
“I’m just making sure that you had a good time during the parts where you weren’t quite as vocal about letting me know that things were going well.”
She flushed at the mention of how the waterfall had drowned out her cries. There was enough light glowing from the bar that she knew he could see it. “You say things like that to make me blush,” she accused, and he held up his palms but didn’t deny it.
“I don’t want you to get home and feel like you spent your whole week doing unspeakable things with unsavory men.”
“I thought you said it was man. Singular. One.” She narrowed her eyes at him. She thought she saw him frown at the reminder of his own words, but it was hard to tell in the dark. “I won’t ask how many women you’re doing unspeakable things with,” she went on, “since you have seven months of travel. And maybe have no interest in ever going home—I don’t know, you were a little vague on that part with Jamie.”
“What I said to him is true. I’m not looking to live like this forever. I just… I just wanted to get away for now.”
“And when you get back?”
She wondered what he was thinking about when he looked over the darkened lake and said, “Maybe things will be different then.” She didn’t want to push. And anyway…wasn’t she thinking the exact same thing?
She noticed he didn’t do anything to protest how she’d characterized his months of travel, but she tried not to let that bother her. She wanted him to know that she was okay with the fact that they were going their separate ways. She was even okay with him being lost in his thoughts, without letting her in. These were simply the conditions they had set forth for the few days they had together. It was already more than she should have gotten, since he’d been planning on taking off without a second glance. Then she would have really been alone.
She tried not to think about what it would have been like if she’d gone to the falls with just Jamie, Chris, and Lukas, and whether she would have paired up with the single Dutch photographer instead. But the thought was too weird to wrap her mind around. For one thing, she didn’t want to get in the middle of whatever he had going on with Chris, reigning in their flirting just enough so that no one could directly call them out for crossing the line.
And after this time with Blake, she wasn’t sure she wanted to wind up with someone else. It may have opened her up to the idea of random hookups, but it certainly didn’t convince her they’d all be this good. If anything, she was sure that now that she knew what it was like with Blake, she’d inevitably be disappointed with anyone else.
The thought didn’t sit well with her. It looked like more long, lonely months in cold Chicago. Only this time, instead of telling herself she wasn’t missing out on anything, she’d know exactly what kind of fire she wished were keeping her warm.
“What’s whirling around inside that brain of yours?” Blake asked, shaking the ice in his drink.
She could have asked him the same question, but still she cringed at the thought of telling him what she’d been thinking. “How I’m having a nice time,” she said.
“Now you’re the one lying. I can see it in your eyes.”
She pinched her eyes shut. “How about now?”
“You always wear this perfectly calm expression, but your eyes give everything away.”
This time he leaned in close so they were looking at each other, locked into each other like they were making up for the chance they’d missed to wish for more years of good sex—with each other or with anyone, the superstition didn’t say.
“What am I thinking now?” she asked, but he shook his head.
“I don’t know,” he said, and she wanted to reach up and touch the curls tumbling into his eyes because he suddenly sounded so sad. But the sounds of arguing were getting louder as the trio returned from the lake, empty glasses in hand.