He watches me for a second, eyes narrowed, then reaches both hands over and digs his fingers into my ribcage. I shriek and try to run away, but he wraps his arms around me, locking me into a hug. I stop fighting once I realize he’s not trying to tickle me anymore. I relax into his embrace.
“Okay, so we’ve established that you’re a liar,” he says.
“How about we make a truce?” I offer. “I won’t tickle you if you don’t tickle me.”
“I think I can agree to that.” He pulls back just enough to plant another kiss on my lips.
The effect he has on me is dizzying. I can’t let him get away with just one kiss, so I catch his lips just as he’s pulling back again. When I pull away, he dives back in for another, and then it’s my turn again, and each new kiss is longer and sweeter than the last.
His touch sends a pulse through my body. I find myself calculating how far it is from here to my car, and wondering if I can get him all the way there without undressing him first.
“Jesus, Naomi,” he whispers against my lips. “I can’t get enough of you.”
My heart is beating so hard that I can feel it vibrating in my ears.
“Oh good,” I say, catching my breath. “I was afraid after that eyebrow kiss that you were trying to put me in the friendzone or something.”
I don’t say it out loud, but I also think about the way he looked at me by the salmon tank, when he had me thinking something might be wrong. I must have misinterpreted the look on his face.
“Not in a million years,” he says. “But we should probably calm down before I get fired.”
“Right. And before I get arrested.”
He raises an eyebrow, making me realize maybe I was the only one thinking about undressing in the middle of the aquarium. “Why would you—”
“Do you have penguins here?” I interrupt. “Let’s go see the penguins.”
ChapterFourteen
INAPPROPRIATE HALLWAY BEHAVIOR
The closer we get to the weekend, the more excited Anne is about our trip on Saturday. I feel like she’s more excited than I am, which is weird, and I keep telling her that. I haven’t received another letter from Luca. I also haven’t said ‘bologna’ on air like he asked me to do. By Friday, I’m starting to wonder if I should have just said the word. After receiving fairly frequent letters from him over the previous weeks, I’m a little disappointed that he hasn’t sent anything else. Maybe Anne’s reasoning for not doing what he said backfired on me. He probably thinks I’m not receiving his letters now, and he isn’t going to waste any more time sending them.
“Have you talked to Husky Eyes again?” Anne asks at the café after work.
I smile, thinking about my spontaneous trip to the aquarium earlier this week. After making out with Jake in front of an audience of salmon, we spent the next half hour looking at penguins and seals and walruses. I don’t think I’ve ever had such a good time at an aquarium.
“We’ve been texting,” I tell her. I look over my shoulder at the front door, hoping to see him come in. I want to catch him before Anne and I take off for Georgia, but so far, our schedules have been conflicting. I figure the café at lunchtime is the best time to run into him.
“You’re going to hurt your neck twisting it around like that,” Anne says. “We don’t need you wearing a neck brace during your weather report. Besides, I’m facing the front door. Don’t you think I would tell you if he came in?”
I turn back around, smiling. “You’re always looking out for me. What would I do without you?”
“I really don’t know,” she says, blowing a puff of air through her lips. “If it weren’t for me, you would have said ‘bologna’ in the middle of a weather report.”
“I considered it,” I say. “I thought about doing it this morning.” I clear my throat, changing into my on-air voice: “It’s hot enough to fry bologna on the sidewalk today.”
“That’s what you were going to say?”
I nod. “I haven’t heard from him all week.”
“You’ll hear from him again,” she says. “Do you really think that’s the end of it?”
“Probably.”
She rolls her eyes. “You give up way too easily.”
After lunch, I head back to my apartment. I say hi to Joel, then grab my mail on the way up. It’s quiet upstairs when I get inside. I toss the mail onto my kitchen counter without looking at it, then head to the closet where I keep the box of Luca’s letters. I flip through the pages, pulling out the ones I want Anne to read on our flight tomorrow. I sift through the stack until I find the letters that he wrote to me while he was stationed in Georgia. We were in our early twenties. It was my last year at the University of Oklahoma, and his last year in the military. He had made the mistake of telling me once that he had joined the military so that he could go to college for free after his four years were up. I didn’t let him live it down, calling him a phony and telling him that he wasn’t a real hero since he never went overseas. I’m sure he didn’t like my jokes, but then again, he never did.
