Alec laughs, changing lanes to exit in Long Beach.
I gape at him. “Are you really turning around?”
“We need supplies.”
Off the freeway, we park in front of a Walgreens, and I stare blankly up at the entrance. “Okay, I realize you’re a celebrity but you’re taking me to a drugstore? This date might be too fancy for me, Alec.”
He laughs. “Give me one,” he says. “Before we get out.”
I’m about to ask him one what, but he leans over the console, cups my face, and sweetly settles his mouth over mine. At first it’s just a peck, a drag of his lips, and then another that’s even softer, but then he’s tilting his head, coming at me deeper and longer, pulling my bottom lip into his mouth. When he grasps the back of my neck and holds me still so he can have his way with me, he is only one soft groan away from being dragged into the back seat.
Thankfully, he seems to swallow the groan but lets out a happy, breathy laugh into my mouth when I scrape my teeth over his lip. I remember this kissing; I remember thinking what a relief it was to find someone for the first time in my life who kisses the exact same way I do.
My brain shrieks in alarm at this thought. I’m taking a mental stroll across hot coals. This, whatever it is, is starting to defy an easy label. In reality, it’s a fling, and we both know it has a very clear expiration date. He gave me a secret iPhone, for fuck’s sake!
But flings don’t spend every free second together; they don’t sneak kisses every chance they get. They certainly don’t think how great it is to have found the kissing equivalent of a soulmate.
My heart fills with stars, expanding.
Alec pulls away, focusing on my mouth. “Ready?”
“Yes.” I pause, dazed. “Ready for what?”
He laughs, thinking I’m joking, kissing me lightly again. “Let’s go.”
Inside the store, we get bottles of water, granola bars, the sunscreen that we both forgot, cheap beach chairs, and various dorky floaty toys. He buys me an ugly Post Malone hat; I buy him some aviator sunglasses with iridescent pink lenses.
Back in the car, each of us wearing our gifts, he turns the music up; we roll the windows down and drive in contented quiet with his hand resting lightly on my thigh.
At least, it rests lightly at first. But soon his thumb strokes the fabric of my cutoffs to the rhythm of the song. Tiny circles widen and narrow, widen and narrow. Finally, he gives me a moment to breathe, moving his hand to adjust the volume, but then he returns and now it’s worse, because his fingertips toy with the frayed hem of the denim. Gradually, they sneak under, touching me featherlight, dancing aimlessly along the skin of my inner thigh, almost as if he’s doing it without knowing, but inside I am an inferno, with crackling campfire heat snapping beneath my skin. Does he know what he’s doing to me? Touching skin that he’s kissed, skin that has slid up around his hips, pressed against his face. Skin that feels bruised from the ache he’s building.
I reach for his hand, taking it in mine and bringing it to my lips, kissing his thumb knuckle. When I chance a look at his face, he’s biting back a grin. The little shit. He knew.
“Are you going to tease me all day?” I ask. “You realize you were, like, two inches away from making me launch myself into your lap.”
He bursts out laughing, looking at me and then away. “You’re so soft. I didn’t realize what I was doing until you moved my hand.” He pauses and blows out a slow breath. “I’m thinking the beach was a terrible idea.”
“Like I said earlier?”
He laughs again and squeezes my hand. Given that we’re exiting the freeway toward the beach cities, his realization—one I voiced almost as soon as we got in the car—comes too late. At least I have the weather to distract me from my lusty brain. It’s one of those ridiculously gorgeous Southern California days in April: breezy, hazy morning skies, temperature hovering around sixty-five, but when the marine layer burns off, it will be perfect for a day at the beach.
We fly down the Pacific Coast Highway, practically alone on the long stretch of coastline, and then Alec turns us down a winding street into a neighborhood of beautiful houses perched precariously on a cliff. Cars pack the curbs, parked bumper to bumper, and I imagine us walking a mile loaded down with all the stupid gear we bought at Walgreens. But then we see it in unison, a spot directly next to the stairs leading down to Crescent Bay Beach.
“Well,” he says smugly, “that was easy.”
But, I think, that’s exactly the problem. Everything about this feels too easy. Like the way he stroked my leg without thinking. Like climbing out of the car and handing over my purse without thinking, him taking it and stowing it in his backpack also without thinking. Like unloading the car, wordlessly packing things up in easy silence like we’ve done this a thousand times. But in reality, today is our first time together out in daylight.
“When was the last time you were here?” I ask.
He leads us to the narrow, steep steps. “Probably a week or two before we moved.”
“Moved to London?”
He nods, carefully navigating the wooden slats, still damp from morning dew. “Do you ever come down here?”
“You know how it is,” I say. “It’s an hour drive, but Orange County might as well be New York.”
This makes him laugh, and I watch his toned legs descend, muscles bunching and relaxing beneath the length of his black swim trunks. I tear my attention away, looking up to the sky, out to the endless stretch of the blue Pacific. It seems to go on forever.