Still, sweat was beginning to break out along the back of my neck and along the insides of my thighs beneath the skirt of my dress.
This was not a good situation. This was not a good situation at all.
“How are you?” Will asked.
I blinked at him, startled. “Who? Me?”
He grinned, not glancing away from the camera. “Yes, you. How are you doing? All right, then?”
“Er.” I was about to burst into flames, but other than that, fine. “Yes.”
“Now if you could just lean across the tables.” Elijah was talking to Lauren. “Like you’re asking them a question, the way I saw you doing a few minutes ago?”
“Me?” Lauren looked delighted. “Of course!”
Lauren leaned across the table, her long, straight hair sweeping across the white tablecloth, brushing my hand a little bit and enveloping both Will and I in the scent of her apple-blossom shampoo.
This was preferable to the scent of Will in which I’d been enveloped before, but was doing nothing for the heat I was feeling. Was he not feeling it? He didn’t appear to be, and neither did Lauren. They both looked cool as cucumbers, smiling away as Elijah clicked, clicked, clicked—
“Okay!” I sprang up from my chair and backed away from Will. Thankfully air rushed in and began to cool all the places that had begun to become slick with heat. “You have enough photos for now, right, Elijah?”
Elijah looked down at the screen on the back of his camera. “Uh … yes. Yeah, these are great. Thanks.”
“Great.” I grabbed my bag from beneath my signing table and darted away before anyone could think of some other reason to force me to sit back down next to the good-smelling nuclear reactor that was Will Price. “Well, I guess I’ll see you all at dinner—”
“Oh no you don’t, Miss Jo Wright.” Kellyjean was suddenly at my side, snaking an arm through mine. “We’re not letting you slink back to the hotel to work for the rest of this beautiful day.”
“Uh.” I had to lean my head to the side in order not to be struck by the rim of her enormous beach hat. “No, I really do need to get back to the hotel. I’m super behind on Kitty Katz number twenty-seven. I finally got a good idea for it, so I’m just going to go work on—”
“You’re not doing any such thing.” Kellyjean’s grip on my arm was surprisingly forceful. “You’re going to go out on Will’s boat with us this afternoon for lunch. Weren’t you the one telling that little girl over there that if she wants to be a good writer, she has to have experiences worth writing about?”
“Um.” I flung a desperate look in Bernadette’s direction for help, but she only grinned at me, evidently enjoying my discomfort. You did say that, she mouthed, and pointed finger guns at me. “Yes. But Lauren is twelve and a new writer, and I’m in my thirties and—”
“Hey!” Lauren had zipped up her suitcase and was now flinging me a disbelieving look. “I’m nineteen!”
“Oh, sorry, nineteen. But I’d really just like to—”
“No excuses.” Kellyjean’s hold on my arm had turned to a death grip. “You’re going to love it. We’re going to drink wine, and maybe do some sunbathing—”
“Oh, that’s too bad.” In spite of the strength of Kellyjean’s grip, I tugged to pull my arm free. “I didn’t bring my swimsuit.”
“I brought it.” Kellyjean patted her gigantic beach bag while keeping hold of my arm. “I took it out of your room last night while I was setting up my diffuser, since I knew you’d forget it. Wasn’t that smart of me? Now you have no excuse not to come with us.”
Bernadette, to whom I flung one last desperate glance for help, only smiled at me. “Sorry, Jo,” she said with a shrug. “It’s on the itinerary.”
I gave up. Kitty Katz knew when it was ungracious to turn down an invitation—even an invitation she was dreading—and so did I.
“Gee, great,” I said, faking an enormous smile. “I can’t wait.”
The Moment by Will Price
We made love on the floor in front of the fire. Our bodies met like long-lost friends, our limbs entwined, our lips clinging. Her hair hung around my face like a shimmering waterfall of liquid gold, the smell of her filling my senses like an opiate. For a while, I forgot what I had done.
Afterward, though, when she lay panting against my bare chest, and the flames in the fireplace had died to only a red glow, I remembered.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
LITTLE BRIDGE BOOK FESTIVAL ITINERARY FOR:
JO WRIGHT
Saturday, January 4, 2:30 p.m.–4:30 p.m.
- Sailing Aboard The Moment -
Will Price invites fellow authors for a sail around Little Bridge Island aboard his 60’ catamaran. Lunch will be served.
Okay. The boat was pretty cool.
What was I saying? The boat was amazing.
I’d never been on a boat before, unless you counted the boat to the immigration museum on Ellis Island, which every kid who goes to school in New York City eventually ends up taking.
But that was just a ferryboat, and it had only gone back and forth across the Hudson River.
This was a multimillion-dollar catamaran sliding across the crystal-blue sea off the coast of Florida. The bright sun shone down on my bare arms as the warm wind whipped the hair that had come loose from my ponytail. As I leaned against the rail, watching the water glide beneath us—so clear that I could see the sandy bottom and seaweed beneath us—I felt as if all the worries and snarky thoughts in my head were being blown away by the beautiful tropical breeze.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt this happy. Maybe never?
The weirdest part was that I’d basically been forced onto this boat against my will, and yet I didn’t care. Not only did I not care, I loved it.
“Can you believe this?” Bernadette, a plastic cup of rosé in one hand, a plate of what was being served for lunch down in the galley—delicately fried conch fritters, lemon herb chicken wings, roasted vegetable quinoa salad, watermelon and strawberry kebabs—in the other, made her way toward me. She’d changed from her book panel clothes into a one-piece and shorts, even throwing on the bright yellow Little Bridge Book Festival visor that had been in our swag bag (to protect her face from the sun, she said).
That’s right, Bernadette Zhang, author of the dystopian monster hit Crown and Stars series, was wearing a visor.
“It’s amazing,” I said.
We were headed for what Will had called “one of his favorite spots,” which apparently took some navigating to get to. The island of Little Bridge was shrinking behind us. Ahead stretched only water—but water unlike any I’d ever seen before. Ribbons of turquoise and aquamarine and the palest green—other places almost white, the water was so shallow, the sand beneath it shimmering in the hot midday sun—surrounded us. Occasionally a small island of green popped up from the horizon like an oasis in a desert.
“Mangroves,” Bernadette explained. Always in educator mode, Bernadette read from her phone about what we were seeing. “They thrive in areas of low tide and provide essential habitats for a myriad of wildlife, including wading birds. Hey! We might see a flamingo!”