The door swings shut, and I stop.
For a second.
The hallway is quiet, far removed from most of the museum traffic. I push on the door and follow her in. She’s at the sink, splashing water on her face.
“Are you okay?” I ask tentatively as I walk over to her. There are three stalls in here, but they’re empty. Footsteps echo then fade down the hall.
She shakes her head. I reach her, place a hand on her lower back, and gently rub. She flinches, and inches away from me.
“Are you not feeling well? Do you have a headache from last night or something?”
The door creaks, and we freeze. It closes again, but I don’t hear anyone come in. The ladies’ room is silent; it’s just us.
She swivels around, grabs my shirt, and tugs me into a stall. “I can’t fake this.”
My shoulders drop. My limbs feel heavy. I’ve pushed her too far. “The engagement?”
“No. That’s fine. The pretend engagement is fine,” she says, staring straight at me. I’ve never seen her brown eyes so intense, like she’s about to scale a sheer wall. They don’t waver at all.
I knit my brow. “Then what is it?” I’m genuinely curious because if she’s not talking about our pretend relationship, I have no damn clue what it is she can’t fake.
Her grip tightens on my shirt. Her jaw is set. She huffs through her nostrils. I’ve never seen Charlotte like this. “What did I do wrong?”
“Last. Night,” she seethes. Each word has its own breathing room.
“What about last night?”
Her eyes float closed, but she looks pained. She takes a deep breath and opens them. The hard edge seems to fade somewhat. “You’re just pretending like it didn’t happen.”
“No,” I say quickly, trying to defend myself. “That’s not what I’m doing.”
But, in fact, it is what I’ve done all day. It’s exactly what I’m hoping to accomplish.
“It is what you’re doing. It’s what you did at breakfast. We just brushed it under the rug, and that’s not me,” she says, her tone fierce, reminding me of one of the very many things I admire about Charlotte—her toughness, her tenacity. “You didn’t let me talk, and I need to know. I told you I’m a shitty liar, and I meant it. I’m rubbish at lying. Even last night, when I said the thing about my dad being a nurse—that was still true.”
This is yet another thing I like about her—she’s so damn honest.
“Okay, so what do you need to know?” I ask, and nerves don’t just skitter across my skin. They fucking descend on me like flying monkeys.
The evil kind.
As if there’s any other variety.
She rolls her eyes. “Are you really this dense, Spencer?”
I hold my hands out wide. “Apparently I am. Why don’t you just spell it out for me? What do you need to know?”
She twists the fabric of my shirt in her hand, pulling me closer, and in a split second, the gap between us narrows. We were a foot away before—enough space to fend off the hormones. Now, they’re back. Swirling. Circling. Gripping. The temperature rises once more.
“Are you not attracted to me?”
My jaw falls. My head rings. She must be crazy. “Are you serious?”
She nods. “Answer the question, Holiday. Is that what the whole ‘let’s just focus on being friends’ thing is about?”
“You’re gorgeous. You’re beautiful. You’re stunning,” I say, rattling off compliments like a salesman on a street corner. “I also don’t want to ruin our friendship. It’s too important.”
She shakes her head. “You still didn’t answer the question.”
“I said you were beautiful.”
“You said that about the Hopper, too. Are you attracted to the Hopper?”
I swallow. I try to string words together, but all that exists in my head is the film reel of last night. Of what I did to her when I was home alone with my hand, and my fantasies, and all the fucking things I want to do with my best friend. Because I am wildly attracted to her—I’ve learned that during the last forty-eight hours. Like, stratospheric levels of attraction. Like, the power-an-airplane-around-the-world kind.
“Do I look insane?” I ask, and my voice is strained. I hate that she’s asking, and I love that she’s asking, and I am strung so goddamn tight right now because this whole day was supposed to be about us being friends.
“Do you really want me to answer that?”
“Yes.”
“No. You don’t look insane. You look annoyed. Just like me. So I guess we’re both pissed.”
“No. I’m not pissed,” I say, and I wrap my hand around hers and uncurl her fingers, then I slam her body against mine. “I’m not pissed. I’m fucking turned on. Because I’d have to be insane not to be attracted to you,” I tell her in a harsh whisper.
Her eyes light up like sparklers. Like I’ve said the one perfect thing. Her irises dance with mischief and joy.
“You are?” All that anger is stripped from her tone. She’s soft and feathery, and that voice wafts over me and makes me want her even more. Makes me want to hear her say other things in that voice.
“Yes.” I speak through gritted teeth. With my hand around her waist, I somehow yank her closer, then I drag a finger along her jawline. “But you’re not supposed to be attracted to your best friend like this. That's not how it works. I’m probably going to have to get checked into a facility to deal with the amount of attraction I have for you. I’ll ask them to remove it, and they’ll say, ‘Sorry, sir, it’s spread across your entire body and we can’t take it out.’”