Superfan (Brooklyn #3)(43)

“Guys,” Silas says, taking my hand. “This is Delilah. Say hi.”

I swear they shout it in unison, goofy smiles on their faces. “Hi, Delilah!”

“I’m Georgia,” says a blonde woman about my age. She pushes her way past the players to shake my hand. “We spoke on the phone.”

“Nice to finally meet you,” I say, my voice squeaking.

“If you need anything while you’re here, just holler,” Georgia adds. “But I have a feeling Silas will take very good care of you.” She turns around. “Guys, no photos of Delilah unless you ask her first. And no social media at all. Not until Monday. Then you can post family-friendly photos of the wedding.”

“But I was going to sell wedding pictures to People!” a handsome guy argues.

“That one is my husband,” Georgia explains with a shake of her head. “He’s smarter than he looks. They all are, actually.”

“Good to know,” I say.

Silas clears his throat. I just want to stare at him, honestly. I can’t because there are all these people here, but I feel his calming presence beside me. I swear, it isn’t even the chance at more sex that brought me to crash a wedding on an island full of strangers. It was the chance to stand close to him again and experience the weird magnetic energy between us.

“You don’t have to remember all these names,” Silas says. “But this is Leo and Jason and Heidi and Ari and O’Doul.”

I go down the line, shaking hands. He’s right—there’s no way I’m going to remember all these names.

“Ping-pong time!” O’Doul says, clapping his hands. “Let’s do this.”

“Awesome,” Silas says. “We’re just going to put Delilah’s bag in the cabin. Go on and start.”

“You guys want a doubles bracket?” O’Doul calls over his shoulder.

“Nah,” Silas says. “We’ll take over for someone else, maybe.”

Jason—the handsome, olive-skinned roommate I just met—looks back at us and smirks. “Later,” he says, and then his cute girlfriend swats him on the arm.

Silas ignores all of it. He scoops up my suitcase in one hand, putting his other hand on the small of my back.

“That has wheels,” I say.

But superheroes don’t use wheels, apparently. He leads me away from the group and into a grove of well-pruned fruit trees—oranges, maybe?—with occasional palm trees mixed in. I don’t know anything about the tropics.

“Wow. This place is so beautiful.”

“Isn’t it? I’ll give you the tour before dinner,” he says. “Wait until you see the pool.” Silas stops suddenly, putting the suitcase down and turning to me.

When I look up into his eyes, the intensity I see there steals my breath. “What?” I whisper.

“I wasn’t sure you’d come.”

“I almost didn’t,” I blurt. “I thought that…” He waits for me to finish, but my hesitation isn’t easy to describe. “I thought I’d ruin it. That maybe we wouldn’t be the same again.” Like maybe I’d imagined how alive he makes me feel when we’re in the same space.

“And?” he asks quietly.

And you’re just as amazing as I remember. That sounds crazy, though. It’s hard to put into words how strongly I feel the pull every time he shows up in my life. “I’m really glad I got on that boat.”

He pulls me in until I’m folded against his solid chest. “Goddamn, I missed you,” he says, removing my hat and kissing me on the forehead. “That was a really long two and a half weeks.”

My heart swells. “You amaze me,” I tell his T-shirt.

“Why? Because I’m smitten?”

“No.” I laugh. “That you can say so. Like it’s no big deal to say how you feel.”

His big hand has a pleasant grip on my back. “But you do the same thing all the time, no? You put a lot of heart into every song.”

“It’s not the same at all.” I take a step back so I can look up into those warm eyes of his. “The song isn’t personal. It’s for everyone. And if I do manage to say something personal, I disguise it very carefully. So nobody could ever guess why I ever really felt the things I’m singing about. I never have to look someone in the eye and lay myself bare.”

“Ah.” He gathers my hair in his hand. “I’m willing to make a very large fool of myself if it means I have a real chance with you.”

Even though it’s eighty-five degrees on this island, I feel goosebumps. “I want to be more like you, Ralph. But I don’t know how.”

“Sorry, can’t tell you,” he whispers, his lips grazing my hairline. “I’ve been me all my life. It comes easy.”

That’s when his eyes lock on mine, and I know he’s finally going to kiss me. Suddenly, I feel incredibly self-conscious. I’m standing here in beach clothes that I obsessed over and lipstick that I touched up on the boat, for a guy I barely know but desperately want.

“Shh,” he whispers, as if he can hear the clanking of the gears in my head and the thumping of my heart. Then he takes my face in his hand and draws me in.

His lips are warm as he takes my mouth. His kiss is slow, like he knows I still need a minute to accept that this is real.