Do I Know You?(45)

No, I decide. Despite my intentions when I came in here, I’m not leaving this dinner. I’m full of the indignant urge to prove to Lindsey, to myself—to whatever part of Graham that might believe her—just how wrong she is.





24


    Graham


I APPROACH THE restrooms hoping to avoid Lindsey. When I left David, he was ready to jog through the restaurant with fists raised in triumph like Rocky, thrilled with how his date is going. I’m genuinely happy for him, though I do not share his delight on my own behalf. This isn’t exactly the best first date I’ve been on with Eliza.

Reaching the hallway, I find it empty. I’m in the clear. With Lindsey still in the women’s room, I duck into the men’s, where I text Eliza. I’m guessing we’re on the same page—we both want to get out of here.

Eliza walks in minutes later, looking frustrated. Carefully, she closes the door behind her. Her eyes snap to mine. “This is an emergency,” she tells me in her own voice.

“Proceed,” I say, the way I’ve heard judges do.

“Graham, we’re being upstaged.”

Just being near her, with no conversational cross-traffic from Lindsey and David, is intoxicating, even under the harsh lights of the restroom with the plastic-floral smell of hand soap surrounding us. I scoff lightly. “It’s not that dire,” I say.

“Lindsey just told me she feels bad for me for being on a dud date.”

I wince. “Ouch.”

I’m expecting my self-deprecation to light a spark of humor in her eyes. Instead, she folds her arms imperiously. “You are not a dud date,” my wife declares. “You are the best date I’ve ever had, and I don’t want anyone, not even Lindsey, to think otherwise.”

Moved, I say nothing. Words like those from Eliza hold value for me like nothing else in the world. It’s one of love’s fundamentals, I think. Kindness slips from her tongue to my heart like starlight compared to the flashbulb shine of other compliments.

I’m opening my mouth to reply when we hear footsteps approaching the bathroom door. Eliza’s eyes widen with panic. She pulls me into one of the stalls right as a man enters the restroom.

We’re not exactly inconspicuous, I know. If he were to glance at the floor to check which stalls are occupied—which he’s certainly doing—he’d see two pairs of legs facing each other. The assumption is obvious.

The reality is . . . not far off. Within the cramped confines of the stall, I’m pressed precariously to Eliza, her breath warm through the fabric of my shirt. Her scent, like jasmine, sunshine, and something indescribable, fills the inches separating her face from mine.

Her head is tipped downward until she looks up, through her lashes. I’m not prepared for the swift kick of desire I feel, or for the inescapable charge of the moment, despite our efforts to dodge each other’s eyes. We might be pretending not to know each other, but our senses remember. Our bodies remember. Mine wakes up when we breathe in simultaneously, our chests touching for the barest second.

Our unwelcome guest washes his hands. Then uses the dryer. Then leaves the bathroom—the door thudding closed behind him.

Neither Eliza nor I move to leave the cramped stall. Finally, our eyes meet, and from the electricity humming in the gray of her irises, I know how well she remembers me, too.

Images wash over me, searing into my skin. The thought of stepping into her, pressing her against the stall door. Of putting my hands on her, on the base of her hips or the curve of her cheeks, with our mouths desperately close—the taste of her the second our lips meet, the little hitch of breath I hope I would feel from her chest—

Except I don’t know if I can do those things, I realize. How does she see me right now? Do I have permission to be her husband, or do I have to stay the guy she met on vacation?

She offers me no clues. I search the gray of her eyes, but just like the fog their color so resembles, I can’t see through the haze. I have no idea what she wants. She doesn’t step toward me. Doesn’t bring her lips to mine, doesn’t lift her hand to my chest the way I can’t help imagining.

So I wait.

Eliza clears her throat, centering herself like she’s about to go on stage. The slight movement shifts her hair, sending one strand down her forehead. It lures my gaze—then my fingertips, which move to her face in the quiet under the conjoined rhythm of our heartbeats.

When I reach her forehead, she draws in her breath, then stills, her chest rising up to mine in our confines. Her irises flit indecisively from my eyes to my lips, then back. It feels like fire in pure oxygen. Empty one moment, engulfed in flame the next.

Slowly, I sweep the strand over the curve of her ear.

When I lower my hand, I think I read the faintest tremble in her mouth.

“See,” she whispers. “We have chemistry.”

I need no convincing, not with my pulse raging in me everywhere. I want more convincing, though, in every form I’m capable of imagining. Because when it comes to Eliza, I have a very, very good imagination. I rake my eyes over her body, envisioning every curve of her skin I want to caress. I don’t need her to speak to know she’s walking with me into this dream, this dual fantasy.

“You feel it, too?” I finally ask. Partly because I want the answer. Partly because I think I know and want to hear her say it.