The Cheat Sheet: A Novel

I’m pacing the sidewalk outside Nathan’s apartment. Up and down I go, back and forth. I’m contemplating just taking off running and never coming back, because…I just touched him. Nathan. Nathan’s bare body. I reached my greedy little hand right out and felt the man up. What was I thinking?! (I was thinking he was ripped, that’s what!) It was so forward of me! I might as well have taken spray paint to his wall and wrote I LOVE YOU NATHAN with a big heart around it!

The sun is peeking over the horizon just as Nathan exits his apartment building. I whip my head away from him. I can’t meet his eyes yet. I know I should be mature and apologize for what I did back there, but I prefer being childish and pretending it never happened instead.

“Ready?” I ask, bobbing my gaze anywhere and everywhere besides in the direction of his face. “Let’s go!”

I take off at a brisk jog and he has no choice but to catch up. In two seconds flat he’s beside me. His gaze is heavy on the side of my face, I can feel it, and I want to scream I DON’T KNOW, OKAY?! I don’t know what I was doing back there! I’m in love with my best friend, and I’ve been hiding it from him for ten zillion years, and now all of a sudden I’m deciding to not hide it and see what happens, but I’m too scared to own it, and what if he doesn’t love me back! *insert giant inhale here*

See? I’m losing it! I’ve lost too many fries from my Happy Meal!

“Hey, might want to slow down,” says Nathan, taking my forearm to tug me lightly. “We’ll burn out if we start in a sprint.” But his touch feels like positive and negative connectors to my dead battery—it jolts me to life and now I want to take off like Speedy Gonzales. “Seriously, Bree. Slow up. We haven’t even had our coffee yet. Why are we running before coffee and donuts, anyway?”

Good question. Answer: because I’m everything all wrong and backward today. I woke up this morning like it was Christmas. TUESDAY! It’s been two whole sleeps since our kiss in the hallway, which was also the last time I saw Nathan. I’ve been busy with dance and he’s been busy with practice and a photo shoot after practice yesterday, so basically, I’ve been dying. (Not to be dramatic.) But when my eyes popped open this morning (at 4:30 AM), I couldn’t wait any longer—I had to see him. I had to see if all the heat and zings I experienced during that kiss were still there or if he was faking it for the dating facade. I highly doubt it though. He’s a terrible liar—also so fun to play poker with—so I’m thinking he’s into me.

Now, before, this would have sent me screaming in a frenzy and overanalyzing every move he makes. Not the new Bree. The new Bree isn’t worried that Nathan is only into me as a passing fancy. The new Bree isn’t even thinking about that (yes, I am). The new Bree is going with the flow! Seeing where this sexy little fling takes me. LAYING IT ON THICK!

I force myself to slow down so I can toss him a normal smile. He frowns, so it probably wasn’t so normal. “Just wasn’t in the mood for donuts.”

“You’re unwell,” he states flatly, so shocked. I couldn’t have told a worse fib. “Come on, let’s take it easy today and go down to the beach.” He veers left, and I have no choice but to follow.

We jog together down a boardwalk and kick off our running shoes when we reach the sand. It’s so early in the morning that the air is still chilly, and the beach is relatively empty. No one is here to watch us or take photos—which makes it all the more startling when Nathan intertwines our fingers and pulls me with him down toward the water. We both stand so that the tide can wash over our feet and ankles. The icy water prickles my skin, but it’s nothing compared to the sensation of holding Nathan’s strong hand.

He audibly sighs, making me look up at him. His wavy brown hair flutters around his brow, and the salty air makes the strands at his nape flip up with an extra ounce of rebellion. The wind catches his t-shirt, pushing and pulling it around his abdomen, once again drawing my attention to his perfectly sculpted form. A soft smile curls the side of his mouth as he stares out over the water where the sun is just starting its day.

“I miss the ocean,” he says quietly, and then he looks down at me. “We don’t come down here enough.” His dark features are a direct contrast to the soft blue sky behind him, and yet they somehow complement each other perfectly.

“Life is busy.”

Well, truthfully, his life is busy. Mine is too, but it’s a different sort. I have built-in breaks and days where I kick back and watch TV for no good reason in the middle of the afternoon. I don’t work myself to the bone like he does.

I blink back toward the water. “Confession…I was down here yesterday morning.”

“You were?”

I shrug.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” His voice sounds sad.

I point up at his face. “That’s why! You turn into a sad puppy when you find out I’ve done fun things without you. I don’t like to rub it in when I know it’s not something you can swing.”

His hand squeezes mine and he pivots slightly to look down at me. “That’s very sweet on your part—and super pathetic on mine.”

I chuckle. “You don’t like to be left out. Nothing wrong with that.” I stare up into his eyes, feeling the space between us close a fraction. The same magnets that pulled us together in that hallway are working now. His thumb glides up and down my hand. I ache to tell him how perfect this feels between us.

“You’re not annoyed by my faults?” he asks, sounding perfectly serious.

“I don’t see it as a fault. It’s just you. Sort of how you never tell me to sort the piles of random crap in my apartment.”

He grins softly. “Who am I to mess up your system?”

“See, that’s why we work so well together. Best f—” I cut myself off and clamp my mouth shut. No more constant reminders of our friendship. I want more. And I’m pretty sure the first step is not claiming an old label.

He hums in suspicious amusement at my cutoff sentence. Then his eyes crinkle in the corners. “Well, you’re right. I don’t like missing out on fun with you. So let’s go swimming now.”

I shriek at that thought. “No way! It’s going to be so cold, and—AH!”

Nathan scoops me up in his arms and runs full steam ahead into the water. I scream and kick and think he’ll stop at the last moment and tell me he’s only kidding then take me back up to the beach. Nope. He dunks us both under the frigid water. The temperature can’t be more than 60 degrees, and I’m going to murder him! But when we resurface and he flashes me his sunshine smile, I lose my rage. He is happiness embodied. He is also sexiness embodied. His dark, wet shirt molds to him, and water droplets slide from his hair down that square jaw.

I bet I just look like a wet cat.

Nathan eyes me and my shivering body, and my suspicions are confirmed about how I look when he chuckles. “Are you cold?”

I glare at him. “No, I’m incredibly w-w-w-warm, you jerk!”

“Awww, I’m sorry. Come here.” He stretches out his long corded arm and pulls me up close to him, wrapping both arms around me as we are swayed by the water. I’m pressed against the hard planes of his body, and now I don’t feel so cold anymore. It’s a miracle!

I swallow, wondering for the hundredth time in the span of a few days what this is, what it means…

“Hey,” Nathan says, breaking through my thoughts and pushing my sticky wet hairs back from my face. “Are you happy, Bree?” His eyes trace the line of my mouth. I don’t know what this moment is exactly, but it feels important. My heart trembles.

“Very. Are you?” My gaze darts to his mouth and back up.

“Right now? Yes. I’m always happy when I’m with you.”

My lips part on an inhale. We’re going to kiss again. I can see it in his eyes, can feel it in his fingertips pressing me closer to him. The waves splash against our sides, and I wrap my arms around his neck, rising up on tiptoe to reach him. Our lips are just about to meet when Nathan’s head turns abruptly to the side.

For one terrible second, I think he just rejected me. I’m ready to slip away from him and swim into the ocean, never to return again, when he pivots both of our bodies so his back is to the shore. His eyes are stormy now when they look down at me.

“Paparazzi found us. A guy with a long lens is hunched down by the boardwalk snapping photos.”

“Oh!” I say in a relieved rush, happy to know I don’t have to become queen of the crustaceans. “That’s…bad? I thought we wanted paparazzi to see us being coupley?”

Nathan shifts me behind him, ducking his head and shielding me as much as he can as we make our way out of the water. Which I’m beyond grateful for since my clothes are practically painted on my body right now and that’s really not the image I want my dad to see when he’s shopping for milk at the grocery store tomorrow.

When Nathan’s voice reaches me, low and quiet, I almost think I’ve heard him wrong. “Yeah, but that was when it was just fake.”

Nathan and I are soaking wet and jogging back to the apartment. The paparazzi was relentless, following behind us all the way down the boardwalk, snapping away even when Nathan asked him to stop. Nathan’s jaw was flexing in a way that made me worried for his teeth, and he kept his arm tucked protectively around me until we were back to the main sidewalk and could head back to his place.

This time, he seems determined to run at the breakneck speed I was encouraging earlier to get us back to privacy. Only problem, I’m now wearing sloshing clothes that I’m sure are going to leave a terrible chafe on my inner thighs. I feel like I’m running in weights. Sure, Thor over there runs in weighted vests all the time. Not this gal, though, so I am horribly unprepared for this level of physical endurance. It also doesn’t help that my mind keeps wandering back to what Nathan said in the water. That was when it was only fake.

Because it’s not now?

The next thing I know, I’m tripping over my own feet and hitting the pavement hard. Instinct has me protecting my bad knee by landing mostly on my good one, my hands, and my elbows. Everything stings—but nothing as bad as my pride.

I curl up in a ball and wrap my arms around my smarting knee as Nathan crumples down beside me. “Bree! Are you okay?” He’s fussing over every inch of me. “You’re bleeding. How’s your other knee?” He immediately assesses it like he’s a doctor and knows what he’s looking for.

“It’s okay. I didn’t land on it.” Tears fill my eyes, making me feel like an idiot. I don’t want to cry in public over a few scrapes, but my body seems to have other plans. “I’m fine, Nathan! Just look away for a second!”

“Why?” His voice is tender, which only heightens my emotional state.

I cover my face with my hands. “So I can cry like a little baby.”

He doesn’t laugh, but he does smile softly. He takes my face in his hands and forces my leaking eyes to meet his. “Bree, you can always cry with me.”

Later, back at the apartment, I’m lying on the couch like Cleopatra (if she were sweaty, bleeding, and tearful). My knee was really bleeding and stung too bad to walk, so after Nathan whipped off his shirt and used it as my new favorite bandage, he piggybacked me all the way to his place where I was laid like a delicate porcelain doll on the sofa despite my protests of soaked clothing and bloody limbs ruining his furniture.

“I’ll buy a new one. Don’t move,” he said gruffly. I didn’t argue or point out the wastefulness of his statement because I’ve seen this look on Nathan before, and it’s the one he gets when he’s worried down to his bones. I won’t tease him when he’s like that.

A few minutes later, he’s walking back into the living room carrying a first aid kit and an ice pack. He’s put on a clean white t-shirt, and I could swear I hear a choir of women around the world collectively groaning in annoyance. We all despise that opaque material.

Nathan sits down beside me on the edge of the cushion and twists his hips to face me. He takes my leg and gently pulls it into his lap. It stings as he doctors up my three-inch road burn, but I barely notice because I’m too busy staring at him. Occasionally, his fingers glide over the healthy skin of my legs, and it sparks everywhere in my body. My elbows get fixed up next, and now I look and feel like a clumsy, awkward child, wearing three ugly brown bandages with frizzy curls swelling rapidly around my head as they dry. I’m sure I have tear stains. She’s looked cuter, folks.

Once I’m completely bandaged, Nathan sits back and positions the ice pack over my wounded knee. He’s frowning down at it.

“What is it?” I ask cautiously, afraid I’m bleeding out or something and I just can’t see it.

With my leg still in his lap, his index finger traces a soft line around the bandage. I can feel the reverence in his touch. “Nothing. It’s just…seeing your knee bandaged brings back memories.”

“Of my accident?”

He nods, still not looking at me. “I’ve never felt more terrified or helpless than I did that week.” His eyes snap to me. Heavy. Serious. Aching.

We rarely ever talk about that time in life—though I’m not sure why. It’s just something we avoid for reasons I don’t think either of us really know.

“I wanted to…I don’t know. When you told me ballet was over for you and you cried over the phone…” He sounds anguished. “Bree, I would have sold my soul to be able to get your dreams back for you in that moment.”

I smile at the hard edges of his jaw. The stern set of his brows hanging over his black eyes. His shoulders are rigid like he could plow through a mountain and knock it down, but the pressure of his finger lazily moving over my skin is a feather. A tender kiss.

It makes me want to reciprocate. To be just as vulnerable as his touch.

I lightly flick the lock of hair at the nape of his neck. “I’m glad you didn’t. Because…I like your soul.”

His finger stills and he looks up at me. Our eyes collide for two twisting, drawn-out breaths. I am scorching. My skin prickles from my head to the tips of my toes. Does he know how much his nearness affects me? Does he know I’m dying to dive through those beautiful eyes and see all his hidden thoughts? I need to know if there’s a chance he will ever love me like I love him.

Are we friends?

Or are we more?

My heart pounds more and more aggressively the longer we sit staring at one another. He doesn’t say anything. WHY?! Why won’t he speak? Do you like my soul too? I’d settle for a compliment on my shirt. A casual, That’s nice, your shorts are cute. Anything! Just say something please!

But the longer he takes, the more I wonder if he’s trying to formulate the perfect response to let me down easy. Your soul is okay, I guess. I’ve seen better.

I don’t give him a chance to answer—I panic. “Instagram!”

He frowns. “Huh?”

I scramble out of his lap, feeling my cuts all sting angrily when I bend my knees and retrieve my phone off the coffee table. “We haven’t posted a cutesy photo in a while, and that was part of the contract agreement, right? They wanted us to post couple stuff with their curated hashtags?”

“Yeah…”

“Let’s get to posting, then! We could stage a photo of us playing checkers or something? Do you own a checker board? Or cards? We could play cards…I’ll let you win. Why are you smiling like that?”

He chuckles almost under his breath. “Why are you blabbering?”

I stare right at him and blurt my truth in one long word vomit. “Because I told you I like your soul and you didn’t respond.”

Half of his mouth tilts into a smile. “I was going to, but you didn’t give me a chance.”

“You were taking too long. If we were on Jeopardy, the buzzer would have sounded way before I interjected.”

“I didn’t realize there was a time limit.”

“There is. There’s always a time limit. And now I know you hate my soul.”

He takes my phone from my hand, fiddles with it, and sets it carefully back onto the coffee table. “Some people need more time to get their answer right. It’s not fair to give a time limit.”

“Sorry, but that’s life, buddy. You can’t wait forever.” I realize now that he’s angled the phone on the coffee table, setting it up so that it’s facing us.

He looks at me again. “I disagree. I think some things are worth waiting for, no matter how long it takes.”

Nathan leans over and punches the button on the side of my phone, and a light starts flashing for the ten-second timer. Before I have a moment to grasp what’s happening, he puts a hand on my shoulder and gently pushes me over so that my back falls flush with the couch cushion. This is new. Nathan hovers over me, pinning me in as the subtle countdown flashes continue to spark beside us.

“Bree, I want to kiss you. Is that okay?”

All I can do is nod.

He bends down, slowly, and drops one soft lingering kiss to my mouth. Fire explodes in my belly. We are not in public. And the camera is still counting down. This kiss isn’t for anyone but me and him. That was when it was just fake. His lips are warm, soft, vulnerable caresses. They end far too soon.

“Your soul is my favorite in this entire world,” he replies quietly, just as the camera sends the final bright flash signaling the photo.

I’m shocked. So scared I’m dreaming I could cry. It wasn’t exactly a declaration, but it felt like it. My heart beats: Hope. Hope. Hope.

I take his jaw in my hand. “Hold still.”

“Why?” Nathan says on a chuckle, because if I can be counted on for anything, it’s making a moment weird.

“Because you don’t have a good poker face, and I want to see if I can find the answer to something.”

His smile fades into something more serious, and as I tilt his face slightly to the side, he complies easily. His jaw is scratchy beneath my fingers. I tilt his head the opposite way, sizing him up from all angles. He indulges me like he has every day of our friendship. No squirming or averting his eyes. He lets me swim through those deep, dark irises, and just when I’m almost to the glowing answer at the end of the tunnel, his phone blares an alarm.

He expels a breath and drops his head into my neck, and I’m able to register his full glorious weight pressing down on me before he pushes off the couch to get his phone. The alarm is silenced. He looks at his phone like he’d enjoy crushing it in his palm and tossing the debris out the window. “That’s my alarm telling me it’s time to go to work.”

“Okay,” I say, my breathy voice barely punctuating the air. But seriously, how am I supposed to respond after a moment like the one we just shared? We’re on the brink of everything changing, but we’re not able to jump quite yet.

He and I stare at each other for one long moment, and then he groans and shakes his head. “I’m sorry. I have to go. Can we talk later? About…everything?”

I smile. “Yes.”