Staying On Top(51)

Her arms went around my neck and my fingers dug into her back; we might have stood on that street in Macedonia kissing for an hour or a minute. When she pulled away, breathing heavy and staring at me with stars in her eyes, all of the sudden that hostel didn’t sound like such a terrible idea after all.

If Blair could make me want to get naked in sheets that had belonged to someone else last night, I might never let her go.

Instead of voicing yet another ridiculous thought, I tugged her down the last couple of blocks to a place called Kapan Han, a pub recommended by my phone as a fun place with authentic Macedonian cuisine, whatever that meant. It sat on the ground floor of an area called the Old Bazaar; between the ancient, uneven stone streets and buildings that looked as though they’d been there since Alexander cut his first tooth, the name fit it perfectly.

I ordered a beer and so did Blair, and we drank them before the waitress returned to take our order. By the time we’d eaten—I couldn’t pronounce the names of any of the food, but it was all pretty good, if heavy on beans and olives—we’d killed a six-pack and my fatigue had eased into a desire to explore.

“How do you do it?” I asked, feeling warm all over as I watched Blair sip the last couple drops of her porter.

“Do what?”

“You’re at home everywhere. I mean, I don’t really have a home, either, but I’m definitely out of my element in the places we’ve visited. Not speaking the language, or one that can be understood, makes me nervous.”

In most of the places we visited on the tennis tour, knowing English, Spanish, Russian, and German, French, and Italian worked well enough. Every place Blair and I had been in central Europe, the people spoke their own languages that were nothing close to what I understood.

“I don’t know. I mean . . . I’m not as comfortable as you think. I’m good at faking it, more than anything.”

“Fake it till you make it?” The confession made me look at her in a different way, but my brain was too relaxed from the beer to figure out why it bothered me.

“That’s how it’s done, son.”

I leaned across the table, setting my hand over hers and stroking my thumb across the pulse in her wrist. “You don’t have to fake it with me.”

“We’ll see about that,” she purred, winking at me over the rim of her mug.

The comment caught me off guard, shooting lust and affection through me in equal measure. The drinks and the flirting had woken me up, which was the opposite of what the plan had been, and I knew I needed to be way tipsier before trying to sleep. We paid the tab and wandered outside, her fingers tickling my palm.

“Do you want to go somewhere else?”

“You’re not tired?” she asked, her eyelids drooping.

“Not tired enough to forget that someone else probably had sex on my sheets last night.”

A lengthy pause reigned while she stared at me, her eyes sharp and the wheels in her brain turning so fast they were almost audible, sank my stomach. Fooling Blair was no easy task. Not for long, anyway.

“Oh my god. I can’t believe I didn’t figure it out sooner.” Blair stopped outside the restaurant, glowing in the soft lights of the Old Bazaar. The glint in her gaze suggested she was about to say something less than adorable and more maddening “You’re a germophobe. That’s why the airplane and the public transportation freaked you out so much.”

“I don’t suppose there’s any point in denying it. Since I’m not a faker.”

“How crazy are you, like, on a scale of ‘carries hand sanitizer everywhere’ to ‘has a complete zombie virus survival plan’?” The look on my face must have given me away, because she burst out laughing. “You have a zombie plan. Oh my god, that’s hilarious.”

I crossed my arms, my lips begging to break into a smile. “So what? When the zombies show up you’re going to come knocking on my door. You’d better hope that you bring a useful skill set, otherwise you’re out on your ass.”

She stepped toward me. “What kind of skill set are you looking for, Mr. Bradford?”

“Oh, I think we could probably figure something out,” I breathed, mesmerized by the teasing light in her eyes.

It was as if Blair realized in the space of a heartbeat that she was coming on to me, and she shook herself, trademark awkwardness returning. “I’m okay with going for another drink. Let me ask the hostess what she recommends.”

She went back inside without looking at me. At least the hostess spoke English—so had our waitress, actually, and the front desk guy at the hostel. I felt more comfortable in Skopje than I had in Belgrade or Slovenia, and stuffed my hands in my pockets, surveying the bazaar while I waited. There were more bars within walking distance—we could have just picked one.