“I have to admit, something about you does bring out the flirt in me a little.” Nick smiled.
“A little?” Celeste teased.
“Okay, a lot. You just look so cute when you get annoyed.” He looked at the ceiling.
“Thanks a lot,” she said. “Hey, are you hungry? It’s almost midnight.”
“Starving,” Nick admitted. “You know my dormant
inner asshole needs to be fed on a regular basis.”
Celeste stood up. “Kitchen raid?”
“Wow,” Nick said, following her through the big
swinging doors into the vast, immaculate, silent kitchen.
“I feel like I’m entering some sort of inner sanctum.”
“You are—the kitchen’s like the Holy Grail of Pinyon.”
Celeste pried open one of the huge industrial refrigerators and gazed inside. “Usually, Solomon keeps stuff in here in case a guest demands, like, filet mignon at three a.m. or something.” She rummaged among the metal tubs and plastic-wrapped dishes, her head and torso almost disappearing into the frosty interior of the fridge, and emerged with a big plate and a bowl. “Jackpot.” She set the dishes on the counter. “Leftover chocolate soufflé and whipped cream.” She grabbed two bowls from a nearby shelf.
“Oh my God, that looks incredible,” Nick said.
Using his fingers, he stuffed a bite into his mouth. “It is incredible. Taste this.” He held out a glob of chocolate soufflé.
Celeste paused. Don’t be so uptight, she told herself.
She leaned forward and licked the soufflé off Nick’s finger, letting the creamy, fluffy chocolate spread over her tongue. She closed her eyes for a minute, just savoring the taste, and then, opening them, realized that Nick’s blue eyes were staring right into hers. She could feel his breath on her cheek. She stared back at him, their faces only a few inches apart. Then Celeste turned away so fast, she almost knocked her bowl of soufflé into the counter. “Well, we should probably get back to work,”
she said awkwardly, blundering through the doors and back into the dining room.
The next few hours flew by as Celeste and Nick bent over their papers and calendars spread out everywhere, making to-do lists and master lists, and hammering out schedules. By three o’clock, Celeste felt like her eyeballs had been coated in sand and dipped in salt water. She groaned and put down her pencil. When she closed her eyes, yellow sheets of lined paper and calendar pages danced in front of her eyes. “Oh my God, I definitely need a break.” She twisted her back right and left, listening to the series of cracks. Beside her, Nick rubbed his red eyes and fell out of his chair, landing on the carpet with a crash.
“Are you okay?” Celeste asked, peering down at him.
“Fine,” he mumbled, his face mashed into the rug.
“Just wake me up when people start coming in for breakfast, okay?”
Celeste got up from her chair and reached down,
hauling at his arm. “Get up. We’re done anyway.”
Nick hauled himself up from the carpet and they
headed out into the dry, cool desert night. Celeste inhaled deeply. The fresh air smelled great after spending hours indoors. She and Nick walked down the red sandstone path side by side, their footsteps echoing against the silent buildings. Celeste wondered what had happened to the easy camaraderie of the meeting. She could sense the warmth of Nick beside her and accidentally bumped his shoulder as they walked. “Sorry!” they both said at the same time. There was a pause, and they looked at each other and laughed awkwardly. Celeste could feel the spot where he’d bumped her searing on her shoulder like a burn.
At the turnoff to the staff quarters, Celeste stopped and turned to face Nick. They looked at each other. The moonlight reflected off Nick’s cheekbones, turning his eyes into deep hollows.
“Your skin looks silver,” he said softly. For a long moment, Celeste stood frozen, and then she took a little step back.
“Um, see you tomorrow?” she almost whispered,
wondering why her heart was pounding.
“Yeah,” Nick said huskily. He turned and disappeared down the path.
Safe inside her room, with the warm yellow light dis-pelling all that dark tension outside, Celeste threw herself onto her bed. She curled up in a little ball and hugged her pillow to her chest. Where did all that come from? Celeste thought of kissing Nick at the party last year. That had been nothing—just drunk sloppiness. The party had been going on for a few hours, and everyone, including herself, had been pretty trashed. Madonna had been playing, and he’d leaned over and kissed her with a mouth that tasted like vodka. She hadn’t really thought about it too much at the time, and she certainly hadn’t felt anything. She hadn’t really seen that kiss coming. But tonight, under the stars, she’d been able to see in his eyes how much he wanted to kiss her.
Celeste hugged her pillow tighter and squeezed her eyes shut. She fought off the rising feeling that, if she were perfectly honest with herself, she’d wanted to kiss him back.
Chapter Twenty-one
Celeste felt like her head was spinning around in circles as the festival drew closer. Every day, she and Nick—who thankfully seemed to have forgotten
about the moment in the moonlight—ran around the resort like crazy people, making sure everything was in place. Aside from one of the waiters dropping an entire tray of glassware, everything was coming together.
A couple of days before the guests were set to arrive, Celeste was supervising the raising of the tent over the pool area. A group of sweaty, red-faced workmen were wrestling with the heavy white canvas, which kept snapping away from them in the high desert wind. Celeste could see that it was going to look fantastic when it was up—it covered the teak deck around one half of the pool, and the inside was going to be strung with shim-mery blue and green lights.
One of the workmen was about to stick a stake right into one of the flower beds. “Hey!” Celeste yelled. “I mean, excuse me! Could you move that over a few feet?
The
