Epilogue #2
Her grin is reptilian as she says, “AAU’s kicker.”
“West?” Charlotte blurts out across from us, her eyes wide.
Hope nods, hazel eyes glittering. “He may not be the quarterback,” she says, eyeing Avery, “but he’s hot, available, and the word is, he’s the most wanted kicker in the league.”
My jaw goes slack. The twisted, cosmic joke of my high school nemesis targeting one of the men from my group of friends makes my blood curdle.
I try to picture Hope and West together—she in her yacht-worthy athleisure, him in graphic T-shirts and backward hats.
His quiet, gentle demeanor, and her loud mouth.
His social skills are roughly equivalent to a particularly friendly golden retriever while hers are those of a coyote.
It’s so incongruous my brain skips like a scratched CD. Hope wants West? My West?
Not that he’s mine. I’ve never so much as caught a whiff of romance from him, but he’s just .
. . always there, his silent presence oddly strong and assuring.
The idea of Hope and West together is like finding anchovies in your double chocolate ice cream—technically possible, but deeply, viscerally wrong.
“Our kicker?” I say, my voice three octaves higher than usual.
She nods and fans herself. “He’s in my bio II class, and that man’s face literally heats my ovaries.”
The shop’s bell tings again, and it’s like the universe is listening—or maybe toying with me—because West appears in the doorway, sunlight flaring behind him like the backdrop to a live action play I can’t look away from.
He’s got that early morning rumple—T-shirt inside out, sweats slouched low over his hips, dark hair unkempt and in need of a trim, messy like he ran his hands through it on the way over—but it doesn’t matter, because the minute he steps inside he becomes the gravitational center of the café.
I’m not sure I’ve ever noticed the way every girl at every table does a double take in his presence, and I’m positive I see at least one barista go weak at the knees.
He doesn’t scan the room for us. He doesn’t have to. His gaze goes straight to the couches in the back—our usual spot—and his eyes hook on our group with a lopsided half smile.
Hope’s eyes widen—dilated, laser-focused, hungry. For a split second she’s not a girl at all, but a missile homing in on its target, and I feel her intentions like static electricity crawling up my spine.
“Speak of the devil,” she purrs, clawing my forearm as if to keep me from running. “There’s your kicker, babe.” Then, not so quietly, “He’s even cuter before coffee.”
West starts toward us, stumbling slightly over his feet as he weaves past the crowded tables with more uncertainty than he ever shows on the field.
A bolt of pure, raw panic flickers in my chest. Maybe it’s the instinctual certainty that Hope is about to consume him like one of those predator documentaries, or maybe it’s the sudden, mortifying realization that I don’t actually want to watch her do it.
For three years, West has been background noise, a calming presence in our group, a rational, reliable source of warmth and occasional commentary and sage advice.
He’s the type who’s easily overlooked but has your back at every event, party, or life crisis.
I’d never thought of him as an option, but I know with complete and utter certainty I can’t let Hope have him.
I react on instinct, my feet moving before I can tell them to stop.
“West!” I shout, way too loud as I scramble over the armrest of the Java sofa and past a gaping Hope.
Immediately, I catch my big toe on the table leg, upend a stack of napkins, and lose my balance as I fly forward. He startles—because of course he does—but his hands are already up, catching me by the elbows before I can faceplant into his chest, or worse, the floor.
“Whoa, easy,” he says, voice amused and a little concerned.
I feel my cheeks burn, and Hope’s perfume seems to bloom across the room like a bomb has gone off. She’s following, already reaching out her hand as if to claim him.
Act now, my lizard brain hisses, or you’ll be Little Lizzie forever.
With no plan, no filter and nothing to lose, I grab West’s T-shirt in both hands. Fisting the soft material, I pull him forward and kiss him.
It’s not a delicate or especially strategic kiss.
There’s no poetry in the angle, no premeditated sweetness, not even a second of warning for either of us.
I just yank him down and plaster my mouth to his, the way a diver takes in one last desperate breath before going underwater.
The entire room seems to freeze in its collective intake of caffeine and gossip, and at least two tables go dead silent.
I’m sure my friends behind me are gaping. Shocked.
Hell, I’m shocked, and I’m the idiot who pressed my lips to his.
West is every bit as surprised as I am. For a split second his entire body goes statue-still—no reaction, no resistance.
Then, gradually, impossibly, he returns the pressure, and his arms slide around me, warm and strong and steadying.
His mouth is chapped and tastes faintly of cinnamon and burnt coffee—a surprisingly enticing combination—and he lets out a noise that’s half laugh, half sigh, and all relief.
After a moment, we break apart, and with my pulse hammering under my skin, I look up into his eyes and the first thing that springs to my mind is:
What the hell just happened?