Chapter 38
Lyra
I
said it. I finally said it.
I said something. Not all of it, but it’s a start.
But will Spencer…
“I’ve missed you, too.” He stands in front of me, blocking the view, and brings a hand to push back a tendril of hair that escaped my ponytail.
His fingers brush my cheek.
“I missed having you in my life,” I correct. “I missed having someone to count on. Who believed in me. Who I could tell things to.”
“I kept every one of the letters you sent to me when I was away,” he says.
Hope bubbles in my chest. “Really?”
“Every single one of them. But then you stopped writing.”
“You had your life, and I wasn’t a part of it. I thought you didn’t want me.”
“I always wanted you, Lyra.” His thumb curves over my chin, so close to my mouth.
“Why didn’t this happen before?” I whisper, pressing my lips together in preparation for his kiss.
How do you prepare for a kiss you’ve been waiting your entire life for?
“It wasn’t the right time.” He doesn’t kiss me. Instead, Spencer brings our joined hands to his mouth and presses his lips against my knuckles, bowing his head.
I lean into him, feeling the warmth of his body so close to mine. “Do you think this is our moment?” I breathe.
His cups my cheek, his thumb stroking along my jaw. “If it is, I don’t want to mess it up.”
“You could hurry it up,” I suggest. “Maybe you could—”
“There’s a picnic,” he says, looking over my shoulder.
“What?”
“Over there.” He gestures to the side where a cabana-like structure has been set up at the top of the hill. I have no idea how I missed seeing it. “Sit with me?”
I would do anything with him.
Spencer leads me to the setup—half bed, half couch, full of comfortable pillows and a throw blanket that he lays across my legs before pouring champagne from the ever-present bottle.
“They built this for us.” I laugh.
“They built this for you and whoever was going to get this one-on-one date,” he corrects. “Who were you going to give it to before—?”
“Before you danced with me?”
“I figured that might seal the deal.”
I laugh softly. “Arrogant.”
“I learned from the best.”
“Me?”
“I was thinking your brothers. But no—I always admired their confidence. It’s not arrogance.”
“It can be arrogance,” I point out with a younger sister’s certainty and Spencer laughs.
He shifts and tucks me against him, his arm warm against my shoulders. I lean against his chest, unable to stop my smile. It’s surreal that we’re actually here—finally together, on a date. Even if it’s one orchestrated by the show, it’s still a date.
Our first date.
We’re overlooking the water, and the white caps multiply as I sit and enjoy the view. Birds swoop in and out of sight, dropping to the beach out of sight over the hill.
It feels comfortable here. Real.
For the first time since I signed up to be the Suitorette, I feel like this is where I’m supposed to be.
And with whom I’m supposed to be with.
“Do you remember the first time we kissed?” Spencer toys with my ponytail, rubbing the strands of hair between his fingers.
“See, that’s arrogance that you think I would remember.”
“Don’t you?” he asks looking down at me.
“Well, yeah, but…” Spencer smiles knowingly. “It wasn’t my first kiss,” I add rudely.
“You were ten.”
“I’m a princess. People liked to kiss me.” I hold up my hand. “I met Logan Paul and Ross Lynch at some party and one of them kissed me. Only I can’t remember which one of them it was.”
“I must have blocked out hearing about that,” he says. “And I have no idea who they are.”
“I bet you know who Justin Bieber is.” I smile smugly. “Do you remember that picture I had of us? He signed it.”
“And you framed it and hung it on your wall,” he adds sourly. “I really couldn’t stand him.”
“Because he kissed me?” A giggle escapes.
“I think you like to kiss people.”
“Kissing is always fun,” I say, and take a breath. “When it’s as far as you’re willing to take it.”
Something flashes in his gaze. Something that looks a lot like relief. “Is that so?”
“Tell me about what you remember about kissing me,” I say. There had been a group of us hanging out down in the dungeons of the castle and someone suggested we play Spin the Bottle.
I think it had been me, which is probably the only reason my brothers agreed.
That had been the age I perfected the temper when I didn’t get what I wanted.
“It was my first kiss,” Spencer says in a low voice. “Because I was not a princess who people like to kiss. I was thirteen, so that’s a long time to wait.”
“I thought you and Abigail—” I hate bringing up her name because she doesn’t belong in this moment. Not anymore.
Spencer shakes his head. “That wasn’t until later. I was nervous. Watching that bottle spin…”
“It’s not like you had many choices.” I laugh, breaking the moment. “It was me or your sisters.”
“Kate was there, too. But I didn’t want to kiss Kate.”
“You wanted to kiss me?” I ask coyly, looking up at him.
“I guess,” he says, feigning indifference until I slap at his chest. “Fine. Yes. More than anything.” Spencer shifts again and pulls my legs over his lap. “Happy?”
“Very. What else?”
“Everyone spun, and Gunnar got Stella, and then Kate got him—”
“A love triangle even then. And then Odin got Sophie! I thought she would self-combust.”
We laugh at the thought of serious Odin bending to kiss little Sophie, who had been bouncing in her spot with excitement.
“And then it was finally my turn.”
The bottle had stopped between me and Kate but she had moved away so it was closer to me. Spencer hadn’t wasted any time like my brothers did; he crawled through the circle until he knelt before me. He barely looked at me before leaning in to press his lips against mine.
It was over too quickly, but it left me reeling for days.
Weeks.
“You tasted like cherries,” he says.
“My lip gloss.”
“They became my favourite fruit.” He laughs self-deprecatingly. “Every time I had one, I thought of that day in the dungeon. Also, whenever I had a sore throat and had Vicks cough drops.”
“You thought of me when you were sick?” I swat his shoulder this time.
“I thought of you all of the time.”
I catch my breath at the seriousness of his voice.
“I didn’t know it, Lyra, but I’ve been crazy about you for my whole life. Since that moment I first saw you—”
“I was a baby,” I whisper. “That’s… ew.”
“Maybe not that far back,” he relents with a smile. “I don’t know when it happened, but it was always you.”
“You and Abigail…” I have to bring her up. I have to know where things stand with them because I can’t go into this second-guessing.
“She told me to figure it out with you. She could see it—I think she always knew that I was waiting for you.”
“That’s not fair to her.”
“It’s not, and I’m glad she broke it off. She deserves to find someone who loves her unconditionally, not as a warm-up act until the main event comes on.”
“Am I the main event, Spencer?”
“Yes. You are.”
The moment pauses like it’s taken a breath and holds it, the air suddenly warmer as Spencer cups my cheek and I lean into it.
I tell myself to remember this moment—the scent of rain in the air, the birdsong sweeping over us, the warmth of Spencer’s hand.
The promise of what is to come.
And then everything fades away as our lips meet, soft and sweet and real.
This is real.