39
“On a scale of one to ten, how mad were you that I said Bobby’s name after our kiss in the storeroom?”
“Let’s just say I was off-the-charts angry.”
“You hid it well.”
His fingers trace lazy circles on my arm. “I hid a lot of things well.”
You’re still hiding, I think, but I keep the words inside. I don’t want to ruin this moment.
Joel is stretched out on my living room couch.
I’m lying half on the couch and half on him, my head resting on his shoulder, exactly where I belong.
After the bar fight, he drove me straight home.
I texted Hannah to check that she was okay, and she replied with a thumbs-up emoji, followed by a single water droplet.
The droplet baffles me. Is she referencing our earlier “what’s in the water in Brown Oaks” joke?
Is she... drinking from the well ? I quickly block the thought.
That’s not a road I want to travel tonight. I’m just relieved she’s okay.
“I think I knew deep down I wasn’t kissing Bobby,” I murmur.
“Deep down, huh?”
“ Very deep down.”
With one swift motion, he rolls, bracing above me, and I’m pinned beneath him. “Why are we talking about your ex-boyfriend when you’re with me?”
“Jealous?” I ask, quietly thrilled.
“Insanely so.”
My nerve endings flare to life. I can feel all of him against me, hot and hard and hungry.
“I like you on top,” I whisper.
He groans and dips my head back to trail a path of soft kisses down my neck to the pulse beating in the hollow of my throat. “You are driving me insane.”
His mouth returns to mine, and I join him in the most delectable kind of madness, one that invites no thought or logic or reason, only pure sensation.
After a while, he lifts his head and brushes back a strand of my hair from my cheek with a tenderness that undoes me.
“This is exactly how I used to picture you. Your eyes...so blue they take my breath away. Your hair...” He gathers a fistful and brings it to his nose, breathing in my shampoo. “I love your hair.”
My fingers skim along the back of his neck and I arch into him.
He sucks in a sharp breath. “You have no idea how wild you drive me.”
His voice, raw with hunger and restraint, slides under my skin, lighting up my nerve endings even more.
“Then why don’t you show me?” I murmur.
He laughs, and it’s a beautiful sound. A little rusty, but beautiful.
And just like that, I want a life for him where that sound comes easier and more often.
On Monday morning, Tess walks in balancing a cardboard tray of takeout coffees. “Okay, I’m here. I’m under-caffeinated, over-committed, and need praise.”
I don’t respond. I’m staring at my desk, holding a glue stick above a watercolor test sheet, my mind full of Joel. Joel pushing through the bar crowd to get to me. Joel kissing me like he’s thought of nothing else for weeks, Joel staring at me like he can’t bear to lose me.
Sofia sighs loudly. “She’s doing it again.”
“Doing what?” Tess asks, setting the drinks down.
“The dreamy glue-stick hover. That’s the third time this morning. She doesn’t move. Or blink.”
I straighten guiltily. “Sorry. I’m just...thinking.”
Sofia smirks. “Are you designing a card or composing a love letter in your head?”
“What? No. I’m painting.” I fumble for my paintbrush and dip it into my tea.
Tess lets out a choked sound.
“Did you just try to steep your brush?” Sofia asks with raised eyebrows.
I groan, setting the brush down. “Okay. Maybe I’m a little distracted.”
“Oh, sweetie,” Tess says, leaning on my desk with a glint in her eye. “Distracted is when you forget your laptop charger. You’ve floated to another dimension.”
“Yesterday, I put milk in the pantry and cereal in the fridge,” I confess. “I left the house with my sweater inside out.”
They’re both biting their lips, trying not to laugh.
“This morning, I couldn’t remember my laptop password,” I continue. “Then I typed in Joel to see if it would unlock anything.”
“Only the key to your heart,” murmurs Tess.
I drop my head into my hands. “He has me forgetting my own name.”
“Relax,” Sofia says. “You’ll be borrowing his last name soon enough.”
I lift my head just enough to glare at them, though it’s completely ineffective because I’m smiling. I haven’t stopped smiling since Saturday night. My cheeks actually hurt.
We burst into laughter. For a moment the whole room feels lighter.
“So, it’s real now between you and Joel?” Tess asks.
“It is,” I admit. “And I’m so relieved, because every time I saw him, it got harder to pretend it wasn’t real.”
They exchange a look.
“That,” Tess says, “sounds like the start of a card.”
Sofia’s already halfway to the whiteboard. “Okay,” she announces, uncapping a marker. “New card series idea: For When You’re Only Pretending to Be Engaged but Accidentally Catch Real Feelings .”
Tess snorts. “Too specific?”
“Hyper-specific is our brand,” Sofia shoots back.
I shake my head. “You two are ridiculous.”
“Ridiculously on-trend,” Tess says. “Imagine the niche market—exes, fake daters, small-town scandals. This could be our moment.”
Sofia grabs a marker in another color. “All right, titles.”
Tess taps her pen against her chin. “ It was fake. The butterflies were not. ”
Sofia chuckles. “Love that. How about, Thanks for being the best fake fiancé money can’t buy .”
“Or, Let’s keep pretending... Forever ?” Tess adds.
My heart cinches. At the look on my face, they both go quiet. The teasing fades.
“Is that what you want, Kenzie?” Tess asks softly. “Forever with Joel?”
After a moment, I nod. There’s a tightness in my chest, and I can’t tell if it’s happiness or terror. Maybe a bit of both.
“Then consider us your team,” Tess says. “Bench, cheer squad, and cleanup crew.”
“We’ve got your back,” Sofia adds. “All the way.”