CHAPTER 4 #4
Perched on the dresser, Jamie and I were eye to eye for the first time, and the new angle made everything feel tilted. His glasses weren’t slipping down his nose. My mouth was suddenly dry. “Help me… do what?” To not be stupid, I remembered dully, a request I’d asked not even two minutes ago.
Jamie’s lips were parted, but he hesitated, as if torn between saying something aloud. “Let me help you forget him.”
Before I could stop it, my gaze dropped to Jamie’s mouth. His full lips were still parted, and all I could suddenly think about was the fact that he had drank from the same Sprite cup I’d sipped from earlier. Our lips had touched the same spot on the rim, like an indirect kiss, and—
Oh man, now I was thinking about kissing.
Kissing Jamie. The breath I pulled in got stuck in my throat.
Jamie closed his eyes for only a beat, letting out a short exhale of defeat. It tickled my skin, like a match before it caught. “The things I do for you, Daisy Carmichael,” he murmured.
Then he leaned in, pressing his lips to the side of my neck.
And kissed.
James Brighton, my best friend, was kissing me.
I gasped—a loud, shaky, ragged sound that felt clawed out of my throat.
If I’d thought Jamie’s hands were sure before, they were no match for how confidently he kissed my skin.
His mouth was warm, and the firm edge of his glasses poking at the underside of my jaw contrasted sharply with the softness of his hair brushing against my cheek.
He then kissed half an inch higher, at the spot his glasses had brushed.
They were featherlight kisses, there but glancing, sparking and shivering against my skin. My eyelids, on their own accord, slipped shut.
Jamie is kissing me.
And Jamie was good at it.
Way, way too good at it.
My fingers dug to his shoulders, and ever so slightly, I drew him closer. His hand hesitated for a second before it settled lightly on my hip once more.
Strange, new thoughts rushed in, like a dam had broken and a river now roared through.
Thoughts like how it’d be to reach my fingers up, to trace them along the skin of his neck.
Higher, and into his mess of brown waves.
Lower, down the smooth bump of his shoulder blade.
The force of the foreign thoughts slammed into me, knocking the air from my lungs.
Thoughts like how it’d be if my fingers found their way underneath his jaw, drawing his face up, bringing his lips to mine.
A forbidden thought, a wild, insane thought, but I thought it all the same.
My fingers twitched, spurred by my imagination, sliding to act the recklessness out on their own accord.
Just once. I found the side of Jamie’s neck, fingers coming up just underneath his jaw.
I need to see what it’d be like just this once.
The now-dark world blurred as I lifted Jamie’s head a fraction of an inch, his soft lips sliding just underneath my ear—
Jamie is kissing me.
—just as the door to the guest bedroom exploded open.
“I said, no one’s allowed in the—oh my gosh!”
Jamie’s hand tightened on my hips, but he didn’t immediately pull away, not even as people pushed their way into the guest room to get a gawk at who they’d caught.
His lips left my neck, and I could feel the shaking breath he let out as it slid against my skin, his shoulders trembling underneath my fingers.
The trail of kisses he’d left on my skin burned as if on fire, my entire body trembling from how fiercely my heart pounded. He’d had to have felt it beneath his lips, and I wondered what he thought—if he knew just what he’d done to me.
Heat flooded through me, pooling in my cheeks, and my fingers stayed hooked over his shoulders like they were the only thing keeping me upright. Holy crap.
The spell shattered into static as shocked voices burst around us:
“Ohmygosh!”
“Is that Daisy and Jamie?”
“See, I knew they were together!”
“Ohmygosh, at a party?”
“I can’t believe it!”
My chest heaved as Jamie slowly—painfully slow—lifted his head from the crook of my neck. He looked up at me through the rim of his glasses, his brown eyes blown wide, pupils darker and deeper than they’d been seconds ago. The room felt too small, too bright, too loud. Too much, too much, too much.
But not enough.
I dragged in a breath, trying to be subtle, but it scraped my throat like sandpaper. I couldn’t look away from him. There were at least a half-dozen people crowding in the room’s door, but I couldn’t see anyone else. Just Jamie.
Only Jamie.
For what felt like the first time ever, it felt like I was truly looking at my best friend.
Let me help you forget him.
“What the hell?”
This time, the voice caused both Jamie and I to turn. Nellie elbowed her way to the front of the gathered crowd, almost all of whom were whispering amongst themselves. Some even had their phones out. Nellie’s eyes were wider than I’d ever seen them, expression white.
But then, over her shoulder, I saw him. Dalton. He stood tall above Raelynn Meyer and Lydia Johnson, both wearing matching expressions of anger. Dalton’s face was different, though, more similar to Nellie’s than Raelynn’s. Not rage. Horror.
Horror.
Probably the same kind I felt now, like ice freezing the river of fire in my veins.
Let me help you forget him. It’d worked, because for those ten seconds, when the world was exploding and folding in on itself all at the same time, I hadn’t thought about Dalton Giovanni at all.
Only Jamie.
Holy crap.
Nellie, having successfully shoved her way into the guest room, had her jaw dropped as she looked between her brother and me. “What—what are you two—what?”
I looked back to Jamie, half expecting his face to be tomato-red, because no way could he have kissed me like that, gotten caught, and not be blushing like a maniac.
Not quiet, bookish Jamie, who covered his eyes during rom-coms and hated reading books that had love stories in them.
Except the only hint of his embarrassment was a pink flush creeping up the side of his neck.
“Well.” Jamie cleared his throat, his voice far steadier than I would’ve thought it’d be. Far steadier than mine would’ve been. In the sea of everyone clamoring closer into the doorway to catch a peek at the scandalous couple, Jamie only looked at me. “I guess we don’t have to hide anymore.”
My shoulders fell a little then in realization.
Even though the sentence was a statement, I heard his unspoken question.
A metaphorical hand offered out to close a business deal, paired with a literal spark of hope in his eyes.
Every time Nellie had proposed the idea—fake dating—it’d made my skin crawl.
It was like that whenever I thought of anyone other than Dalton Giovanni, because how could I fake being in love with someone while my heart still belonged to someone else?
Jamie, though. Maybe I could do it with Jamie.
And really, after being caught like this, I had no choice.
My finger trembled as I reached out, and, as gentle as another kiss itself, I eased his glasses up the bridge of his nose. Jamie’s dark lashes fluttered.
In a quiet murmur, I agreed, “I guess not.”
And just like that, our fake dating fate was sealed.