Chapter 25
I t’s invigorating. How easily he’s able to take the lead and move his lips against mine.
It’s better when I let him move both of us.
The kiss electrifies every curve in my body, the feel of him against me pulses with each moment, and when he moves his hand from my arm to cup my face, it’s the feeling of my hair lovingly brushed.
Dean Vuk is one hell of a kisser.
This is nothing like my first kiss. There is no awkward clash of noses or the bumping of heads.
It’s scenic, romantic, and desperate. I hold onto Dean and follow his lead.
When I try to take over, try to perform with minimal practice, he doesn’t let me.
I allow it. This moment of broken patience.
It cracks beneath the surface of our lips, leaving heat, passion, and a gooey, soft consistency I can’t put a label on just yet.
Dean slips his hand around my neck, pulling me closer than I already am. I find his chest, his heartbeat, and when he whispers my name against our electric touch, I come undone.
I’ve been kissed a couple of times in my life. But none of them prepared me for the havoc of Dean Vuk .
No amount of studying could prepare my heart from dividing in a thousand fluffy clouds covered with his face.
We pull apart for air.
Dean rests his forehead to mine, eyes closed, breathing matching my own.
Inexplicable, this feeling. Whatever it is between us.
“How did I live this long without doing that?” It comes out raggedy. A question he’s asking himself.
“The same way I survived without it,” I reply with a quick, lingering peck. “It feels like I’ve been in a coma until now.” Giddy.
I’m buzzing with energy. It’s like when you open a can of pop and the carbonation sizzles.
“Did you,” I look up. I should be paying attention, staring at the dozen lanterns with stars in my eyes, but all along my bucket list item should’ve been…
Dean looks directly at me, the pinkish nude lipstick tainting his pouty lips. It’s predatory .
“ By chance , did you practice how to do that?”
Kissing like he could never stop kissing me.
“No,” he says steadily. How is he calm? I’m dying.
“Then?”
Gruffly, “I imagined kissing you a hundred times, Nova.” Someone beside us gets proposed to. A child cries in the distance. There’s clapping, kissing, people enjoying the moment with their families.
Yet me? I’m diabolically feeling . “Like,” I pull at my sleeves. “As the main chick or as an extra?”
Then he presses another hard, wanton kiss on my mouth.
Pressing our foreheads together, breathing me in, living within me.
“If there’s ever a world where I don’t choose you to be my only woman, consider me a stranger in my own body.”
I’m deceased.
Utterly ruined for every other man.
Dean Vuk is redefining what standards should be.
One shaky exhale later, “You’re more of the lovebird than I am, ogre.”
“Was I ever the ogre?”
I gasp. “ Gasp . That’s crazy.”
“You saying gasp after gasping is crazy.”
Rolling my eyes, “God forbid a girl take the English language and make it her own kind of slang.”
“And God forbid a boy have a sense of humour.”
I choke. We stare. A blush trickles up his cheeks.
“Did you just make a stupid joke?”
“No,” Dean scowls. “I don’t joke.”
“But you just did !” Jumping in place while pointing an accusatory finger at him. “You literally tried joking. Now you’re deflecting.”
“Can I take back liking you?” His dimple pops out.
Shaking my head, “Not possible.” I make a show of grabbing nothing and put it in my pocket. “I’ve already locked it up to show my sisters.”
I’m laughing uncontrollably now.
And he’s smiling .
My phone starts buzzing in my pocket.
“Sorry,” I take it out. “It’s,” my brows furrow. “My best friend?”
Covering an ear, “Sunny?” I ask into the receiver.
“Don’t hate me. I tried making excuses, but she came inside while I was watching, asking me where you actually were and then she saw you on the TV and I didn’t know what to do. I tried telling her you were an actor?—”
“Nova.”
My blood chills.
“ Ate ?”
Dean’s brow etches with concern, but I… can’t. Not here.
I turn away from him.
“Why Nova?” It’s pleading, desperate, and repulsive all at once. “Since when have you started lying to me?”
It starts resurfacing. The curdling in the pits of my stomach. It swindles, reverses, and bubbles all at once. It burns with the coolness of disappointment. I used to think it was guilt for never being enough or able to pay back Nadine for how much she’s done for me in life.
But it grew—became a hibernating monster that took long naps until the season of Nadine came back around. She awoke the deepest parts of me that are entangled with the most vulnerable versions.
“I didn’t want you to worry,” I say, quietly. The words vibrate in my collarbones. “Did Rosa tell you?”
“Rosa knows ?” A disbelieving laugh. “Don’t answer that. Of course she knows. She probably saw you on the TV and confronted you about it, didn’t she?”
I don’t reply.
It doesn’t scare me when Nadine yells or lectures me.
But my heart pukes when she goes quiet.
“ Ate ?”
A warm hand is on my shoulder, rubbing slow circles.
I don’t deserve any of it.
“I don’t know what you want me to say, Nova.
” Call me the names you always call me. Say you love me and that you’re not mad at me .
“I wanted to believe that when I searched up your name on the internet, it’d show me the books you’ve worked on but instead I’m bombarded with posts of you on a dating show— videos of you with men old enough to take advantage of you.
” Nadine’s shaky breath betrays her composure.
“I’ve always trusted you to make good decisions and make no mistake, I still trust you. But why wouldn’t you tell me?”
“I’m not a child anymore, Ate .” The weight of Dean’s hand is welcoming. I grab it and he easily interlock our fingers. “Men older than me by six or eight years aren’t going to make me stop using my brain—which by the way, learned everything from you.”
“Are you blaming me right now?” Her tone goes up. Nadine’s version of yelling.
“No, of course not.” I sigh, feeling all bits of lost. “Can you just… trust my decisions? Please?”
“Eight years, Nova.” Nadine takes a deep, resigned breath. “That’s older than Easton.”
“I’m twenty-four,” my voice hardens. “Most women my age are getting married, having children, and getting divorced. Some are travelling the world and are at the peak in their careers. But the second a young woman decided to like a man with a developed frontal lobe, it’s a problem?”
Not once has mine and Dean’s ages bothered me.
It’s not like he’s been pursuing me since twelve or fifteen.
This is new. Two adults talking, aware of each other, learning about their lives.
If, even for a minute, I thought Dean was taking advantage of me, I would’ve sliced his balls off. But he’s not.
If anyone’s taking advantage around here, it’s me. His feelings are in a locked safe and I’ve pickpocketed the key away from him.
“It’s a problem because you’re my sister,” Nadine’s voice cracks.
“No,” I interrupt. “The problem is you still seeing me as your baby sister.”
“How am I supposed to fix this for you? ”
You know those scenes in future-seeing shows like That’s So Raven where she sees a vision and the camera zooms into her eyes? Now imagine the opposite. The camera zooms out, furthering into space, then the galaxy, then the universe with thousands of galaxies.
Young Nova loved when Nadine played superhero. She loved it when she couldn’t get the cereal box from above the fridge. Or when she was afraid of the dark and Nadine made up Once Upon A Time stories to make her feel safe.
Nadine’s habit of fixing everything became my normal.
Until I realized it shouldn’t have been.
When Nadine put all her attention on me, she stopped thinking for herself. Her life stops, her desires, her will to live. She looks ahead at nothing but me and I hate it.
When Rosa’s high school life caused problems in our family, Nadine spent her time trying to calm the tension between our parents and her.
I was young then, barely speaking to my dad and never looking in my mother’s eyes.
And then Nadine was there, handling them and loving me at the same time.
There will never be a better love story between a youngest daughter and her oldest sister, but eventually I learned that true stories like ours have endings with heartbreak interlaced with guilty love.
“You can’t fix this for me, Ate .” I let the emblem of honesty dissipate.
“Nova,” I bet she’s rubbing her round belly.
“I know you. Better than you know yourself. You don’t have to tell me your reasons for going on the show, because I know whatever it is, it’s the easy way to solve your problem.
” Fabric shuffles around. “But Nova, have you been solving the problem? Can you honestly tell me that you’ll return home the winner of Love?
Check! season three?” Sunny says something to Nadine I can’t hear.
“All this does is prove to me how irresponsible you are.”
Irresponsible .
Out of everyone in my life, she is the last person I’d thought would say that to me.
Nothing I’ve done has been for fun. When my consciousness grew from child to adult at the prime age of ten, all I’ve done is tiptoe around myself to avoid stepping on my dreams and desires, just so I can stay in the background and away from trouble.
The thing is that this isn’t— Dean isn’t my irresponsible.
He’s how I see the panned-out version of the universe.
Full of galaxies, complicated, and worth getting to know.
She doesn’t know him when he’s been standing behind me, with his feet possibly hurting, doing the sidewalk rule, keeping his eyes on me at all times, and talking to me like he wants to know every bit of who I’m becoming instead of what made me who I am.