Chapter 4 #2
Her lips brush against mine. Once. Feather-light, testing.
Twice. Lingering a fraction longer.
And then she’s actually kissing me.
Holy shit, she’s kissing me.
Her mouth is soft and sweet from the Tootsie Pop, and when her tongue peeks out to trace the seam of my lips, I open for her without thinking. One of her hands slides from my neck down over my shoulder, fingers trailing down my arm. I groan low in my throat before I can stop myself.
My hands move of their own accord, finding her waist. My fingers grip, pressing into the curve where her ribs meet her hips. This is not safe. This was definitely not on the schedule. But I tilt my head to deepen the kiss anyway because apparently my body has completely overridden my brain.
She makes this small sound—not quite a gasp, not quite a moan—and her arm tightens around my neck, anchoring me to her. I can feel her heartbeat where her chest presses against mine, fast and hard, matching my own racing pulse.
This is insane.
This is reckless.
This is the best thing I’ve ever felt in my entire carefully controlled, bullshit life.
I pull her closer, desperate to eliminate every molecule of space between us. She tastes like grape and possibility and danger, and I’m drowning in it, drowning in her, and I don’t want to come up for air.
Her fingers find the knot of my tie, tugging it loose—
And then she’s dancing away.
Just like that.
Gone.
I stumble forward half a step, my hands grasping at empty air where she was a second ago. My lips tingle. My tie’s hanging askew. My heart’s trying to punch through my ribcage.
She’s laughing—this delighted little giggle that sounds like victory—and she’s already three steps away, moving backward across the parking lot with the grace of someone who’s made hasty exits an art form.
“Damn, they don’t make ’em like you back where I’m from, Boy Scout.” She’s grinning at me, and there’s something in her eyes that might be genuine regret. “I sure will miss those lips.”
She winks.
Turns.
Starts walking away.
That’s when I see it: the rectangular bulge in her back pocket that definitely wasn’t there a moment ago.
My wallet.
She just—
My hand goes to my pocket automatically—left front, where the wallet should be. Right front, where nothing should be. Left again. Right again. The symmetry of the checking doesn’t make the wallet any less gone.
She kissed me and pickpocketed me at the same time.
I’m still so dazed, so thoroughly scrambled by that kiss, that for a solid five seconds I can’t decide if I’m furious or impressed. My hand goes to my pocket again automatically, reconfirming what I already know. It’s empty.
“Hey!” I start to call, finally finding my voice.
But that’s when Silas’s dark blue four by four pulls into the parking lot.
Everything happens fast after that.
Too fast.
New Girl’s head snaps toward the truck like a deer catching the scent of a predator. I see her whole body go rigid.
And then she runs.
Not a casual jog. Not even a strategic retreat. She fucking bolts like her life depends on it, legs pumping, arms churning, heading for the far side of the parking lot where the grass meets the soccer field.
What the hell—?
But that’s not even the half of it, because just then, Silas’s truck lurches forward. The engine roars as he guns it, tires squealing on hot asphalt. He’s not heading toward the curb where he’d normally pick me up.
He’s chasing… her?
“Silas!” I’m shouting, sprinting after them both, my messenger bag banging against my hip. “What are you doing?!”
The truck eats up the distance faster than she can run. He cuts her off before she reaches the grass, jerking to a stop at an angle that blocks her escape route. His door flies open, and he’s out, moving with a speed and purpose I’ve never seen from my normally laid-back stepfather.
She tries to juke left. He mirrors her.
She pivots right. He’s already there.
“Harper.” His voice carries across the parking lot, low and dangerous. “Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”
Harper.
So that’s her name.
She’s backing up, hands raised, and I can hear her now—a steady stream of creative profanity that would make a sailor blush. “Stay the fuck away from me, you asshole. I ain’t going anywhere with you!”
“The hell you aren’t.” Silas moves in fast.
She tries to run again, but he’s faster. He catches her at the edge of the grass, right in front of the bronze statue of the school’s founder—some stern-faced man from the 1950s who’s been frozen mid-stride for sixty years.
The tackle looks almost gentle, the way Silas wraps his arms around her from behind and takes them both down to the ground in a controlled fall. But she’s fighting like a wildcat, twisting and bucking and screaming.
“Get OFF me! I’ll fucking kill you! Let me GO—”
“Harper, stop.” Silas’s voice is firm but not angry. He’s got her arms pinned, rolling her onto her stomach with professional efficiency. Like he’s done this before. “You’re not running. It’s over.”
I reach them just as he’s hauling her to her feet. She’s still struggling and cursing, face flushed, eyes wild, and grass in her hair.
“What the hell, Silas!” I’m breathless, heart pounding for entirely different reasons now. “Have you lost your mind? You can’t just—”
He looks at me over her head, and his expression stops me cold.
It’s not anger. It’s not even frustration.
It’s exhaustion. Deep, bone-weary exhaustion.
And underneath that: regret.
“I see you’ve already met your new stepsister,” he says.
The words hit me like a physical blow.
My new—
Stepsister.
I look at Harper—because of course her name is Harper, and it fits her perfectly—and watch as the same realization dawns on her face.
Her eyes go wide. Then wider.
She looks from Silas to me and back again.
“Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me,” she says.
And despite everything—despite the tackle and the chase and the wallet still in her pocket and the fact that my life just got exponentially more complicated—I find myself thinking completely inappropriate thoughts.
Her lips tasted like grape Tootsie Pops, and I already want to kiss her again. My fingers find my tie—still crooked from when she pulled it.
I should fix it.
I always fix it. Immediately.
But I don’t.
I’m so screwed.