He turns his head. “Like what?”
“Like you’ve got a secret.”
“Maybe I do.”
“Oh yeah?”
He stops walking. We’re halfway up the steps, the hum of the city below us, but here it’s just the two of us—like the air has gone still, waiting.
He looks at me for a long moment. Not intense, not aggressive. Just open. Like I’m the answer to something he didn’t know he was searching for.
Then he says, “I was thinking about kissing you.”
My breath catches. My heart hammers. I manage a soft, nervous laugh. “Were you?”
He steps a little closer. “Yeah. I have been since the minute you ran into me in the library. But now... I really want to.”
My cheeks are burning, but I don’t look away. I’m standing completely still. My lips parted, my pulse fluttering like bird wings in my throat.
“Well,” I whisper. “What are you waiting for?”
His hand brushes my cheek, fingers grazing the edge of my jaw. It’s the kind of touch that asks—is this okay?—even if his mouth doesn’t say it.
And I nod. Just once.
Then he leans in.
The kiss is slow. Careful. Like he’s memorizing it as he goes. His lips are warm, , the faint taste of champagne and summer on his breath. I melt into it without thinking, without fear. Just feeling.
The moment stretches—weightless and golden—andwhen he finally pulls back, I’m breathless and smiling, blinking up at him like I’ve just stepped out of a dream.
“Wow,” he says softly, forehead resting against mine. “That was even better than I imagined.”
I laugh again—a real, bubbling sound that I didn’t know I was holding in. “You imagine things like this often?”
He grins. “Only with you.”
I look at him—this boy with the movie-star smile and the steady hands, the upperclassman who somehow noticed the awkward nerdy girl with too many flashcards and not enough confidence—and I think:
Maybe this is the start of everything.
And as I walk into my dorm, his hand warm in mine, I’m not even nervous anymore.
Just hopeful.
Just in love.
Just his.
I sit on the edge of the bed, picking up my phone in an effort to distract myself. I shoot Aubrey a quick text message reply and then open my email.
One new message from Kat greets me.
I’m filled with dread—but then I think of Jack’s accusations. The truth is I like the life I’m creating, one where I focus less on the ways he doesn’t fulfill me and more on the things I can do for myself that will. I open Kat’s email and read the brief message.
You have a date tonight. 9:30pm. 732 Amsterdam. See attached photos.
I groan as I open the two photos. The file name of the first reads “Julie.” Tears instantly well in my eyes when a young woman’s face pops up. She’s in the hospital, her face beaten and bruised, the swelling so severe she’s unrecognizable. Whoever did this to her deserves to pay. Deserves to feel the pain this woman must have felt. Her lip is split and bleeding; bandages cover one side of her head, her cheek is sewn together with stitches, and one eye is swollen shut. She’d probably require plastic surgery to fix what this man did to her. I close that photo and open the next.
