I can’t breathe.
We sit there like that, staring right into each other’s eyes as the crowd around us screams and shouts for the next couple on the Kiss Cam. I want to turn my head and look at the screen; I want to fight this pull he has on me. But I can’t seem to tear myself away from those eyes. His lips move as if he wants to say something to me then thinks better of it. His cheeks flush with color and right there, right then, I know he’s feeling whatever strange magic I’m feeling.
A swarm of butterflies explodes in my chest and drops low in my stomach. I’m instantly queasy, lightheaded. I feel like I know him, he’s the one I’ve waited for all my life, and at long last he’s here and I can finally exhale.
It comes out as a sigh.
His jaw tightens. One of his buddies pounds him on the shoulder, trying to turn his attention away at something happening on the field. Who cares about baseball at a time like this? This can’t be stopped; it’s a high-speed freight train barreling toward us. Somehow the crowd seems even louder than before.
Please, please don’t look away.Ignore your friend.
Dex the mouth-breather, who sits on the other side of me, shouts out my name and shoves me on the shoulder.I will forever loathe him. I try smacking his hand away behind me but he just continues to harass me, like always.Doesn’t he see I’m having a moment? Isn’t the entire universe watching me and this perfect stranger fall hard and fast into each other?The stadium spins wildly around me.
Dex jostles me harder. Mr. Perfect’s friend shakes him just as hard.
I will kill them both.
Mr. Perfect and Ipainfullytear our eyes off each other and instantly my stomach drops. Up on the Kiss Cam, our faces are framed in a bright red beating heart. Mr. Perfect and me! My mouth hangs open in high definition, cheeks blazing, and my hair sticks up in all crazy ways from the cool breeze. Our stunned faces float in the middle of hundreds of red and white flashing hearts and streamers.
All around us the crowd starts chanting, “Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!”
The seats rumble beneath us.
Mr. Perfect and I look back at each other at the same time. Instantly I want to apologize and run away. Someone this gorgeous probably has a girlfriend, or a wife, or whatever it is that perfect people have in their perfect lives, and then suddenly he’s leaning in closer and his eyes are more green than hazel and I want to have all his beautiful babies. I can’t control my body or the situation. I don’t even have time to consider any options before his hand cups my cheek, sending bolts of lightning down the center of my body, and exploding my vag into millions of pieces of fairy dust. His lips brush against mine, slightly open and warm and soft. The smell of his cologne hugs me, melting me into the stadium chairs.
The crowd detonates and we’re in the epicenter of a hurricane.
His lips steal my breath and he groans softly, low in his throat, and pulls me harder against him. His tongue slips inside my mouth and my body throbs for him. Goose bumps burst up and surge across my arms. Every inch of my skin aches in hot, pounding pulses.
My fingers reach up and grip his hair. We can’t get close enough, the damn armrest is still in our way. I lose myself to his kiss, there’s no going back from this. I know it in my very soul. I belong with him, this stranger. There’s an entire world opening up with that kiss, a world with a future I had no idea was possible a few minutes before his eyes and lips touched mine.
We kiss a lifetime of kisses. It feels like forever has passed and yet no time at all.
Mr. Perfect leans back and a slow crooked smile spreads across his beautiful mouth, and I’m smiling too, thinking—no,knowing—that was the single most best kiss in my entire life.
“Wow,” he whispers. “That was—”
The crowd jumps up around us. People tangle up around us and then to my absolute horror, the other team’s furry mascot shoves in between us, pretending to dry hump my chair.
This can’t be happening. I want to know what he was going to say. No,I need to know.
The giant chicken-looking monster grabs me by the shoulder and devours my head in its beak. It’s suffocating. The crowd’s screams are muffled by the costume. I push him off me and fall back into a seat. I don’t even know if this is the same one I was sitting in before. I try to catch my breath. The dumb bird dances off and climbs over railings to get to the next Kiss Cam couple.
I turn back to introduce myself to Mr. Perfect, my future husband.
But his seat is empty, and all his friends are gone.
Chapter 2
“Are you sure no one recorded that kiss?” There’s a click-click-clicking of Julia’s nails against the counter between our workstations. It’s only the hundredth time she’s asked me. My dearest friend is taking finding my Mr. Perfect as one of her personal life goals. She’s even stooped to carrying around a little notepad withThe Kiss That Got Awayscrawled in red ink across the front cover. I’ve only been able to get a quick peek about a total social media manhunt. That made me slam it shut fast, a little bit terrified.
“I told you, Jules. I asked everyone. And yes, before you ask, I already called the stadium to see if they have it recorded.” Four times.
“And?” she asks with an overenthusiastic glint to her eyes.
“They don’t.”Hello wound, meet salt.
“How are we supposed to find him then?” Julia plops down onto her work chair in a graceful flourish of adorable pouty whines, and stares at me expectantly. “Can you imagine if he just saunters in here, like right now?”
