We’re standing close, both of us leaning against the countertop. I’m trying to pretend we’re having a casual conversation, but my heart is pounding and my mouth is dry.
He shakes his head. “Not since college.”
“What was College Theo like?”
“Pretty much the same as High School Theo.” He smiles, but it’s cautious, quick and gone. “Nothing like you and your friends.”
“No?” I want him to keep talking so I can watch his mouth form the words. I know deep down that he’s a man I can’t touch. So I’ll just get drunk on looking.
“No. I would’ve been intimidated by you in high school.”
“Me?”
“High School Theo wouldn’t have known what to do with you.” He laughs a little. Leans his weight against the bar. “Heprobably would’ve had a hopeless crush, though. The poor guy.”
My throat goes dry. I want him to look at me, but he avoids my eyes. “What about grown-up Theo?”
Theo nods to himself, almost like he expected the question. His eyes are still on the bar, watching his fingers as he presses them against the tile. “He’s different.”
“Right.” Even as my heart drops, I can’t stop looking at him. It’s useless. Here in this kitchen, by the bonfire, from the side of a stage. He would say he’s the one always watching me, but I know the truth. It’s the other way around.
I tap my thumb against my leg to ground myself, borrowing a rhythm from one of our songs.
Theo’s jaw tightens. For a second, that resigned expression is back. Then he takes a deep breath. And lifts his eyes. He keeps his chin up, letting me see him fully. Then he says, quietly, “Grown-up Theo never stood a chance.”
The air between us shifts.
I step forward, ignoring every reason not to, and kiss him.
The kiss is soft, tentative at first. But it’s shocking how quickly I realize this is what I’ve been stumbling toward. This is the instinct I was chasing. I run my hands up the back of Theo’s neck and sink my fingers into his long hair, using it to pull him closer. If I’m being honest, I’ve wanted to touch him this way since the moment I saw him, corporate suit be damned. What a hypocrite I am.
He groans quietly into my mouth and presses against me, deepening the kiss. I follow the cant of his head, meeting the force of his desire with my own. Kissing him doesn’t satisfy me—if anything, it only makes the aching stronger. I’m filled with an urge to possess him, have him in a way that can’t be taken away.
Theo pulls back to catch his breath and stares at me. I’m good at controlling my breath when I sing, but now I’m just like him, trying to drag in air with deep inhales. His handsdrop from my jaw to my waist, and he lifts me, placing me up on the counter, the tiles cold against my skin through my jeans. I wrap my legs around his waist and pull him in until we’re pressed as close as we can. He leans his forehead against mine and laughs, short and hushed. “What are we doing?” he whispers.
“I don’t know,” I admit, kissing his full bottom lip, the corners of his mouth, until he tightens his grip on my jaw and kisses me again. Harder, more demanding now. The restraint I’ve been clutching at finally breaks loose, and I step into wildness, kissing him as deeply as I can, touching as much of him as I can, his face and hair and arms, his hard biceps, the veins vining up his forearms, flexed to hold me in place. Kissing Theo feels like being onstage in San Francisco or Vegas, one of those nights when you’re putting your heart into the music and the audience is giving it back, and you get a glimpse of something bigger, something on the verge of overwhelming, transcendence here on earth. I had no idea I could get that feeling from a person.
He fists his hands in my hair and takes a deep breath, then whispers something to himself that sounds faintly like “Fuck the rules.”
I open my mouth to ask what he means, but he kisses me harder, so hungrily I fall over on the bar. Theo’s lips move down my neck as he pulls open the collar of my shirt and presses his hot mouth to my collarbone. I close my eyes.
It’s not until the sliding glass door closes with a crack that I register another presence. My eyes fly open and I freeze, hands still cupping Theo’s face.
Guppy stands at the door, taking a swig of beer. “Taking my counter’s virginity?”
Theo steps away and I slide off the counter, stomach plummeting. Normally I wouldn’t care, but this is Theo, and kissing him feels different, feels private. “I’m sorry, Gup.”
He waves and grins. “Carry on.” He heads down the hall. “Hannah Cortland, back in Bonita Vista.” His footsteps echo behind him.
Theo and I look at each other. He pulls a hand through his hair, trying to smooth it from where I’ve turned it wild. “I guess we’re lucky that wasn’t Kenny or Ripper.”
“Very lucky.” I touch my swollen lips. They sting from the force of our kissing. I press my hands over my face. “Fuck.”
Theo pulls his phone out of his pocket and gives a startled laugh. “My Uber driver is here and pissed. I better go, okay?”
“Okay.”
Disappointment twists through me as I watch him walk away. What was I thinking? Theo’s not just dangerous because he’s one of the only people in the world who is actually off-limits. There are bigger reasons. Reasons that have to do with how hard my heart is beating.
