Coworkers who had kissed in public and been watched by half the county.
Things were totally fine and totally salvageable.
Totally—
“Oh, look!” Fiona’s voice announced before I even got both boots over the threshold. “It’s Lips McGee!”
I stopped walking.
“Do not,” I warned, pointing at her with the full force of my morning rage. “Start.”
Violet leaned around the coffee maker with the smuggest smile I’d ever seen on a human being. “Good morning, Princess Subaru.”
“Stop naming me!”
Beck, traitor, betrayer, and human embodiment of chaos, waggled his eyebrows from the table where he was inhaling scrambled eggs. “So, Sien. How was thekiss?”
I turned to leave.
“Nope,” he said, catching me by the back of my jacket like I weighed nothing. “You’re not escaping. Not after last night.”
I pulled away, cheeks heating. “It wasn’t a thing.”
Fiona gasped dramatically. “Oh no. If it’snot a thing, that means it’sdefinitelya thing.”
Violet nodded, her ponytail bouncing. “It was a very good kiss. For science. We all saw it.”
“You absolutely should not have seen it,” I muttered.
“Talk to the giant windows at The Hungry Buck,” Beck said.
I grabbed a muffin and lobbed it at him. He caught it with one hand like an outfielder and immediately ate it.
I sighed, slumping into the chair opposite him. “Please. Please. Can we all collectively forget I have lips?”
Fiona sipped her latte. “Not a chance.”
Violet leaned in. “He kissed you back.”
My heart made a strange, traitorous leap. “I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to,” Fiona said sweetly. “We have eyes.”
Before I could respond, the back door opened.
The room went silent, and Carson stepped in, hair slightly damp, jacket unzipped, breath faintly visible in the cold air behind him.
And he looked straight at me.
Not at the coffee.
Not at my siblings.
Not at Beck, who was waving at him like an inflatable car dealership mascot.
At me.
My stomach flipped so hard I almost dropped my muffin.
