“We saw that, Sienna!” he shouted. “There are children present.”
More applause and cheering followed with some whistles, and I realized there was no escaping a town this small, and I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad.
Fiona yelled something about fireworks.
And Sienna…
Her entire face went nuclear red, but she started laughing in a bright, helpless way that tumbled out until she leaned into me again for balance.
“Is this why you hang out with moose?” I whispered, and she laughed harder.
“Precisely.”
Our server stepped outside. “Get back in here, you two! Your prime rib’s getting cold!”
Sienna pressed a hand to her face. “Oh God. We can’t go back in.”
“We have to,” I said.
“No, we don’t,” she insisted. “We can move. We can change our names. We can live off-grid in Alaska with Mortimer the moose.”
But her laughter gave her away as we walked back toward the glowing windows of the supper club; her hand brushed mine.
I didn’t pull away.
Not this time.
Inside, the applause started all over again, and for the first time in years, I didn’t mind being seen, even though the applause didn’t stop when we stepped inside.
If anything, it got louder.
Someone whistled, and someone else slapped the bar.
An older man at a nearby table yelled, “Bout time somebody kissed that Harper girl.”
I wanted to correct him that she actually kissed me, but Sienna made a sound halfway between a gasp and a groan, covering her face with both hands.
“I’m actually dead,” she whispered. “This is the afterlife. Tell me it’s the afterlife.”
“It’s not,” I murmured beside her. “The afterlife is probably quieter.”
She shot me a look through her fingers with cheeks flushed pink, and her lips still slightly swollen from the kiss she’d given me.
That sight alone, that one detail, lit something fierce and immediate under my ribcage.
Our table wasecstatic.
Fiona tapped a glass like she was trying to ring a bell, and Violet waved her napkin overhead.
Sienna groaned louder and slid into the booth, nearly burying herself in the corner. I sat beside her because someone had already swapped my plate.
The moment I sat, her knee bumped mine again under the table.
This time, she didn’t pull away, and neither did I.
Violet leaned in with a wicked grin. “So… how was getting the phone?”
Sienna’s glare was enough to incinerate small forests. “Violet.”
