He wants to kiss me again. His expression broadcasts his longing.
Fear that has nothing to do with him lingers in my body, pinching at my muscles, scratching at the back of my neck. But tonight, fear is overshadowed by need. A need to know whether Henry and I can stir up the same electricity we created when we were fourteen. Even more than that, a need to reclaim the control I used to have over my body, its impulses and its responses.
I take another step closer, laying my hand against his chest, atop his drumming heart.
He’s a friend who doesn’t look at me like I’m a disappointment or a challenge or a bother. He’s nostalgia and newness, simultaneously a haven and an escape.
I want to kiss him too.
Henry
I tuck a loose coil of hair behind her ear, moving slowly and deliberately.
I’d be an idiot not to have noticed the way she sometimes startles, the way she maintains physical distance. The way she’s hesitant to touch. I don’t remember her being like that three years ago, and speculating about why she’s changed ignites a firestorm of anger in me.
She doesn’t flinch. She doesn’t move away. She doesn’t lift her palm from where it rests against my sternum. She doesn’t tug her hand free of mine.
I put everything I’ve got into decoding her expression, the pace of her breath.
“Are you okay?” I ask, because it seems crucial to be sure.
She smiles. “I think so.”
“You’ll tell me if that changes? If you’re ever not okay?”
She lets out a breath and nods.
I gesture toward her apartment door. “Do you need to go in?”
“Probably. If Tati’s home, she’ll be waiting up.”
“What if she’s still with my dad?”
“Then we should start a matchmaking service because holy balls, we have a gift.”
I laugh. Chemistry is what we have. She’s got to feel it too. As frantically as my brain’s shouting about how I should back off, keep my priorities in mind, remember what happened last time I went all-in on a girl, my skin’s buzzing where it touches hers, and my muscles twitch with the need to pull her closer.
“We should do it again,” I say.
Her eyes flash with curiosity. “Do what again?”
“Kiss.” And then I scramble to backtrack. “I mean, if you want. Or not. But I want to. You should know that. So if the urge ever strikes, I’m”—my face is hot even before I finish making my witless admission—“a willing participant.”
She gives my chest a playful shove. “You had better game when you were fourteen.”
I take her teasing in stride. She’s exactly right.
“I’m not here to run game. I’m here so you can out-putt-putt me and judge my condiment choices, then school me onDelphina and the Talking Turtle in the Trench.”
“That’snotone of the titles—” she starts before realizing I’m messing with her. She drops her head back, laughing, setting loose the lock of hair I tamed a minute ago.
That’s it—making Piper Nixon laugh is my new life’s goal.
“Where do you come up with this stuff?” she asks.
I tap my temple. “There’s a lot going on up here. You’ve barelyscratched the surface.”
“I’m starting to understand that.”
