“It means this,” I murmur, tilting my face toward hers.
She doesn’t move away.
I lift one hand, fingertips brushing a loose strand of hair from her cheek. Her breath catches, and I swear I feel it all the way down my spine.
I lean in.
Close enough to count her lashes.
Close enough to feel the heat radiating off her skin.
Close enough that if I movedone inch—just one—we’d be kissing for real.
Her lips part slightly. Her eyes flutter, then open.
Viktor gasps—“Perfect, yes! Hold it!”—and the shutter clicks rapid-fire. “People are going tofeel things.”
Yeah.
They are.
Because I sure as hell do.
Viktor lowers his camera, face serious. “Now. The final shot. The kiss.”
Olive’s head snaps toward him. “Thewhat?”
“A kiss,” he says, gesturing like it’s obvious. “The cherry on top. The crescendo. The one that says, ‘we are in love, and we have no shame.’”
She stiffens beside me. Not dramatically—just the subtle kind of shift I probably wouldn’t catch if I hadn’t spent the last few weeks cataloging every micro-expression she makes.
“I—uh—don’t think we agreed to an actual kiss,” she stammers. Her eyes dart to mine, wide and uncertain.
And then she leans in. Just slightly. Voice low enough that only I can hear it.
“I don’t want this to be uncomfortable for you,” she says. “I know you don’t like me like that.”
I freeze.
I actually blink at her. Twice.
“Sorry?” is the only word I manage.
But she’s not joking. She’s not teasing. She’s serious—completely and sincerely convinced that I’m doing all this with a level of cool detachment Iabsolutely do not possess.
She’s looking at me with concern. LikeI’mthe one who might feel used. Or weird. Or grossed out by kissing her.
And I can’t even speak, because—
How does shenotknow?
Hasn’t she noticed the way I look at her when she’s curled up on the couch in her ridiculous hedgehog socks, reading her blog drafts out loud to herself? Or how I sometimes stand too close in the kitchen just to watch her blush? That kiss in Liam’s apartment? The one where I forgot my own name for a good five seconds?
But I don’t say any of that.
I should.
But I don’t.
