Miles clears his throat and shifts back so there is enough space to look at each other. His irises are a shade darker, and his lips rest in a flat line. I can’t live with serious Miles without my blood turning to lava.
“Kiss, marry, kill,” I blurt. “Emma Watson, Blake Lively, Emma Stone.”
“Huh?” Miles says, and I know I’ve successfully caught him off guard.
“You know, the game.”
“I can’t say I’ve ever played this game, no.”
“You choose which person you’d kiss, marry, and kill.” I repeat his options.
“Wait, I have tokillone of them? What is this game?!”
I roll my eyes. “Come on, you’ve never played it before?”
“I have not played it before.”
“Just answer the question,” I say.
“Okay, but I’d like to have it on record that I don’t want to do any of those things with any of those women.”
“Ugh, it’s just a game, Miles. Which person would you rather have one fleeting moment with, spend the rest of your life with, or never have to see again.”
“All right,” he says, leaning back on his palms in the grass and crossing his feet at the ankles. He looks up at the sky, his face pinching in agony as if the idea of answering this dumb question will determine his own death penalty.
“I guess if I had to pick, I’d kiss Emma Stone, marry Emma Watson, and kill Blake Lively.”
I gasp audibly. “You would KILL Blake Lively?!”
“Okay, see, this is why I didn’t want to answer, because no, of course I wouldn’t KILL Blake Lively. What kind of a criminal do you think I am?”
I burst into a fit of giggles.
“Can I explain myself at least?” he asks.
“Please do,” I choke out over my laughter.
His grin falters as he locks eyes with me. “While Emma Stone is beautiful, her red hair is not the one I want to sink my hands into when I’m kissing someone. Emma Watson is talented and smart, but her art form is different than the one that gets me. And like someone else I know, the world could lose Blake Lively, but she’d be remembered long after she’s gone.”
I swallow as I dissect the way he’s looking at me. The way he took something that was meant to be silly and made it hard for me to breathe. He might as well have said, “Kiss Teddy, marry Teddy, kill Teddy.”
“Miles…”
There is this burning desire within my chest—like a bird whose wings are trapped behind my ribcage, desperate to break free. It’s begging me to ask Miles about his memories. About the past. About… us? But as if he knows what I’m going to say, he sobers and stands, sweeping away the opportunity.
“We should get back. We both have work today,” he says, eyeing the ascent of the sun for a moment before turning back to the trail.
“We never did the rope swing,” I remind him.
“I think you got cold enough for the both of us,” he teases. “Besides, we need a reason to come back tomorrow.”
He smiles at me over his shoulder, the one where one corner of his mouth tips up toward his eyes. And I forget all about why I ever cared about the past.
All I really need is the future.
CHAPTER TWENTY
SUMMER, THREE YEARS AGO
