“I’m not mocking you.”
Her hands are still resting lightly on my shoulders from when she steadied herself. Neither of us moves.
“Divya.”
“Hmm?”
“You realize this is the third time we’ve almost kissed.”
Her eyebrows lift. “Are you counting now?”
“Yes.”
She pretends to think about it. “That sounds like a pattern.”
“It is a pattern.”
She tilts her head slightly. “And what do you plan to do about it?”
I pull her a little closer. She doesn’t protest. “Fix it.”
Her lips curve slowly. “Good plan.”
And then I kiss her. Not quickly. Not rushed. Just slow enough that I can feel the exact moment she stops smiling and melts into it. Her hand slides from my shoulder to the back of my neck. I swear my heart forgets how to function for a second. When we finally pull apart she’s laughing quietly.
“Thank god,” I say.
She raises an eyebrow. “At this rate I thought I would never be able to kiss you.”
She laughs harder. “I did tell you my brother was very protective.”
I pull her back against me. “I’m pretty sure he’s on my team.”
She rests her forehead briefly against my chest. “You know,” she says, “his ridiculous list actually worked.”
I grin. “Yeah.”
She looks up at me again. “Yeah it did.”
I kiss her again. This time she’s the one who pulls me closer.
When we finally separate again I reach into my pocket and pull out a thin piece of card. She looks at it curiously.
“What’s that?”
“A bookmark.” She takes it from me.
Reads the small line written across the top.
For the chapter where we finally kissed.
Her cheeks turn pink.
“That’s very smug of you to believe we would kiss.”
“I knew we would.” I wink at her and she swats my arm, laughing.
She slides it into the notebook we used earlier. “Me too,” she says.
