“I’m sorry I’m so late,” Mandi’s familiar voice called from the other side of the car, where I still couldn’t see her. “Some of the roads were closed. It’s been snowing like Armageddon the whole day.”
I wasn’t sure the normal amount of Canadian snow was a sign of the end times, but I took her point. Even now there was a light fall, gathering on the shoulders of Aiden’s sensible wool-blend winter coat.
And everywhere else, but I was looking at Aiden’s shoulders right now. Some part of me believed that if I didn’t make eye contact with Mandi, she wouldn’t be able to see me, either.
“She’s pretty,” Aiden said, barely more than a breath.
My guts twisted. He was supposed to be onmyside.
I knew Mandi was pretty. Everyone said so.
It was easily her best quality.
“Yeah,” I agreed quietly. “Yeah, she is.”
My dad fell in beside me, and it definitelyfeltlike a show of moral support, so I decided to take it as one.
“She’s coming,” he murmured.
All of a sudden there was a hand on my cheek, gloved and warm.
Aiden’s hand, pulling my face toward him.
“Sorry about this,” he said, voice so low I barely caught it in the wind and snow. “You’ll thank me later.”
I didn’t have time to wonder what he was apologizing for before his lips were on mine, warm and soft, a searing point of heat in an otherwise freezing world. A surge of it travelled down my throat and settled in the pit of my stomach, belly clenching around it as senses I hadn’t opened up in a while roared to life at a moment’s notice.
Happy fireworks went off in my brain like it was New Year’s Eve all over again.
My lips parted of their own accord and my brain shuddered to a halt at the thought of what I was doing, but Aiden kept the kiss sweet and disappointingly short.
Wait.
Was I disappointed?
I couldn’t be, could I? Why would I be disappointed about Aiden not kissing me longer?
It wasn’t like Iwantedhim to do that, except for practical reasons. Holding Mandi off was the whole point, and a quick peck would’ve been enough for that. If anything, he’d gone further than he needed to.
No part of me planned on complaining about it, but that didn’t mean I liked it. Right?
My ears were on fire, but it was dark enough that no one but me had to know.
Aiden grinned at me as he pulled back, dangling the car keys in front of me. They’d been in my pocket pre-kiss.
“You were drinking,” he said. “It’s dark, there’s snow. I’m driving.”
Right. He’d stuck to water all night.
That wine had clearly been stronger than I thought, because my lips were still tingling and my heart sounded like it was beating on the inside of my skull right now.
Mandi was staring open-mouthed as I finally turned to her, my mom looking at me like I’d just…
Well, more or less like I’d kissed my boyfriend, who she didn’t approve of, in public. In front of her.
In front of the ex-girlfriend she was desperate for me to get back with.
“Uh. Mandi, hi. This is Aiden.”
