Kissing me.
Kissing me.
Kissing me.
CHAPTER 41
Kissing me.
Kissing me.
Kissing me.
All the thinking parts of my body stalled the moment Sean’s lips touched mine. My heart revved in my chest and my hands clung to his wrists. His hands were firm on my jaw and his kiss eased into something so soft, so tender, that I tasted salt from a tear sliding down my cheek.
Sean tasted it too and pulled back. His eyes were searching mine and I felt his breath against my lips.
“Why?” I whispered. “Why do you have to see me now? I kind of hate you for that.” Somebody’s car alarm went off up the street. The blaring sound made me jump. Sean didn’t seem to hear it. I sucked my lips into my mouth and tasted him.
Sean Addison kissed me.
He’d taken my face in his hands and kissed me. It was so perfect too. I would never have dreamed a moment better than the reality.
All of which made me kind of hate him.
“I wasn’t lying before when I said I wanted the bottle to land on me. I kind of did, even then. Not like now. If we were playing now, I’d reach over and stop the thing myself.” He met my eye. “I wouldn’t need a bottle.”
No. I closed my eyes. He had to stop saying things like that.
“But we were what, twelve?” he said, either not noticing or ignoring my growing discomfort. “I just remember thinking you looked really pretty in that green dress and that I wanted to be the one who kissed you.” He shrugged. “But then you and Claire were all giggly later at school and I didn’t think about you like that for a while. And yeah, I knew you liked me. A lot. I guess I figured that wouldn’t change.”
But it had. I didn’t need to say why. I swallowed. My throat felt like an entire bag of popcorn was stuck in it.
Sean fell silent, which was good because I couldn’t hear anything except my heart still thudding impossibly loud in my chest.
“I know that wasn’t fair to you, and I’m sorry. You have no idea how sorry.”
And then, because I apparently wanted to torture myself further, I asked him, “When?”
“When did I know? About you?” He waited for my nod. “Actually, that was Claire.” He smiled at my look of confusion. “Do you know when she started in on me about running with you guys?”
I shook my head.
“It was right before Christmas. She caught me in the hall one day. ‘Hey, wouldn’t it be fun to go out for cross-country?’ She said she’d make up a schedule for training over the summer and not to worry about it interfering with work or it being too hot because we’d run while it was still dark. I stopped listening to her after that because there wasn’t a single thing that she was saying that I would ever consider doing.
“But then she said, ‘It’ll be the three of us. You, me and Jill.’ And I heard myself agreeing. Even though I think cross-country will be the official sport in hell, and the idea of running before the sun rises still makes my brain cry even now that I’ve been doing it for weeks.” We both smiled, and then Sean was looking at me with such wonder that I forgot to breathe. “But I didn’t think about that. I thought about seeing you, every day, all summer. And I knew.”
“Sean.” I dragged his name out with almost no air left in my lungs. “That was seven months ago.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
“Then why?”
He looked away. “That’s when your mom started…noticing me more. It messed up my head. I wanted to be around you but I really didn’t want to be around her. So I waited. And then, after she left, it was different.Youwere different.”
“Sean, I am so sorry that she…was like that with you. I can’t even imagine.” I didn’t want to. Instead my brain raced back over those months, stopping on the moments with him that stuck out, that might have clued me in, but I couldn’t find them. Not a single one.
“You never acted differently. How was I supposed to know that you were finally noticing me?”
