She shakes her head. Barely.
The chant’s gone to a roar. Gianna’s counting us down. And I make the only call there is to make, the one I’d have made ina silent room with nobody watching, except now I’ve got people handing me the excuse to do it and pretend it was theirs.
I close the distance.
Chapter 26
Aspen
In my twenty-one years, the thought of kissing Stanley Ermington had never once crossed my mind.
Not once. Not as a wonder, not as a dare, not as the thing you idly try on in your head about a person you’ve known your whole life. The thought had simply never been in the building.
And it isn’t in the building now, either. His face comes near mine, and my mind goes white. He says something low, and I have a moment to brace for a peck, a beat, a photo, the thing the whole room is screaming for, and then his mouth is on mine, and the half-second is gone, and so is the room.
The chant breaks into a hooting mess. Ow ow! Yeah! Woo! Yee!
Gianna’s phone, the heat off all those bodies, the music — all of it drops back like somebody hauled it into another room and shut the door. I am a person who narrates her own life from about six inches above her own head. I can stand in any room and give you the count, the angle, the exit. And for the length of this, there is no narration, no count, no six inches of daylightbetween me and my own life. There is him, and there is nothing else. My hand comes up off my side and lands flat on his chest. Not to push. I pull him down for better access to his mouth before any part of me makes that decision.
This was supposed to be a peck. He doesn’t make it one. There’s a moment where either of us could have pulled back, and neither of us does.
We come apart, and the world crashes back in at once, too loud, too bright.
The cheer is still going when I look up at him, and his mask is gone. Just — gone. Like he set it down somewhere and forgot to pick it back up.
He leans in, mouth at my ear. “You’re not supposed to be blushing.” Low, just for me. “To them, we’ve done this a hundred times.”
I breathe in. Right.Right.
My eyes flick across the room, and the fact of being watched comes back like cold water. I smile at Gianna, who is shrieking about how cute we are, holding her phone to her chest like she caught something rare, and the party swallows the whole thing down a moment later and moves along — because to all of them this was a couple kissing for a photo. Gianna got her shot. The room got the thing it was chanting for, and the room has already forgotten it.
I’m the only one left standing here with the floor gone out from under me.
I look at Stanley, and he’s watching me.
“You okay?” he asks.
I nod.
And then I catch the rest of the room.
Lucy isn’t cheering. Lucy is watching us thoughtfully. Benson is beside her with his arms folded, and he’s pretending he wasn’t just staring. Blue is grinning at Stanley. Through the kitchendoor, Rowan and Percy wear quiet smiles. That’s when I realize ––
They know.
Every one of them. The boys. Lucy. They know this is fake. Which means everyone I thought we were performing for are people who know exactly what we are, standing in a circle, watching to see what we’d do when they pushed.
And Stanley kissed me anyway.
He turns to walk away, but I grab his arm and pull him back to me. My nails dig into his arm. Four seconds ago, I forgot the room existed. Now I know exactly what it looked like from where they stood, and that makes me the punchline, kissed on peer pressure in a house full of people who are in on the joke.
I realize that I’ve reached for him, and I immediately let go of him like he’s a hot pan.
He starts to say something. I don’t hear it. I’m already turning, already cutting a line through the bodies toward the front door, because if I stay in this room one more second, I am going to do something with my face that I will not be able to take back in front of every person who matters to him.
The cold hits me on the porch. I take the steps too fast, and I’m halfway down the front walk, my heels loud on the concrete, before the door bangs open behind me.
“Linwood.”
