Even if it is just a kiss. Just a game.
Penn tilts forward until we’re a breath apart.
This isn’t real,I have to tell myself. Because it feels astonishingly real.
The Goo Goo Dolls come on, and we both start laughing. I like this feeling: The lightness. The letting go. I can feel Penn’s smile just in front of my lips. So close.
We’re so close.
“You were really trying to set a certain kind of mood,” he teases, brushing his nose against mine. “Weren’t you?”
I wonder if Penn’s stalling, too. If, like me, he’s afraid of what’s happening, or trying to hold on to it. “Maybe,” I admit. “Did it work?”
In response, he tips my head to the side and kisses the soft space beneath my ear. He takes his time, his lips leaving a warm, wet trail that makes me shudder out another breath.
“Yeah. It worked,” Penn whispers into my skin. Then he pulls back, his gaze flickering over my face. “But you don’t have to try so hard, you know. Not for me.”
“Yes, I do.” Because this is a game. And I have to give it all I’ve got.
“What I mean is…” Penn takes a breath and starts again. “You don’t have to try because it’s you and me. And this feels…” He pauses. Swallows.
“It feels what?” I ask, impatient.
His lip quirks. He brushes a hair from my face. “Are you going to make me say it?”
I nod.
Gently, Penn presses our foreheads together. I wrap my arms around his neck, holding on—to him, and to all of this, while I still can.
“I think this was inevitable,” he admits in the softest whisper. “You and me.”
This is the moment. Celebratory fireworks should go off in my brain, and an entire marching band should parade through my heart to commemorate the victory.
I needed a sure bet, and the conviction in Penn’s voice is as sure as anything.
I should feel jubilant. Exhilarated. Relieved.
Instead, though, as Penn’s face hovers over mine, an ache stings at the back of my throat, because his words are so much more than I’d bargained for.
I wanted him to want me for now, for a night, so that I couldescape this game and return to my life. But I can’t get over the vulnerable, hopeful expression softening his features, or the way his thumb runs along my cheekbone, as adoring a touch as I’ve ever felt.
He means what he’s saying—what he’s feeling. But I don’t know if it’s true only here, or if he feels the same in reality. And I really don’t know how I can possibly go back to any version of me who didn’t live through this moment, because when Penn presses a kiss to my collarbone, I know I won’t forget any of it. Worse, I don’t want to.
But it’s a game. This isn’t me, isn’t him, isn’t real.
I close my eyes, trying to hold on to this moment before everything changes.
When I open them again, Penn shifts my face toward his, a shy smile on his lips. “I’ve always wanted to do this.”
“Always?”
He nods. “Always.”
The ache in my throat gets worse. It’s too much to hear, to take in. I try to cushion his words with a joke. “You’re rewriting history,” I tell him. “We hated each other.”
“Fine line,” he says.
“Between love and hate?”
